Pace ADS200 soldering station

[Shock]

Anyway Dman777 that is my explanation of the disparity. I doubt the 10W, plating and geometry differences had as much to do with it as the JBC overshoot and the Pace undershoot to temp which can easily account for a 30C soldering temp difference.

Both stations are fast and have plenty of power, the Pace just regulates more accurately as it's close to set temp.

[mbless]

I was admiring my new ADS200 last night and I realized that the cartridges only have two electrical contacts but the handle cable terminates in four electrical connections which has me confused. I was under the impression that each cartridge contains a thermocouple and a heating element.

Does anyone have any insight to how this works? Shining a light down into the handle seems to show that there are indeed only two electrical contacts. Did I completely miss something? I looked through Dave's review video and went through a good number of the previous comments on this thread but was not able to find any commentary on this.

Does the iron do something weird like put the thermocouple in series with the heater element and switches back and forth between power and sense? Is it actually just a PTC heater element with a calibrated curve?

I did some reverse engineering a while back

[mbless]

The blue is ground and the and green goes to chassis/earth. The white I assume is some kind of thermal protection or tip detection and not connected to the cartridge. It looks like a component is connected to it, I've never bothered to check it out.

The white wire is connected to a NTC thermistor for cold junction compensation.

[Mr. Scram]

Thermocouples? I don't know why people are sticking to antique methods.
A thermal imaging camera is the way to do it.

Emissivity might trip you up there. Getting meaningful and comparable results could be tricky.

[dman777]

As far as Pace's claim of no calibration when needed when changing tips, has anyone tested this? It wasn't tested on the eevblog review video but I feel that it should of. I would like to know if the claim of no calibration of changing tips is true in the real world results.

[EEVblog]

Anyway Dman777 that is my explanation of the disparity. I doubt the 10W, plating and geometry differences had as much to do with it as the JBC overshoot and the Pace undershoot to temp which can easily account for a 30C soldering temp difference.
Both stations are fast and have plenty of power, the Pace just regulates more accurately as it's close to set temp.

That's my conclusion as well. I prefer using the Pace now, not for any performance reason, just "the vibe".

[2N3055]

Anyway Dman777 that is my explanation of the disparity. I doubt the 10W, plating and geometry differences had as much to do with it as the JBC overshoot and the Pace undershoot to temp which can easily account for a 30C soldering temp difference.
Both stations are fast and have plenty of power, the Pace just regulates more accurately as it's close to set temp.

That's my conclusion as well. I prefer using the Pace now, not for any performance reason, just "the vibe".

Well, to me performance is spectacular too.. I was able to easily afford nice set of tips, and it works great...
Speaking of, I tried soldering on the large double sided unetched piece of FR4, and it worked much better than it did for you, Dave.
I did use two larger tips high performance tips, though. I think that it shows one more thing: today with cartridges, you compare tips with tips, not irons with irons. PACE and JBC have different thermal performance tips in same tip size, and comparing between the brands is hard  to do.

When I was deciding what new system to buy price was important but not primary. I would have easily given 200-300€ more if it meant measurable gain in performance (in real world scenario) or much better ergonomics or smaller running cost. I tried using JBC and it didn't feel right. It heats really fast, but for small solder joints there is no difference compared to ADS200 (or Hakko FX-951 to that matter). Soldering on large thermal mass boards, they ALL need preheat.. It's not even about how much power (thermal energy) you have in the soldering tip, it's about thermal conductance of the board.

Also (this is personal "feel" thing) JBC handles and tips just look like they are going to break any moment. They do not feel or look robust. I have big hands and they look like a toy. That being said, I'm very precise and gentle to the board and soldering iron and newer apply any force. I'm sure JBC would have lasted me for decades without problem. But it bothers me..
And ADS200 handle is fantastic to hold, tip distance is great too, aluminium makes it cold even after being on for hours.

I had problems with JBC tip wetting too. They kept going dry and unwettable all the time, doing same things, same temperatures (on controller screen), same solder and flux. It is either they have different materials in tip coatings, or temperature was higher that stated. I have an (unverified) theory that maybe because of very aggressive heating profile, there are microfractures forming on surface that promote this kind of behaviour...Like with everything else thermal shocks are very dangerous. JBC's super fast heating might be the problem. There is also discussion in industry that soldering stations (like reflow owens) should have heating profile, and that too fast and large thermal shock is dangerous to components.  So slower heat up is probably beneficial to components you are soldering. Preheat too.
And funny enough from JBC's own mouth:https://www.jbctools.com/dynamic-soldering-profiles.html

So after all of this it was PACE for me and my use case.
What about JBC then? Well, while PACE has large set of tips, JBC has even more, including some very specialist types. If that's what you need, than JBC is best for you. JBC also has it's tools in more sizes. They have larger soldering iron than PACE, and also smaller ones, down to tiny pico sizes, that are so small they are hard to hold in your hand (my hand anyways), so if that's what you want, yeah JBC it is..

