After returning my ZD-985, I'm back to using wick and hand pump for desoldering jobs. I saw this pump on Adafruit and am wondering if anyone has had any experience with its sucking:

Is it worth an extra $10 to get this one?

Also available from TME.

I have experience with two very great solder suckers.

Soldapult III

Jonard/OK Industries DP-100

These guys are great because of several things
1. Suction is an order of magnitude better than the sub $10.00 suckers I have used and broken. Removing thru hole parts out of a double layer board is usually not a problem. Sometimes an IC will fall out under gravity when you're done.
2. Longevity. These guys last forever
3. Maintenance : They unscrew with half a turn. The spring pulls instead of pushes. So the spring is on the other side of the seal, not in the chamber collecting solder dust.

I retired my ZD desoldering gun. It didn't hold a candle to these solder suckers when factoring in maintenance. It wasn't worth the space the hose/gun takes up on the bench, not even including the station. And I have had the need to desolder MANY thru hole parts, on occasion. One such occasion coming up next week. My solder suckers will do the job, just fine.

Time for some retro goodness. Fished this one out of the garbage years ago.

Is it worth an extra $10 to get this one?
Also available from TME.

I've not got one but am an experienced user of the regular type aluminum suckers with the nylon ends. People report the performance with the flexible silicon ends is an improvement over nylon ones so having this on the ss-02 could be beneficial.

Two criticisms of the ss-02 may be that some people will find it easier with a long handle shaft, the loading distance seems shorter on the ss-02 but on the normal variety your hand actually sits higher, making it less of an issue. So with the ss-02 you have less area to grip or balance and your hand will be closer to the joint, if that makes a difference.

The ss-02 may not be fully dismantled to get to the plunger o-ring (or at least noone I've seen has figured it out). It's important on the regular ones to clean inside the nozzle, chamber and wipe around the plunger and add a little lubrication to it from time to time (I use graphite grease on mine).

The ss-02 seems to review well. I'd not get a plastic cased solder sucker unless it's a Soldapullt. The aluminum ones can last for decades as long as the tip is nylon.

I'd not get a plastic cased solder sucker unless it's a Soldapullt.

The picture of the original Soldapult looks exactly like the Jonard/OK DP-100. And the more compact Soldapult 3 operates in exactly the same way as the DP-100.

I wonder which came first?

Mouser carries the DP-100, is where I got mine. Under $20.00.

The ss-02 looks to be about a third of the size of the DP100. And it's not convincing when they talk about taking it apart in the video to show the insides, but then deciding not. You could take apart the aforementioned suckers and put them back together by the time you finished talking about it. And they sell long silicone replacement tips for it, so I suppose the silicone might wear out? True, they sell replacement tips for the other suckers, too... I've never needed one.

The aluminum ones can last for decades as long as the tip is nylon.

I broke two of these. The threading to the plastic base gave out. They pounded themselves to death from the plunger hitting the stop. And they didn't work as good as the Edsyn/OK products to begin with.

The aluminum ones can last for decades as long as the tip is nylon.

I broke two of these. The threading to the plastic base gave out. They pounded themselves to death from the plunger hitting the stop. And they didn't work as good as the Edsyn/OK products to begin with.

On my aluminum ones the only other thing that is plastic is the thumb grip as far as I can tell, one of them has a nylon button, the other a metal button.

I like my Engineer solder sucker.  It's not without it's issues, but I think it performs way better than the standard cheapies I've worn out.

Not sure where you are, but the best price I could find was at Adafruit.

Fat

People report the performance with the flexible silicon ends is an improvement over nylon ones...

FWIW, it's easy enough to put some silicone tubing on the end of the nylon tip and see if you like it better. 

I like my Engineer solder sucker.  It's not without it's issues, but I think it performs way better than the standard cheapies I've worn out.

Not sure where you are, but the best price I could find was at Adafruit.

Fat

Thanks, I'm planning to pick one up from Adafruit during their next sale.

People report the performance with the flexible silicon ends is an improvement over nylon ones...

FWIW, it's easy enough to put some silicone tubing on the end of the nylon tip and see if you like it better. 

