Questions about YIHUA 982D-III

[LegzRwheelz]

As the title suggests, I have some questions before taking the plunge.

So I picked up both the t3a and t3b Aixun stations with all the different handles back in '22. I love these stations. It's almost like I'm a pro. Well, getting to test the JBC waters made me want more of the knockoff JBC pie and tried seeing of there's a way to use the micro tweezers with my station. It's seemingly undoable, which is fine, I have 2 soldering stations, I can make use of both handles.

Anyhow, I was looking up tools on Amazon and found the YIHUA 982D-I. I'm very impressed with this, Amazon is asking more than I'm interested in paying just to get it out of China so I googled and found the YIHUA retailer on AliExpress selling the 982D-I for the same price but then I saw the 982D-III (just look at those handles with temperature control buttons on em, looking back so seductively) and holy crap, I want the 982D-III so damn bad so I can replace one of my stations, but will still be happy getting just the tweezers.

Does anybody have experience with the YIHUA 982D-I or 982D-III? Is the soldering station even remotely close to being as good as my Aixun units?

Other questions... Discovering that there's a decent alternative to JBC's tweezers got me searching to see if the tweezers are compatible or modifiable to work with my t3a/t3b. I can't find any information on this matter, so I'm here asking to see who's tried or knows if it'll work. I don't think it will since the tweezer station is sold by itself as well as a combo unit but who knows? They may be sharing the same hardware designs and the pinout could be the same.

Are there any other micro-tweezer stations out here? I've seen those big bulky ones and I'm not interested (though I did find a mod to get them working with the t3b (I think), which makes me think the YIHUA set may work but I'm not anywhere near knowledgeable enough to know how to safely test.

Moreover,  my googling brought me to this post https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/best-jbc-clone-for-running-tweezers/ and I read a comment where a user said "Regarding the tweezers, most soldering stations like Hakko, Aoyue 968A+ and Youyue 8586 do accept tweezers."

I've found the hakko tweezers and the JBC ones as well but are there cheaper options that work with the equipment I already own?

[Arcturus]

You can buy the new Yihua 716C tweezers that go with the 982D-I as a separate replacement part on Amazon for about 69 bucks. It says they're sold out until September, but they might restock sooner.

I managed to grab a set before they sold out and will be testing it as soon as my order of C120 tweezer cartridges arrive. The plan is to adapt them for use with my Aifen A902 station. I've already added JBC nano-tweezer support to the station successfully via a custom toggle switch cable, so I'm pretty sure I can get the 716C tweezers to work with it too. Since my A902 is a dual channel station, I could also probably wire up an adapter that gives each arm of the tweezer its own separate channel. That way, each tip of the tweezer can handle its own thermal load independently. The only issue is Yihua's proprietary plug. I'll probably end up replacing it with one that's JBC-compatible.

The Aixun T3B would probably work too if you wire it up correctly. It's spec'd at 96W, which is enough to power two 40W C120 tweezer cartridges. C120 cartridges are basically just C210's. They both fit the tweezers. The only difference is C120 tip shapes are optimised for tweezer applications. I don't have the T3B, so not sure how to wire it up. Shouldn't be too hard to figure it out though if you understand how T210 cartridges are wired to the T3B. Essentially, you need to wire the two cartridges in parallel. I've attached the wiring diagram for the Yihua 716C tweezer, but proceed at your own risk.

As for alternatives, also take a look at Atten N9100 and GT-N100. They're similar to Weller's WX series of hot tweezers.