Just received the Aixun T3A with a T245 handle and the new stand. I've bought 2 genuine JBC tips separately as well, a hoof/well type tip (drag soldering) and a high mass 5mm chisel tip for large copper planes soldering and de-soldering.
Two foam sleeves have been supplied with the station, I've ordered also a pair in case it wasn't supplied, I'll keep that as spare. Getting it on was a bit of a hassle. In the end I've used a piece of plastic sheet 0.27mm thick, cut a strip and rolled in into a spiral with a point, then slipped the foam sleeve on it, pushed the handle in the wide end of the plastic until the foam was in place, then removed the plastic sheet.
I've measured all 5 tips using a multi meter with k type probe that came with the meter. I'm probably really lucky that all tips are within 3 degrees of what the display says it should be
I've set it to 350 degrees and measured between 347 to 352*C depending on the tip (wetted with 40/60 solder).
All the tips overshoot on display around 30-35 degrees. When measuring the chisel tip, it overshoots 50 degrees to 400*C when setpoint was 350*C when measured with the k type probe. It gradually drops back to 350 over 10-20 seconds.
The 5mm chisel tip takes 5 seconds from cold (20 degrees) to heat up. The smaller tips take about 3 seconds. The unit came with the 1.25 firmware. The firmware was set to Chinese but it's not hard to set it to English once I knew how the interface worked (not very intuitive but doable).
De-soldering electrolyte caps from an old dead mainboard was a lot easier compared to my Aoyue Int 866 unit, which has a 60W iron. The tip temperature of the 866 drops quickly when touching a lead connected to a large ground plane. You can feel it sticks to the solder. With the T3A it wetted immediately, took about 5-10 seconds for the heat to reach the other side of the board and the lead came out without a problem.
I've wicked some solder off an FR1 perf board. No pads lifted and the pads were easy to clean up. De-soldered a small DPAK from the same mainboard using some extra solder and came off pretty easily. It makes a big difference in how easy it heats up components and passes the heat through the component to the other pads, making it easy to de-solder.
I'm not sold on the stand for swapping tips, it's made of plastic. I might put some copper tape in the hole to prevent tips from melting the plastic when it drops in the hole. The silicone protection thingy for the metal curls to wipe the tip doesn't really work for me. It also seems not to remove solder as effectively as the one from the Aoyue 866.
As for noise, I can hear it humming if I hold it right next to my ear when heating up from cold at full power. The noise comes from within the handle it seems, not the tip. Could be that the connector holding the cartridge in place resonates due to the current passing through it, perhaps even sparking? In normal use I don't hear the hum.
The 866 and T3A are similarly priced (215 vs 180 euro), but you get a pre-heater and hot air (both 400W) as well. I'll be keeping the 866 when I need hot air, pre-heater or need a different tip ready for use or use it to de-solder smd caps and resistors.
All in all I'm very pleased with it so far, this will open up a lot more demanding soldering stuff I can do with it and the quality of the joints should be a lot better as well.
I want to thank all the posters in this thread, a lot of valuable information to base your decision on to buy this or not and what the caveats are.
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