CFW for KSGER/Quicko STM32 Soldering Stations

[DavidAlfa]

I recall you were wanting the most extreme brightness, so I suspect you already had burned it even before the dimming feature was added 

The problem is not sleeping with 5% brightness, but the running hours, which use the screen at maximum brightness.

[wickated]

I recall you were wanting the most extreme brightness, so I suspect you already had burned it even before the dimming feature was added 

The problem is not sleeping with 5% brightness, but the running hours, which use the screen at maximum brightness.

when i installed fw it already had brightness setting

[mastershake]

i wasnt sure how they would look just some ideas i found. i agree even something like a simple box that says sleep or has zzzz would be fine if you decide to do it

[illiac4]

The sleep screensaver in original firmware was in my opinion not bad.

[ygi]

Yep, I'd rather have just the current t° floating (or the words "Sleep mode" when iron's below readable temperature) around instead. Maybe it could be pulsating between black screen and minimum brightness for extra efficiency?
As it's shown above, I don't see much benefit to an icon floating on top of the main screen (the same pixels are still constantly lit).

[DavidAlfa]

Meh, I don't think it's necessary, at 5% brightness it's almost off.
It would be annoying to have something blinking all the time.
As I said before, the big problem actually comes from the normal use, when the station is constantly working.

So, I will skip this.

[wickated]

black screen or almost black should be best. icons on top and power bar would burn anyway but they are static, so u wont notice anything. but temp digits change so u can notice burnout. thus in sleep mode "set temp" part of screen should be blank. iron cools to ~50c and digits dissapear.

[DavidAlfa]

Dude, that's 5% brightness, you'll need years to burn it, don't make me repeat it again.
1h of soldering with the screen at normal brightness is probably worse that 1 day at 5%.

Ksger fw moves things around, but it's still causing pixel wear because it's at full brightness all the time.
My approach is to set brightness to min. , increasing overall lifespan.

[Tugo]

How about bounced dimmed SLEEP word on the screen? Just the word SLEEP, nothing else on the screen.
You made a test FW with bounced ball. The same, just with a word. Dimmed of course.

[illiac4]

Bounced temp is better. If it bounces it is already in sleep. So why telling something twice?

[Tugo]

Bounced temp is better. If it bounces it is already in sleep. So why telling something twice?

[levi]

Hello,
Sorry, maybe wrong thread but i have a problem with my newly arrived soldering station.
My board is this one:

The temperature readings are way off on it. In stand by, with ambient temperature around 29 degree the display reads 67-70 degree.
On higher temperatures difference can get up to 100 degree less than the set temperature.
I thought maybe something wrong with original firmware and upgraded to David's latest one (SW: 2021-08-21), still same results.
With your firmware I was able to somewhat compensate with calibration, but i believe it is not a good solution as i am getting over 3300 at 450 degree set point measuring temperature around 400 degree.
Below are values i ended up with:
250 degree -> 1950
350 degree -> 2850
450 degree -> 3300
With higher values than 3300 i get error, as expected.
Does anyone had such problem? is there anything i can do to fix this problem?

Additionally someone in China mixed the wires inside the tip, green and white ones were swapped for some reason, because of that NTC was not working.
 

[DavidAlfa]

The tip sensor doesn't work below ~100ºC, so a completely cold tip will usually read 60-80ºC.
If the ambient temperature reading (Top right corner) is correct, it should be ok.
If the 70ºC issue you said is the ambient temperature readiong, probably you have a 100K NTC instead the usual 10K.
Manually measure the handle NTC pins with a multimeter (Between Ground and NTC) , if you have more than 30-50K, you have a 100K NTC for sure.
Go to IRON -> NTC Menu, set NTC Res to 100.0K and check the result.
Your calibration values look pretty normal.
Please explain better what temperatures are wrong and what are the exact errors you're getting.



In the end, not doing the screensaver. I think people will prefer looking at the station status instead the bouncing SLEEP thing. It'll be ok!
I could modify the charge pump voltage to lower the brightness even more, but that caused issues with some screens in the past, so I'll avoid messing with that.

