Troubles with assembly

When the first F800’s arrived in the Elektor warehouse, an attempt to attach the trunk to the traypiece failed miserably. Too much force was exerted to press the trunk end with the collar (rim) into the tray opening, trying to overcome the counterforce of an internal ring. When the trunk end made a noise “very different from popping snugly into place” it turned out it had a 10-mm long fissure. My attempt at photographing it is here, with apologies for the poor lighting conditions in the warehouse at the time of photography.

Weary about the danger of breakage and damage, I closely examined the rimmed end of the trunk in my review package, to discover that it too had a tiny-tiny protrusion exactly on the extrusion joint, as well as a coarse end surface. It was also oversized for the push-fit which is quite tight. The problem was remedied with a piece of sandpaper (grade 80-ish) and a coarse file to slightly reduce the outside diameter of the collar and of course the protrusion. This resulted in a good “click” and a solid fit with the traypiece. Once joined by clicking into place the scalar trunk and the traypiece are hard but not impossible to separate again by pulling.

Conclusion

The F800 is a pleasant and easy to use instrument, although I find its matt black appearance rather non-descript if not unexciting. The on/off switch on the front of the F800 also acts as a 3-step flow intensity control with colour readout for the intensity: (1) green; (2) blue; (3) red. I found the noise level acceptable but not to the extent of leaving the device on for hours on end even on the lowest air flow setting. There are too many fans already in my vintage test gear.
I used the F800 in tabletop mode for repair work on a small thermostat PCB with recently exploded tantalums (!) and in the “trunk” mode on a power supply so bulky and heavy I thought of more ways to position the fume extractor’s mouthpiece than ways to move and turn the monster on the table.
The flexibility of the tool is literally due to the scalar trunk. The mouthpiece can be beside your solder work or just over it, slghtly downwards so it does not obstruct your view. Operation of the F800 without the trunk is possible but has little or no advantage over other, cheaper instruments also employing active-coal filtering.  The trunk, again, puts the F800 in a class well above the horizontal-only suckers (sorry!) but not achieving the performance of an overhead fume extraction panel complete with an exhaust.
 
The Waterun F800 fume extractor is priced at €295.95 incl. VAT, excl. P&P, and available from the Elektor Store as product number: 18450.