Yeah thought about trying it out, I really don't have that much of a problem though, I have decent hands and tools with two sets of hot air and multiple irons. I normally just apply some extra solder/flux and hit it again. I do that test where you suck the tip of your finger to see if it needs a clean.

bought one of these a few years ago, the silicone tip makes it so much easier to get good contact over the molten solder while keeping the iron in contact and seems to be lasting much longer than a hard teflon tip. Apart from the main tube it is all plastic but seems to be lasting very well indeed. The little tip unblocker tool thing that comes with it is handy too.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/desoldering-guns-pumps/2037789/

I never used a pump with a silicone tip.

I have two desolder pumps. On my main one, I slightly angled the tip to lay flat on the board how I hold it in my left hand. And I cut a small notch on the right side to fit over the end of a soldering iron tip. 

The other, I cut to snug over the edge of an SMD IC body and hover over the pins. I did this during my short-lived foray into stencil paste/reflow soldering to fix all the badly bridged ICs I was creating. I need to reshape this one a bit, since I no longer need this feature.

I have been using the SS-02 for more than 3 years now. I bought it from Rob@ Precision Hand Tools UK.

Firstly, my hand isn't very big and using this mini sucker single hand can cause fatigue quickly if you are doing lots of desoldering. The spring tension is high and there isn't much to hold. Due to the short body, the release button is at an awkward location isn't very comfy. Also, there is quite an amount of recoil so it may hit the PCB. Anyway I never found a nice to use desoldering tool. The comfy ones are the Chinese cheapies that doesn't have very strong suction.

Anyway, I have found a cheap alternative to the quick wearing flexible silicon tube after several purchase of different kinds. I have been using this for two years.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/141175414871

Buy the 2mm * 4mm

It will fit nicely and it performs better. Even if it didn't, 2 meter is plenty for heaps of replacement.
 
The other desoldering pump I have is the Goot GS-100, this is the best and most powerful suction pump I have. Always hole in the wall! This item is big and long, interesting topic with the females.
http://www.goot.jp/en/suitori-rework/gs-100/

Anyway, I have found a cheap alternative to the quick wearing flexible silicon tube after several purchase of different kinds. I have been using this for two years.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/141175414871

Ordered that one, and it took only 7 days shipping, very fast.

Edyn has a 20% sale (+free extra nozzle) on the Deluxe Soldapullt at their website http://www.edsyn.com/product/DS017.html.

It is my go-to desoldering tool due to the suction power and rather ease of use (albeit it isn't a real 1 hand - you have to push it against something to set the spring). It also lasts forever.

I think Edsyn was the original of the soldapullt design (EDSYN - have been in business since the 50's) - I remember it from the old catalogues many years ago. If you look up the Edsyn patents for desoldering pumps (desoldering "implements" back then) they go back to 1968. The Soldapullt patent (replaceable nozzle etc.) is from 1988 and has since lapsed. I think many of the look alikes (like the Goot variant) are either made by Edsyn for them or are post patent replicates.   

Just the other day, I had a job requiring a solder sucker. I removed about 20 components with 14 thru holes leads. I did roughly half with each of my suckers.

Between my "Edsyn Soldapullt" (actually an OK DP-100 Soldapullt clone) and my new-er Edsyn Soldapullt 3, I have to say I preferred the Edsyn Soldapullt 3 for this job. The spring is easier to set*, which starts to matter on a bigger job, and the results (in this case) were the same (excellent).

But I think the original has a little more observable suction. AFAIC, it's what other solder suckers should be compared against.

*It starts out a tiny bit easier, and I also removed the spring in the Soldapullt 3 which pre-extends the plunger stick. Due to the design, the sucker doesn't feel like it's pounding itself to death with this spring removed. (There's some friction in the 3 design, which prevents the plunger stick from retaining maximum velocity all the way to impact).

I made another interesting observation during this job.

I tried using some flux to make the job quicker, and this was completely counterproductive, because it clogged the sucker sucker right quick.

Without the flux, the far side of the joints (lead-free solder!) looked cold no matter how long I held the iron, but if I used the same timing as with the flux, it removed just as completely. Many of these components practically fell out, themselves.

This suggests to me that flux does not (much) increase the thermal transfer of the iron in any other way than to help provide a greater thermal contact between the tip and the joint with wet solder. You just won't necessarily be able to OBSERVE that the joint has indeed reached the melting point if it's low on flux, because the completely melted solder won't be mobile enough to move/flow through surface tension or wetting action, alone.