ATTEN 858D Repair


Yesterday I decided to repair my ATTEN 858D air gun.

This is a cheap chinese hot air gun to solder/rework pcb boards with smd components.

Disassembled air gun (broke pins place)

The first time I use it got broken. This hot air gun comes with 3 tips to focus the air flow that get jammed very easily. While trying to remove one of those tips I 've broken two plastic pins that hold the resistive part of the gun in place (signaled in green in the pic). The broken plastic pins made the resistance stand floppy and potentially slide out the plastic holder.

Refractory glue for fireplaces

 
Man, that day I even chipped my tooth trying to remove the tip in desperation. Since then I've never inserted those tips to the end, instead I just let them sit on the edge of the gun.

So how do you repair a hot gun that reaches temps well above 400ºC?? Some special glue must come in hand for sure. The answer: Refractory glue used in fireplaces and stoves.

The one I used resists up to 1500ºC. More then enough.
 

Standart PC case screw

The idea was simple. replace the plastic pins with to screws (those used in CD-rom drives or disks to fix the drive in the case are fine). I've started by dremel the remains of the old pins and dig a little deeper to make a bed where the screw head would rest in place (alignment) with the holes in the resistance of the gun. Then I applied the retractile glue in the void ring where the resistance rests. I've made it slightly higher so this ring of glue could work as a clamp. If too much glue is applied I would then remove the excesses with the dremel tool.As you can see the glue filled the ring completely. After trimming this ring to make a tight fit I've screwed everything in place.
 

Glued screw to the resistence support

Make sure the 12 hours of curing are respected (I didn't and the glue broke near the screw, and had to (re)glue them).

After that the resistance was tight in the holder and didn't felt flimsy any more.

Hurray ;-)