Which soldering station? JBC, Metcal, Weller...

[kaz911]

I have a JBC small solder station and a Weller WR3M - and I prefer the JBC - so much so that I'll put my Weller up for sale soon and change it with a JBC RMST. It is a lot more expensive than the WR3M - but I hope it is worth it. Maybe JBC could give us some "competitive upgrade discounts" if they are still looking here.

[DL8RI]

Hi!

Here we are... I got my ERSA today. And I want to share my first impressions with you.

Build-Quality is good but I like the "all rounded" feeling of the JBCs more. For example the i-Con has a metal front, but the edges are somewhat sharp. Not really but touching them gives a rough feeling. The stand for the iron is complete rubber, never saw something like this before. But its temperature resistant, a "good poke" for a few seconds with a 360°C-Tip didn't leave any melted spots. If it's dirty I just send my girlfriend shopping and put it in the dishwasher

The iron is cool. Ultra-light (30g) and has a very short tip-to-finger range. I like it much more than the JBC.
What I don't like is the cable. It could be a bit more flexible. It is flexible but not as good as the JBC or my Weller. Here's room for improvement. The connector is -of course- a shitty DIN one, but at least a better one.

First power up: Man, it's quick. A test with about 1,5cm of solder around the tip showed, it is even faster than a JBC (JBC ~9 sek, ERSA ~8). I know, these numbers are bullshit and not saying anything. It was just out of curiosity if ERSA lives up to its marketing-bla. This is including "boot-time". To wake up from hibernate the ERSA needs around 8 seconds, the JBC 6. But as I said, it does not mean much.

What I really like, the temperature-display is very responsive and I think quite honest. When I was using the Hakko FM206 I was always a little confused, the temperature ramped up to 340°C and stayed there and did not move even one degree. With the ERSA it jumpes around and deviates depending on what I do.

Standby works as I wanted.

A nice feature is the knob. I can turn it and control the Temperature just like on an analog station, no menu-bullshit for this. I'd prefer 5°C-Steps, but thats not that important. If I press the knob for a second I come into the menu and can adjust the other parameters.

So in short:

Handpiece is 
Heat-up and response 
Standby

Cable a little stiffer than JBC
My unit hums a little bit

[nanofrog]

Glad you like you're new toy. Have fun with it. 

Oh, and please post anything of note, as it seems Ersa is a good one for EU members to consider if they have the budget. 

[DL8RI]

Ok, first solder-results.

I soldered and desoldered some RF-Cans and shielding. Hard stuff.
The amount of power this thing can dump into a joint is quite impressive. My direct (unfair) comparison, the Weller WS81 loses in every aspect.
There is a significant gap between them in respect to real demanding soldering. I soldered 10x20x.5mm-Pieces of copper onto a copper-plated FR4-PCB.
With the big tip (3mm chisel) it's as easy as soldering some components. Ok, thats not really true... But it goes quite smoothly and easy. Much better than the Weller.
When doing "just" electronics, I doubt to get a difference.

I could not tell any difference between a JBC or the ERSA. But from the iron, I prefer the i-Tool

as it seems Ersa is a good one for EU members to consider if they have the budget.

Definitely. It's an invest. But it's worth it. If you have the application of course, when soldering one or two LEDs in a arduino-shield, it's a little overpowered

[cowana]

Interesting you mention the cable being stiff - on mine (which is an older unit), the cable is really flexible (possibly more than the universities JBCs).

I've got a range of tips for mine. My most commonly used is a 1.6mm chisel - that'll do 0805 resistors as happily as 4mm bullet connectors onto 12AWG cable.

The most impressive tip I bought is a 10mm chisel tip (pictured) - it was pretty cheap (around £16), and seems to have an infinite amount of heat. Heatsinks, PC motherboards, etc - it's great at desoldering. It's handy for multi connector headers too - as it can easily heat several pins at once.

My smallest tip (also pictured) is a 0.4mm conical point - while ok for small SMD work, I generally find it's just a bit small, and doesn't hold much solder. Nice and precise though...

My complaints about the station would be that it buzzes (although only when applying power to the iron), and that the rotary encoder is only mounted to the PCB, not the chassis. That means that as you press the encoder, you see the LCD move slightly (which feels a little cheap).

Andy

[nanofrog]

My direct (unfair) comparison, the Weller WS81 loses in every aspect.
There is a significant gap between them in respect to real demanding soldering. I soldered 10x20x.5mm-Pieces of copper onto a copper-plated FR4-PCB.
With the big tip (3mm chisel) it's as easy as soldering some components. Ok, thats not really true... But it goes quite smoothly and easy. Much better than the Weller.
When doing "just" electronics, I doubt to get a difference.

What tip did you use on the Weller by chance (I also have a WSP80 that uses LT series tips)?

Might have to find/make some copper coupons to try out the WSP80 with my WD1, and see how it fares by comparison. I'm extremely curious by nature, so it would be an interesting comparison between the power units from my POV, if you're willing, and I can find some copper foil/sheet of an agreed upon thickness.

