Inductance soldering station, anyone?

[aluck]

Lately I had to solder and de-solder quite a lot of badass ground-soldered components, and become tired of constantly changing temperature of my soldering iron up and down. Mine el-cheapo Chinese 25W soldering iron just was not powerful enough to handle something of even average size at a regular temperature, so it needed to go up to 480C to heat something big. Then it had to go down to regular 220-280 to not to fry something sensible... Then again...

I was seriously considering getting brand new Hakko 888, but when you are going to spend $230, you ought to be picky.

A good friend of my who runs a small laptop repair shop recently got a new soldering station and was quite happy about it, so I decided to give it a try.

God, it was spectacular! It goes from 20C to 220C in about 5-6 seconds. It doesn't overshoot. Temperature is stable. Compared to my old station it felt like heaven.

Being skeptical by nature, I went to test it further. Obviously, there had to be something about it... First, it has a thermocouple in each soldering tip, so you need to recalibrate the station through it's menu each time you change a tip. Second, I don't know who said that thermocouple has linear nature (read that a LOT of times). Based on my experience, it does not. Every time I calibrated a thermocouple it had a slight curve in it's temperature chart. Seemed more like quadratic function to me. Manufacturer didn't take that into consideration (or just doesn't care). And while that station could be adjusted at 80-480 C, so being calibrated at 100C it would give about 30C inaccuracy at 280. Third, due to it's inductance nature, it gives high-frequency sound from the iron itself.

As for the rest... It is small, nice, sturdy. Has several nice options - you can choose sleep and power-off timeouts.

Oh, yes, and it's not so "acid" as Hakko 888. Never liked those screaming colors.

Finally, the price. It is sold at a bargain price in one of the local electronics stores. With a couple of tips (chisel 3.0 mm and bevel 2.0 mm) it went for $200.

Unfortunately, I could not find the international brand and model of this one. Mine is obviously re-branded. It goes as Quick 202D, but all the references to it that I was able to find were in Russian.



I am so happy with it, so I decided to share...

[ecat]

I picked up a 2nd hand JBC AD2700, http://www.howardelectronics.com/discontinued/jbc/ad2700.html , with 1 tip in ok condition. ebay price £90. Search this forum for more info, that's what I did.

I've yet to take it apart, was thinking of tapping in a LCD showing actual an target temps

[TerminalJack505]

I wonder if that's the same as this one here:

http://madelltech.com/m3-7.html

Madell frequently rebrand other manufacturer's equipment.  I bought my hot air station from them.  I don't use it a lot but I haven't had any problems.

[aluck]

How in the world were you such an idiot to buy a 25W for soldering ? As in a soldering station . Did they even exist ?

It was rated as 50W on one website and 35W on the other. Actually, judging by it's schematic, it occurs to be no more than 25-30W.

Has a couple of Atmega 8 inside. One for the hot air fan, the other for soldering iron. The latter went south after a couple of months, had to make my own firmware to replace it. Mine firmware happened to be even better than original - it heats faster and allows to regulate down to 100C (nice for welding PET and plastics).

Another friend of mine, an automotive electrician, has a similar station as mine old one. He claims to solder huge starter wires with it. Never seen how he does that, but I beleive that he uses BOTH the hot air and the soldering iron at the same time.

As for my new station - it has a year warranty, and the seller claims that they sold a lot of them in a last year and a half - no returns so far. Made my own research on forums - same thing. The station itself is nice. But I've been warned about tips - there are fake ones with bad thermocouples.

[aluck]

I wonder if that's the same as this one here:

http://madelltech.com/m3-7.html

It seems to be!

[aluck]

Tips ... thermocouples ? Huh ? The thermocouples are right at the bottom of the heating element !

I was talking about inductance station's tips. Thermocouples are built in the tips, and on several occasions people did get bad ones, which didn't work properly.

[saturation]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on it.  It does look like the Madell OEM station, but for the price you got versus what a true Hakko costs in Russia, its a better deal. 

How much are the tips in Russia?  In the USA Hakkos original tips are about $3-5 each and the Madell Chinese branded induction tips are $13 in the USA [ Hakko counterfeit Chinese tips are $1 each].  The only considerations over time would be:

How durable the station is over time
How durable the tips are over time
accuracy of tip temp readings
stability of temp at tip under load

There are quite a number of archived discussions on station quality on eevblog, just search for it.

A Hakko 936 or 888 will go from room temp to 220^oC in ~ 16 seconds, I've tested that many times, but the real simple comparison test is room temp to 350^oC, a Metcal or JBC will do that in 6-8 sec while a 936 will do it in ~ 40 seconds.  It also reflects roughly how quickly it can heat up the tip as its sinked by your heat load.

Readout temp and true tip temp accuracy is another important point, so you don't overheat the soldered item or wear your tip prematurely.  Its fairly easy to spot check without a tip thermometer with eutectic solder; however if you scale is not aligned I'd identify where 350^oC truly is and try to not exceed it.

