JBC Tools MSE-A Electric Desolder Controller Teardown (Flux and Cheap Caps)

[KG7AMV]

I got a deal on a spare JBC Tools MSE-A Electric Desolder Controller.. So I Decided to do a Teardown.

Full Post At:
https://www.stevenrhine.com/?p=134143

Look at the Flux Residue.... You would think a High End Soldering Iron MFG would have some pride and would clean up after assembly!


And the Caps G-Luxon? Wow!! For a Product with such a Hefty Price Tag one would Expect Quality not This Garbage!


You tell me you think these are made in the EU or China?

[tooki]

Companies that sell high-end equipment like JBC (and LeCroy) have no excuse for installing anything but top-brand caps IMHO. It’s shameful to find no-name (or even just mid-tier) caps in a supposedly premium product.

As for flux residue: ehhhhh… as a perfectionist I also like to deliver pristinely cleaned boards. But pragmatically, there is no reason to clean residue like JBC leaves behind, and there are good reasons not to clean. As long as it is rosin or no-clean flux, then it’s safe to leave behind. These aren’t sensitive RF circuits, and the easy, quick ways to clean PCBs (like ultrasonic) aren’t necessarily good when you’ve got connectors and cables/wires, which is what they’ve hand-soldered. In a white paper about white residues, Kester (the solder manufacturer) says this about cleaning rosin flux (which applies to no-clean as well): “Typically rosin fluxes, including most activated types, have insulation resistances in the 10¹⁰ ohms or higher. The problem arises when it is required to remove the residue either because the assembly will operate hot (above 65°C) where the rosin becomes tacky, or the rosin might flake off and get between electrical contacts, or just for aesthetics (not a good reason for cleaning).” (Emphasis mine.) It also mentions that “Rosin, with its high insulation resistance, keeps the halides dormant but if the rosin is removed, leaving some halide salt behind, corrosion is possible.” This means that incomplete cleaning is worse than no cleaning at all.

The solder joints that are not fully filled are suboptimal, but given the type of flat-flex they connect to, they aren’t carrying any significant currents, and heating too long could damage the flat-flex, so erring on the side of “get in and out quickly” is probably wise. It certainly isn’t going to malfunction or fail prematurely due to those solder joints. The important joints are the ones to the circular connectors, and they’re fine.


P.S. Your teardowns are legit interesting, but your weird nonstandard capitalization* and frequent run-on sentences make your blog posts much, much harder to read than they need to be! 

*Capitalization isn’t a form of highlighting of important words. In English: First word in a sentence, and then proper names/titles only.

[thm_w]

Interesting, thanks for posting. Insane to see this on a $600-800 unit. Agree with tooki.

Would guess its made in EU.

[wraper]

G-Luxon brand is owned by Yageo (also Teapo, Jamicon, KEMET).

[wraper]

Cleaning a board like this is pain in the ass. It cannot be automated as there are parts that may be damaged, so the only thing that can be done is some poor dude cleaning them manually for no good practical reason.

[KG7AMV]

tooki, yes I failed English class back in high school. What matters is I get my point across! 

[wraper]

While there is less "prestige" in G-luxon than say Rubycon, IME it does not really matter what general purpose capacitor brand is used (especially in non stressful application like here) as long as it's not bottom of the barrel. I've seen plenty of small "1st tier" brand general purpose caps failing due to age in hot environment. So I have suspicion it makes more practical sense to use long life "mid tier" capacitors than 1000/2000h from the "1st tier". Large caps like these usually last much longer though, and it'd be surprised if they don't last at least 30-40 years. Capacitor plague is long gone and it really affected only LOW ESR capacitors. Also for some reason nobody says Nichicon and Nippon/United Chemi-Con are trash while trashing others despite them producing loads of broken shit at that time too.

[KG7AMV]

My other JBC Posts with 2 Brand New DDE's the Bodged Caps One was Chong.  I have not taken the time to look up the SMD caps yet.






Don't forget the factory Solder splatter!