Review on 🔌 Aoyue Soldering Desoldering Absorber with Enhanced Functionality by David Burns

I chose this block to add the ability to desolder through a hole to save on some components or to troubleshoot prototyping hobby projects . It works really well. I wish the metal filter in the desoldering gun wouldn't readily accept solder, but I'm used to it. The supplied sponge filter should also be made of ceramic. I understand that it's common to get some spare parts for a famous device, these are clones, so I'll probably do that at some point. I didn't really need another soldering iron, but I stopped there because I saw a YouTube video comparing the latest Aoyue 474A++ to the previous one. They concluded that the old unit was much more reliable due to the pump and shift mechanism used in the older unit. Commenters further discussed that the newer version probably only works due to the short duty cycle/on-time of the DC pump in the newer unit. I took a little leap of faith and assumed that since this unit has a smoke absorber feature, they would leave behind an AC pump that would work better on longer run times. As it turns out, the unit I received in August 2016 actually has an (older) AC pump, which the community says is much better designed and more reliable. So I was excited to hear about it and wanted to share it here in case others are wondering the same thing. Blocks like this seem to be checked regularly though, so I don't know how long this information will be useful!