Short happy tale -went browsing at a pawn shop I saw on the way home Thursday. Place was mostly full of tools, with a few other usual items like small-scale home entertainment and musical electronics.
In a pile of old boxes of junque behind the back counter I saw this thing sticking up out of a box, half buried under other stuff. Turned out to be an Aoyue 968. Not a well known brand like Hakko etc., but popular in a global way. Surface mount tech is seldom repaired here so it won't get wore out fast even if it's cheaply made.
It was marked $99, but the guy said it had been sitting there 3 years and no one had ever asked to see it, so he offered it to me for $40! I plugged it in and it apparently worked so I bought it.
It had a thick layer of dust but I believe it had never been used since the original sealed screw in the bottom, to be removed before use, was still intact. It holds down the air pump for shipping.
Just happy to have something that will avoid using the old school ways on the occasional SMT job.
pics of the same unit since my camera's inconvenent:
https://www.carousell.sg/p/aoyue-968-repairing-system-20600626/A nice thing is that the parts are sold by SRA soldering products and they are inexpensive. Another interesing feature is for the pencil - it has a tube to suck away the solder smoke. The pencil has temperature regulatuion with a decently calibrated dial. The hot air has digitally set and measured temp, showing the desired air temp and the actual air temp. It also has a ball type flow meter.