Hi!
I need to desolder several switches off a project and the prospect of doing it manually scares me.
I’ve found a decent looking electric desoldering station, and as it’s a bit of a one off job does anyone want to go in on it with me and we buy it for the space?
They certainly make fixing projects and recycling components a snap so would be a useful thing to have! 
Link?
There’s a few, but this is the cheapest and also relatively good quality:
KATSU 140W Desoldering Rework Station ESD https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079ZC3WBC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_81c5Bb4XEJK5T
I’ll chip in £20. Obviously I never make mistakes with my soldering, so have no need of it myself…
Rumours of me desoldering every component on my latest board are… malicious.
So I bit the bullet and ordered it earlier for my task. I’ve got to say, this thing is incredible. I had 12 switches (with 6 pins each), and desoldered the lot in about 10 minutes. I’m really rather impressed.
I’ll bring it along tomorrow, we can decide if it’s a space tool or not.
Just following up on this, we now have a desoldering pump at the space. It’s pretty great.
People who have paid me:
@gingebot put in £20 towards this (thanks 
)
@Cylindric if you still want to chip in lemme know, and I’ll send the boys round.
This piece of equipment now requires training before use. Unfortunately it is not massively obvious that the tool needs to be cleaned after each use, to prevent it from clogging up with solder. The mechanism is very similar to a 3D printer hotend, where there is a cool part of the assembly past the heating element that is very prone to getting clogged up with cold solder.
This is an absolute ache to unclog effectively and takes quite a while to get it working again.
So until I write a document/poster thing for rules of use, please see me before using this next time and I’ll show you the procedure to keep it ticking over properly. It’s very easy and so far some simple steps prevent this issue from happening.