I own one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-968A-Dig...dp/B006FA481G/
I bought it for my senior year at Purdue, which made doing senior design much easier since I didn't have to share this with other people.
I did 90% of the surface mount soldering and debugging (there were a handful of caps and resistors that another team member did). The temperature control is really nice, the hot air is superb (had many people asking me to help with their projects since what I had was nicer than most of the equipment in the lab), the smoke absorber is a
really nice feature once you get used to it (the extra hose makes the cord a little less flexible).
The smallest thing I've successfully soldered was a 10 pin QFN with a footprint of about 2mm x 2mm using a reflow technique.
I've heard toaster ovens can also work if you don't have hot air..
__________________
Be Healthy. Never Stop Learning. Say It Like It Is. Own It.
Like our values? Flexware Innovation is looking for Automation Engineers. Check us out!