Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Yes, I chose the Suhan T12-Q17 case (part of Quicko) because as you have discovered, it is longer then the normal Quicko T12-952 case by about 20mm which was enough for when building my second station to create a bit more clearance between the PSU and the IEC power socket which was soldered directly onto the PSU in the T12-952 before I modded it.

When you build your 240v one you should see the heat time drop by around 4 to 5 seconds as well, so thats quite useful as well.

[mnementh]

Now THAT is some proper dead-bug architecture right there. 

*INHALES DEEPLY AND CONSPICUOUSLY* Oh yeah... that's some good, skunky shi-i-i-i... 


mnem
*Plops a can of RAID on the table, just in case*

I love raid. My garden looks like a cocaine smuggling aircraft crashed in it at the moment. Mangled metal and piles of white powder everywhere

Just make sure you cut that sh** properly... The Naked Lunch is only one bad trip away. 

Yes, I chose the Suhan T12-Q17 case (part of Quicko) because as you have discovered, it is longer then the normal Quicko T12-952 case by about 20mm which was enough for when building my second station to create a bit more clearance between the PSU and the IEC power socket which was soldered directly onto the PSU in the T12-952 before I modded it.

When you build your 240v one you should see the heat time drop by around 4 to 5 seconds as well, so thats quite useful as well.

Bump up the internal heater and main power wires to 18-20ga and crank up the converter to 28V; single-digit heatup times, and load/sink performance that actually gets in the same ballpark as my MetCal MX-500. The 78M05 regulator they use in these is good to 32-38VIN, and the FETS so far I've seen at least 42V. I've been running my blue Hakk0 at 28V for over a year, and my new KSGER OLED T12 controller has been running pretty much 24/7 for a month now also at 28V. I LOVE the KSGER... and guess what just came?




*SQWEEEEEEEEEE!!!*

I'm SO-O-O busy right now with moving my workbench... and extra hours to pay my taxes on time... it would be gross dereliction of familial duty if I took an afternoon or two off just to pimp my soldering station.

mnem
Wouldn't it?

[Specmaster]

Now THAT is some proper dead-bug architecture right there. 

*INHALES DEEPLY AND CONSPICUOUSLY* Oh yeah... that's some good, skunky shi-i-i-i... 


mnem
*Plops a can of RAID on the table, just in case*

I love raid. My garden looks like a cocaine smuggling aircraft crashed in it at the moment. Mangled metal and piles of white powder everywhere

Just make sure you cut that sh** properly... The Naked Lunch is only one bad trip away. 

Yes, I chose the Suhan T12-Q17 case (part of Quicko) because as you have discovered, it is longer then the normal Quicko T12-952 case by about 20mm which was enough for when building my second station to create a bit more clearance between the PSU and the IEC power socket which was soldered directly onto the PSU in the T12-952 before I modded it.

When you build your 240v one you should see the heat time drop by around 4 to 5 seconds as well, so thats quite useful as well.

Bump up the internal heater and main power wires to 18-20ga and crank up the converter to 28V; single-digit heatup times, and load/sink performance that actually gets in the same ballpark as my MetCal MX-500. The 78M05 regulator they use in these is good to 32-38VIN, and the FETS so far I've seen at least 42V. I've been running my blue Hakk0 at 28V for over a year, and my new KSGER OLED T12 controller has been running pretty much 24/7 for a month now also at 28V. I LOVE the KSGER... and guess what just came?




*SQWEEEEEEEEEE!!!*

I'm SO-O-O busy right now with moving my workbench... and extra hours to pay my taxes on time... it would be gross dereliction of familial duty if I took an afternoon or two off just to pimp my soldering station.

mnem
Wouldn't it?

I doubt bumping the internal cable will make that much of a difference given that the flex on the handle is so small. It's the voltage which will have the greatest impact on the performance.

From mobile device so predictive text might have struck again [emoji83]

[bd139]

Thicker cable has slightly less voltage drop. Run a few amps through some thin wire with a DMM on each end.

I tend to use solid 1mm thick stuff (18 AWG) for running DC but I'm all out

[Specmaster]

Thicker cable has slightly less voltage drop. Run a few amps through some thin wire with a DMM on each end.

I tend to use solid 1mm thick stuff (18 AWG) for running DC but I'm all out

Ah, yes but the length of the cable inside is so very short that if you put DMM at both ends under normal loading you would probably not notice any difference between the meters. You can pump high current through small gauge wires if they are short, it's the length of cable which is the killer, and in this case that's going to be silicon cable on the handle, increase the size of that you will get a performance boost. Ohms law stuff really.

From mobile device so predictive text might have struck again [emoji83]

[mnementh]

Yeah, and that's how you get crisp-ified connector plugs in 6 months. When you get that small, losing even a couple strands to metal fatigue costs you a significant portion of your current capacity; these are all using a plug with 2A rated contacts anyways (if they were genuine, which they're cheap knockoffs), and this is marginal at best.