Since I use an Hakko with a ~ linear scale, I use SnCu0.7 eutectic solder which melts at 227^oC, to spot check the calibration, and I've confirmed the whole scale using tip thermometer.



Would you test it for us, how long it takes to reach 350^oC?

[aluck]

The tips for Quick are quite cheap - about $7 for the original one. And compared to Hakko tips ($10 retail) those are slightly better. Quick tips have thinner coating, but the coating has better adhesion. It's hard to believe, that someone could make better tips than Hakko, but it's not only mine opinion.

It took 13.30 seconds from room temperature (20C) to 350C, but about half of that time it spent on going from 280C to 350C. I used 3mm chisel tip, so maybe it could be even faster if I would turn on the "big tip" option. The station has two options: "normal" and "big tip". Possibly it uses different PID algorithms depending of this option, but I am not sure.

What is Hakko's time for 350C?

[saturation]

Thanks aluck, great info.

~40 seconds by my tests.  Hakkos conservative reports are even longer, see graph.  Recall, it just a conventional heater in the 936 and the FX888, although the 888 has some improved technology.  Here is a commonly published graph on these 2 units compared.

The tips for Quick are quite cheap - about $7 for the original one. And compared to Hakko tips ($10 retail) those are slightly better. Quick tips have thinner coating, but the coating has better adhesion. It's hard to believe, that someone could make better tips than Hakko, but it's not only mine opinion.

It took 13.30 seconds from room temperature (20C) to 350C, but about half of that time it spent on going from 280C to 350C. I used 3mm chisel tip, so maybe it could be even faster if I would turn on the "big tip" option. The station has two options: "normal" and "big tip". Possibly it uses different PID algorithms depending of this option, but I am not sure.

What is Hakko's time for 350C?

[aluck]

~40 seconds by my tests.  Hakkos conservative reports are even longer, see graph.

Surely they are longer - they use a different method of measurement. They measure with a load (copper clad, wire)...

[saturation]

Which iron?  The 936 can go from 50 to 350C in 6 seconds?  I own a 936 and have characterized it fairly well through the entire scale to insure it did what it was suppose to.  Even if such a cycle exists, measuring if from 200-350 provides a similar slope as the Hakko data and still takes > 10 seconds [ the Hakko sales brochure puts it at nearly 40 seconds alone]; so how can your iron ramp from 50 to 350C in less time? Including the preheat that's still 16 seconds.  Also, the graph they provide shows no preheat to 50C, it simply ramps up from room temperature at a fixed slope.

According to my iron , the preheating cycle takes about 10 seconds , it stays at 50C , then 6 seconds to ramp up to 350C .
They do that to prolong the heating element . WHY DOES NOBODY LISTEN TO ME ?!

Yes, but that is only with the load and then it becomes difficult to compare stations because there is no standard test suite; however from turn on to set temperature is done without a load so that test can be compared to most any other station's data.  What can slow down the initial ramp is if ambient temp is lower.   Even with measurement error, its easy to say an induction heater is faster since it will reach 350C 5-10x faster.

~40 seconds by my tests.  Hakkos conservative reports are even longer, see graph.

Surely they are longer - they use a different method of measurement. They measure with a load (copper clad, wire)...

[aluck]

According to my iron , the preheating cycle takes about 10 seconds , it stays at 50C , then 6 seconds to ramp up to 350C .

It is not according to your iron - it doesn't have an indicator. It is either "according to manual" or "according to an external thermometer".

They do that to prolong the heating element

Do you have any proof that it does actually prolongs the heating element?

[aluck]

Yes, but that is only with the load and then it becomes difficult to compare stations because there is no standard test suite; however from turn on to set temperature is done without a load so that test can be compared to most any other station's data.

Not exactly. We should not take the tip out of equation.

[saturation]

Yes!  My err.  Its good to review such effects and know if your induction station has good feedback, manual corrections as shown in the Hakko charts will not be needed.  However, the changes are only for the extremes of tip size for an iron size.  Hakko has a lot of technical data available for free.

Among tips for an iron size [M,S, or L]  Hakko has charts that show tip size corrections, but as you see few require big offsets, most are 0^oC from the station setting.  One sees smaller diameter tips heat up faster, while larger ones take longer.  Here is the common medium tip size tips and temperature offset.



Likewise, the heating profile changes for different irons M,S,L using the same 936 Base station, as shown its takes longer for large tips, but noticed the oscillations to maintain tip temp diminish as the iron gets larger:




Thanks for pointing that oversight of not mentioning the tips, if not the iron being used.

Yes, but that is only with the load and then it becomes difficult to compare stations because there is no standard test suite; however from turn on to set temperature is done without a load so that test can be compared to most any other station's data.