New builds available!

[levi]

Thanks for looking Dave.

The tip sensor doesn't work below ~100ºC, so a completely cold tip will usually read 60-80ºC.

Well, I have an older station which is HW: 2.1S, SW 2.10 and there, with original firmware the tip temperature gets down to ambient, that's why i assumed that 70 degree is wrong.

If the ambient temperature reading (Top right corner) is correct, it should be ok.

It is, the NTC is working as expected after i switched the wires to correspond the schematics.

Your calibration values look pretty normal.
Please explain better what temperatures are wrong and what are the exact errors you're getting.

I get error "ERROR DETECTED! Aborting..." on values higher than 3300. I assumed that this value is in mVolts so as 3.3V is the maximum opamp can do when powered from 3.3V, it is defined in software to throw an error if values exceed 3.3V. Please correct me if i am wrong in my assumptions.
At schematics i found here and in other threads i can see that for 450degree it should read around 2.25V, which is clearly way off in my case.

Hope this clarifies my concerns.

In the end, not doing the screensaver. I think people will prefer looking at the station status instead the bouncing SLEEP thing. It'll be ok!

As i own fairly old unit (i have it for 2 years now i think and the station was on almost all that time) my display is completely destroyed now, even with screensaver turned on. In my opinion setting the display as dark as possible during sleep is a good option to have to prolong the life of the display.

[DavidAlfa]

I bet you're having huge spikes in the readings, usually caused when the iron tip is too new (Read the documentation in Github).
Manually set these calibration values (1950, 2850, 3300) in the tip settings menu (Edit Tips... Select the tip, Cal250/350/450) and save.
It's not the same, but close enough for testing. Then see what happens as you rise the temperature.
If at some point it starts going crazy up and down, might be the iron tip. Try another one, older if possible.
When that happens, set a temperature where it's stable, then increase in 50ºC steps, wait until it become stable and another 10-15s, rise again...
At some point it should be able to reach 450ºC.
AnNyways, that board has a very poor power filtering. Only one capacitor at the ouput of the regulator. And that's all! Nothing for the stm32.

Flash the latest version, I introduced a workaround to avoid the PID spikes happening when changing the setpoint. It might help in these cases.
In your case, better to make a factory reset after updating.


The firmware dims the screen down to the minimum, that's why I don't think the screen saver is necessary.


What's wrong with T12 stations? Is it the semiconductor crysis?
They're asking $40 for only the board, and $80 for a KSGER.
Bought mine for $40, whole!

[ygi]

What's wrong with T12 stations? Is it the semiconductor crysis?
They're asking $40 for only the board, and $80 for a KSGER.
Bought mine for $40, whole!

You got ripped off! I paid 27$ with 3 tips 
All jokes aside, things from China started to get noticeably more expensive ~2 years before the whole covid collapse. Now with price gouging and new EU customs taxes on top of it, I don't even look at chinese sites anymore. The fun of ordering random crap for 2$ delivered is gone.

[illiac4]

Well it depends where you look at. KSGER prices were always fluctuating. There is also a problem with chip stm32 shortage.
But you can still get good deals.
I have ordered this one and is including shipping, taxes and overall price is 32€
https://www.banggood.com/groupshopping-item-1911768_1764061.html?rmmds=category&cur_warehouse=CZ

[DavidAlfa]

I don't know what are your taxes, here it's 21%.
So it's not that much, there're tons of stuff still being cheap.

[wickated]

thats just ksger overhyped with cheapwilladforfood bloggers ads

[Cuboy]

What's wrong with T12 stations? Is it the semiconductor crysis?
They're asking $40 for only the board, and $80 for a KSGER.
Bought mine for $40, whole!

You got ripped off! I paid 27$ with 3 tips 
All jokes aside, things from China started to get noticeably more expensive ~2 years before the whole covid collapse. Now with price gouging and new EU customs taxes on top of it, I don't even look at chinese sites anymore. The fun of ordering random crap for 2$ delivered is gone.