Definitely. It's an invest. But it's worth it. If you have the application of course, when soldering one or two LEDs in a arduino-shield, it's a little overpowered

That's blasphemy I tell you, BLASPHEMY!   

Or as Tim "The_Tool_Man" Taylor would say, "More Power! Uhun hun hun <grunt noises>". 

[Frost]

The most impressive tip I bought is a 10mm chisel tip (pictured)
- it was pretty cheap (around £16), and seems to have an infinite amount of heat.

So if you have to repair the rain gutter, you are well equipped

[DL8RI]

Hi,

the cable is not stiff. It feels just a little bit stiffer in comparison.
It is flexible and I had no problems using it. But this is the "high-end"-section and I will rant about every tiny flaw.

One thing I'm not that happy about is the way the Tips are interchanged. First I would wish the station would detect it and turn off the heater, instead of me heaving to turn of the station. Just like JBC does, if you put your iron into this "cardridge-storage", it's immediately going into Hibernate. The second is the nut. It's not I don't like it. It's ok. But I will have to by a few more of these nuts:
http://www.ersa-shop.com/l%C3%B6tspitzenbefestigung-komplett-f%C3%BCr-itool-p-620.html
With this i can screw one Tip off and one Tip on. If you forget to buy them (like me, someone suggested it here) you only have the one that comes with your station and now I have to wait until the Tip cools down and put the new one in the nut.

What tip did you use on the Weller by chance (I also have a WSP80 that uses LT series tips)?

Also a 3mm (or 2.8mm) chisel. I'm not exactly sure, this tip was included when I bought my WMD3.
But holding the irons tip to tip, I could not see a big difference.

Of course the comparison is unfair. The WS81 is by far the older Unit, and ATM is 100€ cheaper.
I believe a new WX would be on par with the ERSA, but is to expensive (550€) for the same technology. And I refuse to believe the Weller is worth the additional 200€.

Today I'm going to solder some "power-electronics", several 50W-Resistors on a copper-plated FR4, dummy load for a defective PSU.
This will be a good Test. Normally I would just screw them onto the plate, but not today

PS:

Or as Tim "The_Tool_Man" Taylor would say, "More Power! Uhun hun hun <grunt noises>". 

Only if i add an -at least- 5HP Motor into it

[DL8RI]

Hi again,

I just ordered some nuts/fasteners, a special ERSA-tweezer for handling hot tips and the 10mm-raingutter-tip (what a beast!).
Now my gear-acquirement-syndrome has cost me enough 

[Frost]

a special ERSA-tweezer for handling hot tips

The ERSA-Pliers are excellent.
With them you can easily change the hot tips on the fly.

Here are my ERSA-Pliers together with my smallest (0,2mm) Micro-Tool Tip




The super small 0,2mm Micro-Tool Tip

[neslekkim]

Now my gear-acquirement-syndrome has cost me enough 

ah, i was looking for a name for it, GAD, Gear Acquisition Disorder, after : http://straightrazorplace.com/srpwiki/index.php/Razor_Acquisition_Disorder

[cowana]

The ERSA-Pliers are excellent.
With them you can easily change the hot tips on the fly.

I'd agree with that. My (second hand) station came with tip changing tweezers rather than pliers - but they're still very handy for swapping tips on the fly. Not quite as neat as JBC's system (as you have to turn the station off (or at least I do)) - but still, I don't have to change tips nearly as often as I did with my old Aoyue (Hakko clone).

Andy

[DL8RI]

That's the type of tweezers I ordered. They are specially made for the i-Tool.
I could order the pliers, but they where quite expensive (6€ <-> 21€), so I decided the tweezers are enough.

[madires]

That's the type of tweezers I ordered. They are specially made for the i-Tool.
I could order the pliers, but they where quite expensive (6€ <-> 21€), so I decided the tweezers are enough.

Didn't came the i-Tool with simple tweezers for tips?

[DL8RI]

No, and the manual says also nothing about the tweezers.

Used the station quite a lot yesterday  and I'm happy with the results.
I could not (or was not patient enough) solder the cases of the power-resistors down onto the copper-plate.
It looks like brass, but I'm not really sure if you can solder them... never tried before. Has anyone?

If I get the big tip, I'll give it a shot.

Anyway, working with the ERSA feels pretty much like working with the JBC. I adjusted the standby to 30 seconds, works fine.
It is a bit slower, so waking up from 180°C standby-temp takes longer than the way from the stand to the joint. Now I grab the iron first and then the solder, with this I get no interruption in my workflow. But that is only important if the tip has the time to cool down to 180°C.

To come back from Hibernate takes also a little longer in comparison to JBC, but I have to wait in both cases, so I don't care about 6 or 8 seconds.

edit:

I just realized, I was working with "medium" Energy-Setting the whole time. Now I changed to "high", let's see...

edit2:

Now it's fast enough. Not exactly on temp, but high enough to solder (>300°C). JBC is a bit faster. But the difference is not high enough for me to really matter. As far as soldering goes I can't tell them apart. They are -in my personal ranking- the best units, above Weller (WS, TCP), PACE (forgot which one, was a cardridge-type) and both type of Hakkos.

