Some other sources apart from Purex and Pace are Bofa (contact Sirius Enterprises 09 444 8585), Weller (contact Ron Enright 09 579 4984), Lectrostatic (contact Suba 00 61 2 97900900), but for bench top units the Pace systems seemed to offered the best cost vs performance  - at least they did a couple of years ago.

I found that all of these bench top units were susceptible to air disturbance however - if someone walked by and created an air disturbance or the air conditioning flow was in the wrong direction the fumes tended to go everywhere (unless you had the extraction hood so close to the PCB that the operators couldnt see what they were doing).

No doubt there are many successful users of this equipment out there - I would be interested to hear what type of hoods are used and air flow rates required to minimise disturbances from external sources.  How about those small units that clip onto the sides of soldering irons - every time I have seen them in use the operators say that they get in the way of work and there is invariably a fan nearby blowing the fumes away.

Regards,

Chris Murphy,
Tait Electronics,
Christchurch,
New Zealand

Justin Braime wrote:

Hi all,I'm just in the middle of sourcing some solder fume extraction and would appreciate any input or experience anybody has had with these things!I'm looking at the bench-top flexible arm type units. Just looking at Pace and Purex systems at present - any others worth considering? cheers  Justin Braime
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Process Engineer
Compuspec Industries Ltd
Auckland, New Zealand