I feel you

[Fixed_Until_Broken]

thats just ksger overhyped with cheapwilladforfood bloggers ads

I don't think that's completely fair. I've done 2 videos on them and was never paid a dime for it (by ksger or quicko). My friend (Jeffescortlx) has done a few videos on them too. his most recent one was sponsored though. they sent him the 2 in one hot/ soldering iron units. They screwed up and sent the wrong hot air handle for it so his video was pretty negative on that. They clearly sent one with a 240v heating element.

they have gone up in price a good bit on the Asian retail sites. Really they just went up to match the amazon price of them. They have been about $80 on amazon for at least 3 years.

I think that is still a fair value at that price but pricing isn't really where I am saying that isn't fair. Most blogs, YouTubers, and such suggesting it are suggesting it as an entry-level soldering station. what would you prefer them to recommend? ts-80? To me, for your entry-level station, it is between the Chinese t12 or ts80/ts100. I think t12 wins it on that solely because it is made to use t12 tips so if the user outgrows the usefulness of a Chinese t12 station they can move up a used Hakko FM203 or something of that nature and still keep all the old tips. Yes I know you can use Hakko t12 tips in ts80/ts100 but the tip to grip to tip is awful if you do that. I personally would not recommend sleeved soldering irons anymore cartridge style irons are much better IMO. so that takes out 90% of the entry-level units like 888D, all the entry level wellers, and such.

That being said I really think people should just go to the used market and start out with a real Hakko, Metcal, or JBC. I got my JBC CD-1D with 20 tips(no joke) and a t210 handle used for $200 locally and you can normally pick up used Hakko FM 202 all day long for less than $200. The used market is really hard to convince noobies to look at though.

[wickated]

they sent him the 2 in one hot/ soldering iron units.

that. and after vid is made they resell it on local ebay analog. this type of ad cost 0 (zero) to manufacturer.

[Fixed_Until_Broken]

that. and after vid is made they resell it on local ebay analog. this type of ad cost 0 (zero) to manufacturer.

Oh yeah I know how it works I have a youtube channel as well. He actually kept the unit it's his daily use right now. He just replaced the heating element in the hot air wand.

I'm saying it's not popular because of shills like you think. It's popular because it's a good entry-level unit. People are willing to promote for free because they believe it's a good unit for someone getting started. Your average hobbyist isn't outgrowing the capabilities of either the ts100s or Chinese t12 units for the most part. If you have a better entry level unit in mind let me know. Id love to review it lol!

BTW so you know how these Chinese vendors work. They normally won't actually send you the unit directly. They send you an Amazon gift card or Paypal you the money to order off amazon so that way they get a sold item on amazon, they normally expect a review on amazon also.

[DavidAlfa]

I also think Ksger is overrated, hyped on the prices and they have done everything possible to save few pennies at cost of quality

Quicko has better power supply (took c245 without problem), way better vdd converter, much better board layout and filtering, quality amps (or cloned MCP6002), which results in better stability and little noise, also they don't put cheaper 32F101/102 versions (actually the 32F072 is better than these, more RAM, more speed), and you could buy the station alone (no handle or tips) for $27-30.
Now they seem to have supply problems, warning their buyers they had to put a CKS32, which is a very legit move instead lying, you can still get a complete kit (blue handle) for 38€ / $45, or the station alone for 29€ /$34.

[Fixed_Until_Broken]

I also think Ksger is overrrated, they hyped on the prices and they have done everything posdible to save few pennies at cost of quality

I was lumping the KSGER and the Quicko together. as Chinese T12s. I thought you were making a broad statement that they are all getting overpriced now... $60 on amazon for the quicko with no PSU at all (ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07T57CK29).  I just use Amazon for the standard on these things because people who are going to promote the thing tend to do it if they can get links for $$. Banggood literally stole $80 in affiliate money from me so they are dead to me!

You are not wrong about hype, in general, I was just misunderstanding where the conversation was going. I thought this was T12 stations are losing there value but IMO you are hard-pressed to find a better entry-level station other than any of the OLED T12s. Under $100. Edit: so yes, My fault I misunderstood what the conversation was about cost.