Soldering station or rework station

[Meatwad]

Have some small 6 pin relays on a board that need replaced, but seen mixed ideas on methods to remove them. I seen an Aoyue iron station that has high ratings, but also I have seen some nice 2 in 1 heat gun stations with fine tip heat blowers on them, and them some really bad chinese junk. Not really sure which one would work better since it is through hole mounted relays. Dont want to drop several hunderd since it would rarely be used. Already have a solder gun for most but need something more precision without roasting other nearby components like a gun would do

[ROC]

What exactly are you working on?
I recently replaced the 6 stepper motors on the instrument cluster in my mustang.  Pulled the cluster apart and removed the little plastic motors with a small tip soldering iron and a suction bulb.  Squeeze the bulb, light touch to the tip, pulled the solder off.  Super clean, simple and no overheating.

[Bizman]

I've been replacing computer capacitors with a €50 soldering station for a decade. Being able to set and monitor the temperature is a nice feature, but a regular soldering iron would to the trick too.

One hint: Add fresh solder to the pins before trying to unsolder them! Resoldering an old joint will soften the old solder and both can then relatively easily be removed with a solder sucker.

[zack1234]

I have plug in soldering iron and two propane gas irons.

One gas one is miniature.

Solder suckers are awesome.

I used to have some braiding that soaked solder up

[Randy1]

Ya a solder sucker.  I use one that is spring loaded plunger made out of plastic so not a budget breaker.  You just press the plunger down to a catch that is a button.  Put the tip next to the joint as solder melts.  Peres the trigger and the spring pushes the plunger out creating a vacuum at the tip.

[Meatwad]

What exactly are you working on?
I recently replaced the 6 stepper motors on the instrument cluster in my mustang.  Pulled the cluster apart and removed the little plastic motors with a small tip soldering iron and a suction bulb.  Squeeze the bulb, light touch to the tip, pulled the solder off.  Super clean, simple and no overheating.

It is a low pass relay board out of a radio, board is out of production

[The Fugitive]

I repair control boards on vending machines. Small 1 inch cube relays are something that goes often, contacts just get intermittent. I use a small butane soldering iron with a fine tip, with a plunger type solder sucker to remove the old solder. The trick with adding new solder first really does help. Manufacturing  uses as small an amount of solder as they can get away with. adding a bit of new solder before trying to de-solder the post gives the sucker a bit more to grab onto so it cleans the joint out better. Works well for me on the road. If your half decent with soldering it is easy to get a quick easy repair.

[BuckShot]

The little heat-sink clips that sometimes come with cheap kits are handy to avoid cooking tiny components.