Weller Zero Smog Shield Pro | FT91019299

Works great and looks great with the WE1010 sitting on top. I found that having the slider around 1/2 way was enough for the unit to catch all the visible fumes when soldering from 20-30cm in front of the unit, and at that level it’s not too loud for my ears. At full bore it is a bit too loud on top of the workbench, but bearable for short durations. The built in light is surprisingly pretty useful. Overall very happy with it. A nice solution that doesn’t take up too much space.

Work only in a very local area. Not as effective as the Hakko FA400 that I now use. Also, pretty noisy.

Arrived today and decided to test with my TempTop particle meter. My soldering station hasn't arrived yet, so I tested instead by lighting fire matches and measuring the particle concentrations (one reading for sizes <2.5 um and one reading for sizes <10um). The smoke moved visibly and decisively toward the intake but the particle readings surged visibly. I repeated the experiment a number of times after the readings had dropped and each time the result was the same. So I can't say that my confidence is boosted. We'll see how it behaves once I get my soldering station in. I don't expect 100% efficiency, but I expect particle concentrations to stay reasonable---and they didn't with the lighting match.

Looks like a nice and tidy solution BUT... The rubber mat on top falls off, nothing much to secure it other than two channels on the sides of the mat that fit into two channels on the top of the case. Open the lid of the case and the mat falls off. Every time. Also, it should have been designed so that the very popular WE1010 soldering station could control it just like the more expensive Weller soldering stations. I realize that would take a small redesign of the WE1010 but I mean, come on Weller, the WE 1010 AND this soldering smoke filter are way way way way overpriced compared to the competition.

I do quite a bit of soldering and it seems that when I have a project that requires solder I end up working with the solder and inhaling the fumes since I’m so concentrated on what I’m working on. Sometimes, I have to use leaded solder, particularly when repairing old computers like vintage Commodore Amigas which originally used leaded solder and wouldn’t do well with non-lead solder. As I get older I’m more and more concerned about inhaling that dangerous smoke. So, when seeing that Weller had a solder smoke sucker available I didn’t hesitate. While I don’t use a Weller soldering iron these days (use a Hakko) I do trust their products. This Weller Zero Smog Shield Pro does a very good for my purposes. Yes, it has a fairly large footprint (measure your work area and compare with the sizing specs to make sure it’ll work for you at 5.1 x 7.1” in size). I’m finding that it’s actually not too large for my soldering desk. It isn’t a quiet little machine that you won’t notice as it puts out a pretty good amount of sound. The inflow of air is good and I can see pretty much all of the solder smoke get sucked into it. I have it placed directly behind where I do my soldering as that seems to work the best. The specs say this machine will do 32 cubic meters per hour. This is certainly not an inexpensive machine, but considering how important it is then I’m okay with that. The design is nice and futuristic looking with the well known Weller blue color. The zero smog machine also has a removable and replaceable air filter. A very nice smoke sucker, but I think it could be substantially less expensive that it is.