Also, as I documented earlier, switching out the stock 24 28ga wires in mine netted a 4 second decrease in heatup time; this wasn't imagined, it was real. And yes, there is a considerable variation in the handle cables; I've seen some with 24ga while the one that came from KSGER is 20.58mm/23ga. I make it a habit to build my short interconnects & patches of heavier wire than what plugs into them; this has usually proven much more reliable in the long run.

[EDIT] After going back to my parts bin with a micrometer, I'm finding some interesting things. The wire pigtails that came pre-made on my KSGER controller are pretty much MADE OF SUCK at only 28ga (marked); that is ridiculously small for ANY load-carrying connector.

The wires in the cable on the handle I have on my Aoyue measure 0.66mm/22ga; while the ones in the cable that came with the KSGER handle measure at 0.58mm/23ga. Interestingly, the wires in the cable removed from my Aoyue with the original handle measure 0.52mm/24 ga, EXCEPT the heater; a coaxial cable with ~0.77mm core which is halfway between 20ga & 21ga. Incidentally, this is the ONLY T12-compatible handle I have right now that is made by an actual soldering iron manufacturer of any repute at all. 

By comparison, the Weller PES51 handle I bought for my mLink S4 station has .75mm/21ga wires in the cable; it is only rated 50w vs 70W for the T12 family.

[/EDIT]


Cheers,

mnem
*Not impressed*

[Specmaster]

Well what can I say, other than to say I do repairs far far more than I do making anything and then sometimes the irons don't switched on for days at a time and then when they are used they spend most time in sleep mode or even go to sleep. I have my "sleep time" and "power off" timings on a fairly short setting as there is little point in wasting power keeping the tip at working temperatures when it might not be needed for extended periods, especially with such a quick heat up time is there?

On switch on, they use the most energy as the tip is cold and as it warms up, it uses less energy to maintain the set temperature and careful monitoring of the display shows that when in use, the actual power being used is something in the magnitude of between 18-5% of whats available and wacking the tip on a meaty ground plane gives a higher reading, worst noticed so far is 60%, which then rapidly drops to around 25% or lower.

With the iron in "sleep mode" the power usage is fluctuating between 5% and 0% and picking it up and thus awakening the iron it draws 90% for all of about 9-10 seconds (370C) and then drops to 18-5% so the way I see it is that the cable is at the worst case only going to seeing 4A (maximum of the PSU) for approx 10 seconds and then say at the worst case as an average 25% of that so, 1A.

Don't forget that I'm using the recommended power supply by Quicko which is their 24V 4A unit. If I was to be running a higher voltage supply, on the same tips, then the current draw would be higher because you're pushing the envelope all time trying to extract that little bit extra, pushing things to their limit is never IMHO a good idea. If I need more heat from an iron, I have a 250w soldering gun for that job.

EDIT:
Heat time from sleep mode is 8 to 9 seconds, 150C to 370C and thats plenty fast enough for my needs.

[bd139]

I’ve watched mine. It’ll suck 3.8A initially when heating them averages out around 1A.

[BU508A]

I tend to use solid 1mm thick stuff (18 AWG) for running DC but I'm all out

No RG58 lying around? This can easily do some amps.

[bd139]

Only a few lengths of shitty limp stuff unfortunately. Got a drum of quality RG6 however.

[Specmaster]

That's precisely what I expected, that makes the internal wiring more than satisfactory, the weakest link is the silicon flex, but even that, in reality is capable of handling 1A continuously otherwise the cable would be heating up and it always feels cold to me as does the metal case.

In the case of mnementh's creations, he might need to up the sizing as he is adding considerably more cable lengths into his stations via the customisation he is giving it. Just the cable from the controller to the socket is far longer than it is in ours as the socket and the connection to the controller is what 12mm away from each other, whereas it is more like 90mm on his enlarged station. By running at higher voltage as well, his current flow will also be larger, not by much but it will be higher and I CBA be work it out now as I'm toddling off now to watch another couple of episodes of 24 now. 

[mnementh]

I don't know how you came to that contusion... all the numbers I showed indicate even the worst silicone cable was considerably heavier than the 28ga pigtail.

 Simple Ohm's law tells you these should be drawing right around 3A, not 2A. Those 2A pin header connectors are a current  restriction, no way around it.

The wiring in my station is shorter than the plug-in pigtails; I reoriented the entire DC-DC converter so the terminal strip is right next to the controller. The original reason for putting 18-20 ga wires to the converter was (A) that's what's on the transformer and (2) the terminal strips need at least 20ga to tighten up properly.

The xformer in my station has an 8A fuse inline in the secondary; the one on the original control board is 7A. this tells me that the old 50W-rated unit used a max of around 6A, which is comparable to the "surge current" rating of most of the 4A SMPS units I've seen being offered for the OLED T12 controllers. As I WAS using a 4A buck converter originally on my Hakk0 OLED T12 and it died after a month, I have to believe that for some time, even if only briefly, current draw exceeds 4A pretty regularly. This leads me to believe design parameters for this station SHOULD be around 5-6A to account for inefficiency. That is why I figured 18-20ga as the "correct" gauge for this application. Empirical Engineering / Deductive Design at work here.

I think we have to think a little differently with these irons; most all our traditional irons are a 50W load operating on ~24VAC, which of course SOUNDS like a nice simple 2.1A.