Not exactly. We should not take the tip out of equation.

[saturation]

Thanks.  In addition to what aluck has said,  I'm not sure what your stations really do unless you test the tip temp with a thermometer.  But like you say its similar to a real Hakko: a solid red LED means the iron is heating, and blinking is when its cycling between off/ and on.  This takes about 40 seconds for a 936 using a medium iron, a solder wetted 1.6D chisel tip that ships with the station, tested with a tip thermometer.

Both my 936's ( they are clones , just so you know ) act like this .
The FX-888 acts like this too . 
You think i'm kidding ? My newer 936 which has a sharper FX-888 attitude has the same color scheme as a 888 .
My older 936 has a similar rampup , but is slightly slower .
The time it stays in solid red mode , is when it's preheating , and then shortly in 6 seconds when the light starts blinking it ramps up .
This one is two times faster then the older one since it switches on 2x faster .

[nukie]

There's a substantial difference between real and fake Hakko. The output of the AC transformer voltage for example is different for some clones. They drive the heater hard!!

Large amount of clone stations don't sport the genuine ceramic heater, they are fitted with Nichrome wounded wire heater and a outer ceramic sleeve. The real Hakko ceramic heater is slightly translucent when its held under a backlight. Some clones are fitted with longer lifespan metal sleeve heater. Metal sleeve heater has very good thermal performance but the tip is slightly different from 900m tips.

Finally Hakko uses rtd/ptc sensors most clone/fake heaters apply thermocouple sensors which has polarity.

[IanB]

I think the accuracy of the tip temperature doesn't matter too much for the home solderer. 340°C, 350°C, 360°C, who cares? As long as the temperature is high enough to give good solder flow and low enough not to burn the flux, it's OK.

What matters more is good temperature regulation, so the tip temperature stays reasonably constant and doesn't go too low with big heat loads or too high with sensitive components. If you find you have to turn up the temperature or keep the iron on the joint for ages to solder large items or big ground planes you have the wrong iron.

[aluck]

Mine's 27V , not counting the voltage drop in the triac .

Could you PLEASE measure your heater's resistance?

[saturation]

Tip wear is rise rapidly past 350°C, particularly with lead free solder.



Also the risk of damaging IC is far reduced below 300°C.

If you find you need to pump up the station temp because a ground plane is heat sinking too much, there's a very good chance the tip being used is inadequate for the job; moving up to a larger tip is more efficient than using the small tip and increasing the station temp.

I think the accuracy of the tip temperature doesn't matter too much for the home solderer. 340°C, 350°C, 360°C, who cares? As long as the temperature is high enough to give good solder flow and low enough not to burn the flux, it's OK.

What matters more is good temperature regulation, so the tip temperature stays reasonably constant and doesn't go too low with big heat loads or too high with sensitive components. If you find you have to turn up the temperature or keep the iron on the joint for ages to solder large items or big ground planes you have the wrong iron.

[nukie]

Mine's 27V , not counting the voltage drop in the triac .

Could you PLEASE measure your heater's resistance?

Heater resistance does not prove anything. I have a few heaters they slightly vary in resistance. If I am not wrong, the heater resistance also changes along with temperature.

[nukie]

There's a substantial difference between real and fake Hakko. The output of the AC transformer voltage for example is different for some clones. They drive the heater hard!!

Large amount of clone stations don't sport the genuine ceramic heater, they are fitted with Nichrome wounded wire heater and a outer ceramic sleeve. The real Hakko ceramic heater is slightly translucent when its held under a backlight. Some clones are fitted with longer lifespan metal sleeve heater. Metal sleeve heater has very good thermal performance but the tip is slightly different from 900m tips.

Finally Hakko uses rtd/ptc sensors most clone/fake heaters apply thermocouple sensors which has polarity.

Mine's 27V , not counting the voltage drop in the triac .
Of course nichrome heats up slower , it's clear ! It's true printed ceramic heater underneath , my older station had it's bottom cap drop off and it's a thermocouple ... they react faster anyway .
I am not saying all this because of my eye measurements , i used the thermoprobe of my multimeter ! ( And it's a brand new one )

That's what I mean by driving the heater hard. The original transformer is 24V.

[cybergibbons]

Looks like a Oki/Metcal clone.

[aluck]

But it's 50W still , you want any lower then that ? That was what it was rated for !

I am surprised that your 50W iron gave almost the same results as mine 95W.

[aluck]

Well , who am i kidding , it is really THAT fast ! The thing is to look out for your triac turn on intervals .

Anyway, mine old station's (Lukey 868) iron heater measures 50 Ohms at room temperature, and the voltage is about as yours.

Which gives as a whopping 15W. It was sold as 35W iron, but previously I thought it is 25W.

Not all chinese clones are born equal.

[bingo600]

Damm ..

Had to get one of those   

I can't afford to read here ..

/Bingo