For me still the shape of the ultra-light handpiece wins the game. For my hand, it's just perfect from an ergonomic point of view.
And I like the stand. It's "only" rubber, but therefore easy to clean (and cheap to replace). And the "poles" for spare-tips are pretty neat.

[DL8RI]

I got the 10mm-Tip today.
If you want to solder copper-plates as easy as 0603-SMD, that's your tool
When for example soldering an N-Connector onto a copper-coated FR4-bord, it will be of good use.

With the tweezers and a Nut on every tip, it's very easy to change them. Not as "cool" and fast like the JBC but 1) I don't need to change that often and 2) with this 10mm-Tip the "storage" of the JBC would be occupied.

So, finally, my conclusion:

In technical terms the JBC is a bit ahead of the i-Con, it has a faster heat-up (also from Standby), but remember we are talking about one or two seconds. You can change the tips faster and with the unit powered on. The case feels nicer and more stylish.

As for me these things don't really matter. The faster interchange of tips/cardridges may matter in industrial environment. But if I'd have to change so often (so the few sec. matters) I'd buy a second station.

As far as soldering is concerned I can't possibly tell the difference. They are both top-class soldering stations.

JBC has a lot more Tips. The ones I would need are available for both. JBC has quite a lot ultra-ultra-specific stuff. If you need that, JBC is the one. That's also a thing that's more important in a high-volume industrial environment. As for the prices, the "usual" stuff like 1,5mm-chisel is about three times more expensive with JBC.

As mentioned the handpiece of the ERSA is (for me) better than the JBC's. And that is important.
Also JBC is really hard to get here in Germany, even though it's a European company.

I don't regret my choice and would again prefer ERSA im comparison to JBC and the (lot more expensive) Wellers.

[VK5RC]

I have a JBC DIT2B system with the c245 handpiece and a Weller WD1000 with the wsp80, the rapid heat up of the jbc is great but the cable a little stiff,  the weller cable much more pliant,  the heating capacity in practice is not reflected by the watts,  jbc 30W I think,  weller 80W.  The jbc overall a better unit,  value for money is falling though.
Why did jbc put the power switch on the back of the unit DIT2b?
I think when you are up past the AUS $300 - 400 mark you get good gear,  it gets picky as to subtle differences.

[bitshape]

Also JBC is really hard to get here in Germany, even though it's a European company.

Not entirely true, I'm from The Netherlands, next to Germany, and I have recently bought a brand new JBC-station from a big German Reseller: Weidinger.

The JBC station is an analog BT-2BWA Kit (Weidinger Edition) with 2 useful Tips included for 250 Euro's incl. German VAT & transit.
(the picture on the website is from an older revision, you get a slightly updated version)

This analog station is replacing an Weller WS81T which I soon gonna sell. I also have a JBC CD-2BC, of which the Thermal performance and usability convinced me of throwing the Weller out.

[DL8RI]

They seem to have changed their mind. When I wanted to order parts for my FM-206, there was a big disclaimer: Only commercial costumers.
With the new homepage it vanished. Good.

The "Weiginger-Edition" CD-2BC Kit is the one I've had ordered at work.

And of course a WS81 has "no chance" against such a station. But "no chance" is quite close on the other hand. You can feel a difference but the gap is not that big. As far as only soldering is concerned the ~100€ extra for the iCon (or a CD-2BC) does not pay off.

If we go into special stuff like "hard plumbing work" the difference gets bigger.

With your analog one, of course, that's a different story. It's even cheaper.

I think when you are up past the AUS $300 - 400 mark you get good gear,  it gets picky as to subtle differences.

Exactly. I think it's mostly about "personal preferences". In this price-region you get high quality professional gear from all brands. I don't think you can make a bad choice here.

[Kibi]

Why did jbc put the power switch on the back of the unit DIT2b?

This irritates me no end! I know it's a picky thing at the "high end", but it is a major irritant on any piece of "test gear".
I have a Solartron bench multimeter which I can't actually use on the bench because I can't switch the bastard on or even off because the power switch is at the back!

The JBC "two-tool" stations have the switch on the front, it's only the one tool stations that have it at the rear. Grrrrr. However, despite it's one single failing, I love my DIT2B to bits 

[mazurov]

I'm happy with my two Wellers, the older one being more than 10 years old.

[Kibi]

I have also got a couple of older Weller irons. Good irons really. One is in the kitchen and the other one is set up in the living room. I think they are TCP-S "clicker" or magstat irons.
Other than that, I have a JBC AD2700 / C210 in the bedroom and the JBC DI / C245 is in the workshops.

[BillWojo]

Come on Kibi, no iron set up in the bathroom? You must be single. LOL

BillWojo

[DL8RI]

Hi,

after I used my ERSA quite some time now, I'm still 100% satisfied.

I already used this thing to fix my mother's (metal) 10L-watering can. Worked fine... From the "power-side" of view no problems at all.

[odingalt]

We use exclusively Hakko without any major problems.  Have used hot air stations, digital bench stations, vacuum pump/desolder pump, tweezers, etc.  Would really like to try Weller some day however or another non-China based brand.