Tweezers arrived, handle and tips are crazy small. These are definitely targeted at 0402/0603/etc smaller size rework.
Cable is very thin and flexible. Handle is much more comfortable than the FM2023 (shown), although it was never annoying to use.
Start up is slightly faster than the FM2023, as the metcal station is dumping ~70W vs ~45W on the hakko base unit. They are both so fast that it does not matter, <3s and <7s to melt lead solder.
Otherwise power doesn't seem to make as much of a difference as I expected. With tips this small, at most the station is putting ~30-35W into the tips under normal use. So the difference in performance between this and the FM2023 is going to be hard to quantify.
The connector is slightly different to metcal, it has a threaded shell only, no push on ability. The center pin is thicker on hakko, 1.23mm vs 1.16mm metcal.
This makes it impossible to fully plug into an older PS2E-01 station. Although, a simple fix should be a cheap F male to female
adapter, or replacing the internal connector.
It will plug in OK to a MX5200 station as is.
Major concern though: mechanical slop on the tips. The left tip is fixed, and doesn't really move at all, only a few degrees inwards. The right tip is the rotating one, it also has ~2mm slop in either vertical direction. Compare this to <0.5mm slop on the FM2023 (due to its design and non-adjustability). I would really prefer no vertical adjustment at all and minimal slop, if I had a choice.
Its currently the cheapest option for a quality tweezer setup, if we consider secondhand base stations..:
- PS2E + FX1003 + tips = 75 + 230 + 68 = $375
Closest is probably the Pace at
$640. The PS2E should have enough power (40W) given the small tip size.
But I can't recommend it yet due to the slop issue. I've asked Hakko if this is normal or something that can be adjusted.