I’ve been lucky enough to own two hot air stations. An Edsyn Atmoscope which I loved to use but had some limitations on larger parts and a Aoyue hot air station which is more flexible, but not the build quality of the Edsyn.

However, because I like to tinker I’ve also tried a few home-grown solutions. Most of these center on an aquarium pump for air and steel wool for a heat exchanger. I haven’t had good luck with these — maybe because I don’t have the right components or maybe because I’m “spoiled” with real tools.

The truth is, the best “cheap” results I’ve had have been with an $20 embossing gun I got on sale for $10 at Hobby Lobby. If you are handy enough with metal working to get it to accept they cheap Aoyue tips, I think it would be good enough for just about everything and they are cheap enough to replace if you burn one up.

Here’s a homebrew station that looks promising though. It uses part of an old hair dryer and a soda bottle for the air source. I haven’t tried it, but surely it would produce more air flow than what I’ve done in the past.

Another idea is to hack up a “heat gun”. Here’s at least one (plenty of other homebrew SMD irons on the same site).