So to sum up this saga, for me (and my use case) it is both vibe and performance.
Regards
Sinisa

[ignilux]

Has anyone else had a tip just... stop working? I've had the ADS200 for about a year and a half, and I love it. My favorite tip was the "ultra performance" 5mm chisel, 1131-0010-P1, but in the middle of soldering last week "CHP" appeared on the display and the iron went cold. I plugged in a different tip and it behaved as normal. I cleaned the contacts on the original tip, stuck it back in, and nothing I tried could revive it. It had a pretty easy life, i.e. only 63/37 lead solder, only used the brass wool, and at no point did it get oxidized enough to warrant some sal ammoniac tip tinner compound. Always kept between 300 and 350 C. The whole thing just seems strange. Can anyone relate?

[Shock]

Haven't had a problem and I've had quite a few tips for a similar length of time, a couple of years. The first thing to check is if you have inserted it fully, but if you think the tip is dead could be good idea to take a resistance measurement across the two contacts.

If it's gone, I'd send the original invoice and a photo of the tip condition in an email off to Pace and let them determine if it's a warranty issue.

[ignilux]

Oh, I'm quite certain that it's fully inserted. In fact, insertion to different depths was one of the things that I tried early on. I just measured resistance across the contacts, and it reads open. A few other known working tips were in the single digit ohms range, so looks like this is indeed toast. I guess I just don't really understand what could've happened? Like I said, it has had a pretty easy life. No thermal shock, no mechanical shock, etc. Sure sounds like a manufacturing defect. Is Pace good about warranties on disposable items?

[Shock]

Tips and consumables normally aren't covered by any type of warranty. As I said though send an email with your invoice and a photo of tip condition, mention it has failed open. They do have good customer service but it is up to Pace to determine if it's covered or not.

[dman777]

Do most of you buy performance tips or the non performance tips? Not sure what I should start collecting when I buy the Pace. It will mainly be for soldering usb contact points in making usb cords. It might also be for occasional solder something on motherboards of my old game consoles when/if(cough) they break.

[Shock]

General soldering, tinning wires and making cables is not all that challenging but motherboards probably better off with the ultra performance tips.

In the range of tips some are only in ultra performance and some are only in standard. If you look at the size of the tips it makes a bit more sense, such as the large blade tips are already high mass and for smd rework rather than heating through hole. Cartridge tips have a fairly slim profile so the ultra performance tips aren't all that much harder to work with.

[EEVblog]

Do most of you buy performance tips or the non performance tips?

I mostly use the performance tips unless I'm very tight for space on the board for some reason.

[ignilux]

It's worth mentioning that all of the tips that are available for the ADS200 are quite affordable. The price delta between the regular and performance tips is so insignificant that there's really no point in getting a bunch of regular ones. I have one or two for, like Dave says, getting in to really tight spots. E.g. backside of a transformer that someone butted up against a cheap plastic connector.

[dman777]

Curious.... since iron is a bad conductor of heat, would the non performance tips allow better heat transfer and faster recovery? Since they are thinner with less metal?

[Shock]

The standard tips are slightly faster heating from cold but during soldering they maintain a slightly lower average tip temperature than the ultra performance. In many situations this won't matter, but if you are soldering challenging joints the ultra performance tips are more advantageous.

Most soldering iron tips are constructed in the following manner:

• Internal Copper Core: The core of each tip is composed of copper, an excellent heat-transfer material. Unfortunately, solder has a solvent effect on copper and will rapidly dissolve it when exposed to various solder alloys (especially lead-free solder). So it must be protected by another layer of plating.
• Iron Plating: Iron plating is the protective layer electroplated over the surface of the tip, and the thicker the iron plating, the longer the life of the tip. But iron it is a terrible heat transfer medium, and if plated too much, the performance of the tip will be affected. Lead-free optimized tips are usually plated with 5-10 mils of iron plating, and any more iron plating will negatively affect heat transfer - tip will take forever to heat up or will not recover quick enough after soldering. All PACE tips are plated with 7-9 mils of iron.
  
• Chrome plating: a layer of non-solderable chrome plating is usually to the back portion of the tip, applied to prevent the solder from creeping too far up the tip.
• Tinning: The iron-plated working end of the tip is tinned with pure tin or solder alloy. This coating of solder protects the iron plating.

[Mp3]

Do most of you buy performance tips or the non performance tips? Not sure what I should start collecting when I buy the Pace. It will mainly be for soldering usb contact points in making usb cords. It might also be for occasional solder something on motherboards of my old game consoles when/if(cough) they break.

