That $12 hot air station from a flea market in Akron nearly burned my bench down

Picked up a no-name rework station last weekend thinking it was a steal, but the heating element started glowing red and smoking within 2 minutes of turning it on. The insulation around the ceramic core was completely shot, and the cord was only 18 gauge, way too thin for the 400 watts it claimed. Lucky I was standing right there and unplugged it before it caught the flux bottle on fire. Anyone else run into dangerously cheap tooling from flea markets or estate sales, or am I just the sucker here?

1 comments

1 Comment

uma_baker881mo ago

Grabbed a beat up soldering gun at a garage sale three years ago, thought I was saving money but it threw sparks like a bad firework. The trigger stuck after ten seconds and the tip melted into a useless blob, almost torched the workbench if I hadn't tossed it in the sink. Honestly, you're not the sucker, the seller is the one who should've thrown that thing in the trash instead of taking cash for it.