I'm looking to buy a pre-heater to help with SMD soldering and rework, although mostly the former, and I'm interested in others experiences with these. A lot of the heaters at my end of the budget are IR based which seems to be ok but may be impacted by reflectivity of boards/parts (I wonder how well they work with white PCBs.) So far, the PCBs I've had made up are 100mmx100mm although one has been 140mmx1 The choices seem to be to spend a fantastic amount on a 'known' brand or rather less on one of the fairly common cheaper Chinese brands.
What I'm not interested in is:
- any sort of DIY solution.
- anything that has a reputation for needed fixing on arrival.
- an oven.
I seem to be homing in on the following:
Metcal PCT-100Metcal PCT-100: well known brand and not overly expensive. Doesn't specify board size but looks like it may allow for 200mm x 100mm based on product dimensions. It does say it is a 'focussed' heater which implies to me that it targets a small part of the underside of a board placed directly above the heater element so I don't know how good it would be at heating the overall board without overheating one specific spot. All the marketing blurb shows very small PCBs being used. There was a 'review' on YouTube but it wasn't a particularly useful one.
The bigger brother, Metcal PCT-1000Metcal PCT-1000, looks very useful but is really expensive. Could form part of a larger soldering solution with other Metcal devices but I don't really need them right now. If Element14 want to donate in return for a review then I could manage that 
Aoyue Int883: a cheaper brand that makes a number of different soldering stations but the quality may be a bit suspect - I saw a YouTube video about a different pre-heater of theirs that came damaged. Hardly statistically relevant, Digikey sell it if that means anything, and it does have a number of different operating modes and looks like it would be well controlled with three thermocouples. Would take any board size I have.
Quick 870ESD: again, a cheaper brand and this one purports to reflow as well (not too bothered about that.) Same sort of brand as Aoyue, more expensive and seems less controllable.
I don't think I could leave this post without an honourable mention to Zephyrtronics for their retro-industrial air-baths and a website built in the 1990s! These look like good units but verging on the too expensive but the compact size may be worth considering.
Others I've looked at have been stupidly expensive or have very small heating areas. So I seem to be leaning towards the Aoyue model but if anyone has alternative suggestions or use the Metcal PCT-100 then I'd definitely want to hear about it.