Once my non-performance chisel tip is too beat to keep using, i'm going to get the performance version and never look back. I really can not imagine why NOT to get one.

I might get a non-performance version of something super fine point to echo EEVblog's point, though i don't know that i've recently run into any situations where the extra mass of the performance tip would have screwed me up.

The ADS200 rules!!

The standard tips are slightly faster heating from cold

Lol you and I both know this is a totally moot point.  I don't even turn on my station until I'm ready to get the first solder joints done, performance tip or not.

[Shock]

Lol you and I both know this is a totally moot point.

I was illustrating to dman777 that faster heating from cold isn't the same as recovery during soldering. When it comes to bottlenecks (when performance counts) you always are going to be better off with the chunky monkey. Which series is better though depends entirely on your situation, for finer tips it doesn't matter as much.

[thm_w]

Some pricing notes from accesstronik in CAD:
- MT200 tweezers $415 ($300 US) (no stock yet)
- MT200 tweezers with stand $475 ($340 US) 6993-0321-P1 (no stock)
- ADS200 station with handle and 2 free tips, no setback $335 ($240 US) 8007-0578
- ADS200 station with handle and 2 free tips, setback $395 ($282 US) 8007-0579
- ADS200 station with MT200 and stand $979 ($700 US)

So its cheaper to order the station + tweezers separately (~$800). Plus you'll need tips.. $70 each, not cheap but compare that to JBC at double the price.

As Dave said earlier, they don't seem to sell the ADS200 base on its own. If you need the two options (iron + tweezer), you either need to order two kits ($$$), or possibly just order the one ADS200 and use a switch board to flip over the connections. Someone did this with an Ersa, not sure how hard it would be on the Pace to do. Metcal is theoretically the easiest (just switch one pin over). These stations heat up so quickly that having two bases is really not necessary.

In terms of the MT200, I feel like there is some compromise here. The tip arms cannot come close to each other due to the wider design of the handle, so you end up with that 90 degree jog which means very limited clearance when trying to access tight areas. Compare this to Hakko/Weller/JBC tweezers, where the tips are more of a straight shot and very thin, so have excellent clearance.
Of course you can get the "extended" version, but unsure how it would affect performance:

1mm chip removal: https://paceworldwide.com/MT-200-chip-removal-tips-1130-1003-p1
1mm chip extended: https://paceworldwide.com/mt-200-extended-reach-tips-1130-1011-p1

Google MT100 or MT200 for any sort of videos/usage. Other than the Pace promo video, I can't find anything.
I suspect it would be possible to build the curve into the heater cartridge tube instead of the tip itself. The setup costs would be higher though.


Of course, this may end up not being an issue at all. Would have to use them first..

[Shock]

Of course, this may end up not being an issue at all. Would have to use them first.

Haven't tried the MT200 yet but I've been using the MT100 now for about 18 months. The MT100 use similar cartridges and I've not had any problems using them. The MT200 should in theory be able to use different QFP removal tips as well if they release them. Perhaps that is what you are overlooking in the design.

[thm_w]

Haven't tried the MT200 yet but I've been using the MT100 now for about 18 months. The MT100 use similar cartridges and I've not had any problems using them. The MT200 should in theory be able to use different QFP removal tips as well if they release them. Perhaps that is what you are overlooking in the design.

I just know the last board I reworked would have not been possible with those triangular shaped tips (1130-1011-p1) due clearance beside the component. With the fine point tips (1130-1001-p1) it would be possible, but might need to swap multiple tips.
Are you using the fine point ones typically?

I agree for anything through hole, or larger SMD the MT100/200 looks killer. I suspect thats more toward what they are aiming at, military type rework on older systems or with large thermal sinking.
With Metcal and JBC, they have both "standard" and "fine SMD" type tweezers, not saying it can't be done with one type though.

[yormac]

is it possible to use a MT-200 tip in the regular TD-200 iron?
The 1130-1013-P1 tip would be a nice microsoldering tip for the TD-200.

[Shock]

Are you using the fine point ones typically?

For my Pace MT100 mini tweezers I have several different tips which include 0.2mm, 0.5mm and 1mm. I use the MT100 exclusively for these sizes and as I mentioned I have no problems with it. I also have a set of Pace TT65 tweezers which are a larger model, the smallest smd chip tip is 0.4mm.

[EEVblog]

- ADS200 station with MT200 and stand $979 ($700 US)

Ouch. Have they just priced themselves out of the market?
I wouldn't pay my own money for that.
The ADS200 range is supposed to be their competitive low cost production option.
They already have established high priced tweezer and other solutions.