SDG #301 Sugon 8650 Hot Air Station 1300W 200L/min

The Sugon 8650 sits at the top end of Chinese hot air rework stations, with a 1300W heater and a blower rated to 200 litres per minute, putting it in the same performance bracket as the Quick 861DW class of tools. What separates it here is the control layout rather than the raw numbers. The front panel shows set point, live heater temperature and airflow simultaneously, with all four presets labelled above their own buttons so there is no guessing which channel does what. Coarse and fine adjustment buttons for both temperature and air, plus an LED bar graph showing heater duty, add up to one of the better thought out interfaces on a budget station.

The handpiece carries four preset recall buttons and a separate cool air button that kills the heater and drops to a user defined airflow, handy for cooling a joint straight after reflow. The included stand is unusually heavy duty, takes two handpieces, and has sprung fingers that let you swap a nozzle while it is still hot, something most stations simply do not offer.

Calibration was checked against an external thermocouple at 320C and 350C and tracked closely. The three PID modes were also tested: rapid produced only a mild overshoot rather than the temperature spike the name implies, while gentle crept up cleanly with no oscillation.

Inside, the weight is explained by heavy sheet metal and an EI core transformer rather than a switch mode supply, with a triac driving the heater and a PWM controlled blower with RPM feedback for heater cut off. Earthing and AC filtering are present. The main gripe is cosmetic: the chrome button trim looks dated on an otherwise well engineered unit.