The size of the solder pot depends on your needs. I've used all the machines listed and each of the small ones are good for tinning or soldering small parts and if all you need to do is one small part at a time. The Air-vac PCBRM fits the needs of a lot of people. You may have to put your boards in a baking oven to heat up a thick board or preheat any adjacent SMT parts that you've masked to prevent thermal shock. These machines are good for connectors up to approximately 2" and not for power bricks. The next size machine with the most versatily is the M93 or Concept IV Wenesco. These have a long solder pot with 150 lbs of solder. You can do connectors about 8" long, power modules, or plug in several nozzles to do the same location on 2-up panels at the same time. The floor unit is rugged and has a bottom preheater and often a top preheater and laser pointer. For the money you can't go wrong. The newest Concept IV adds more space between the heater and the nozzle/solder pot area than the M93. Cost is around $25K. Brian Lowe, owner will use a PB-free pot and impellar with nitrogen to inert the under the solder nest plate to virtually eliminate the maintenace of pulling out the pump. There are several for sale that I know of. Benchmark Electronics, Hudson NH has an M93 top & bottom IR preheat with all the nozzles for under $500. It was in perfect shape when I was there. The other is now at NEA Londonerry was good now needs cleanig up since another company left in a storage truck and let it get rusty. Another solution for assembly repair is to get a Premier Tool Works machine. They make a rugged machine with convection preheater with a long solder pot and slide rail conveyor for around $75K. - For strickly selective assembly you can buy an automated Selective solder system for $65K. These machines can be either tin/lead or Lead Free by buying the 2nd interchangeable solder pot, no tools needed to change over. - Ace Kiss #102, RPS same thing stepper motor moving a 30lb solder pot with fluxer about $65K. The new Seho with Fiducial recognition for $77K loaded closed loop servos. The Vitronic MySelective Stratham NH, has a series from the single Selective Solder $95K, fluxer closed loop servo, fiducial recognition & options. They one pot $95K, to a small multi-wave pot for low mix/high volume, to the larger units with Selective 1 or 2 pots or 1 selective and 1 multiwave pot, $360K. --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------