But to correctly compare to these stations, that really equates to a switched ~38-42V P/P power source operating at fixed 50% duty cycle as compared to the PWM control used here, which is a 70W load operating on a 24V P/P power source modulated at 5-100% duty cycle. Lots more current, especially at high duty cycles.

I think half the problem is that the folks designing these kits are amateurs used to thinking the same way as old, analog 24VAC stations, so they think 2A worth of  wiring is plenty without ever looking at a properly designed (okay, probably slightly over-designed) name-brand station.

Or more likely, they get the cheapest pigtails and the cheapest silicone multicore cable, and build a test rig using it. When "it works okay" they figure it's good to sell, even if the wiring is all a great big bottleneck that will eventually start to get hot and increase resistance. But I think 28ga is not even close to a reasonable compromise here.

Of course, the cynic in me says they're using the tiny wiring as a built-in current limiter, to protect sub-standard/overrated PSU and/or switching components in the controller. Hey, designed-in turnover...


mnem
I currently have a 0% duty cycle. And I like it that way.

[beanflying]

Yep wire as a fusible link  From the country that brought us Land rovers and Jag fire bombs 

7 strand 22awg as mains input cables to 150VA worth of transformers.

[Specmaster]

I don't know how you came to that contusion... all the numbers I showed indicate even the worst silicone cable was considerably heavier than the 28ga pigtail.

 Simple Ohm's law tells you these should be drawing right around 3A, not 2A. Those 2A pin header connectors are a current  restriction, no way around it.

The wiring in my station is shorter than the plug-in pigtails; I reoriented the entire DC-DC converter so the terminal strip is right next to the controller. The original reason for putting 18-20 ga wires to the converter was (A) that's what's on the transformer and (2) the terminal strips need at least 20ga to tighten up properly.

The xformer in my station has an 8A fuse inline in the secondary; the one on the original control board is 7A. this tells me that the old 50W-rated unit used a max of around 6A, which is comparable to the "surge current" rating of most of the 4A SMPS units I've seen being offered for the OLED T12 controllers. As I WAS using a 4A buck converter originally on my Hakk0 OLED T12 and it died after a month, I have to believe that for some time, even if only briefly, current draw exceeds 4A pretty regularly. This leads me to believe design parameters for this station SHOULD be around 5-6A to account for inefficiency. That is why I figured 18-20ga as the "correct" gauge for this application. Empirical Engineering / Deductive Design at work here.

I think we have to think a little differently with these irons; most all our traditional irons are a 50W load operating on ~24VAC, which of course SOUNDS like a nice simple 2.1A.

But to correctly compare to these stations, that really equates to a switched ~38-42V P/P power source operating at fixed 50% duty cycle as compared to the PWM control used here, which is a 70W load operating on a 24V P/P power source modulated at 5-100% duty cycle. Lots more current, especially at high duty cycles.

I think half the problem is that the folks designing these kits are amateurs used to thinking the same way as old, analog 24VAC stations, so they think 2A worth of  wiring is plenty without ever looking at a properly designed (okay, probably slightly over-designed) name-brand station.

Or more likely, they get the cheapest pigtails and the cheapest silicone multicore cable, and build a test rig using it. When "it works okay" they figure it's good to sell, even if the wiring is all a great big bottleneck that will eventually start to get hot and increase resistance. But I think 28ga is not even close to a reasonable compromise here.

Of course, the cynic in me says they're using the tiny wiring as a built-in current limiter, to protect sub-standard/overrated PSU and/or switching components in the controller. Hey, designed-in turnover...


mnem
I currently have a 0% duty cycle. And I like it that way.

Interesting, so the Ksger comes with 28ga cable then. Not surprising that swapping those cables out for larger ones yield such a performance improvement given that according to the ratings tables for awg cables the Ksger is only rated (continuously) at 1.4A. The cables supplied with the Quicko units are 22ga and according to the chart https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm is rated at 7A.

The Quicko PSU is rated at 24v 4.5A, maximum and the actual current draw has been measured as being 3.8A at start and then quickly settles down to an average of 1A, both values are well within the safe zone of 22ga cable. According to UK wiring regs, a volt drop of upto 6% is acceptable and doing the calcs on the completed soldering station as supplied by Quicko and allowing 7 feet as the total cable length for the supply and return path (ie. the flexible cable to the iron) then the maximum volt drop is calculated at 3.86% (based on 3.8A) and only 0.97% when drawing just the 1A average and so once again the cable and the connectors used are within the allowable parameters.

I can see no reason why this will lead to "crisp-ified" connectors in 6 months, even if the plug/socket is rated at 2A, it is only being overloaded when first switching on from cold and then it is only present for mere seconds. I also believe that the 2A rating relates to its making and breaking capacity under load conditions, which is something it will never be called upon to do, apart from that the pins themselves are 1mm (18ga) or more in dia and as can be seen from the table, 18ga cable is capable of carrying 16A so I would expect these plugs and sockets to be capable of carrying at least 50% of that when properly mated together.

Of course with all these things, theory and practise don't always agree when manufacturing defects and corners have been cut etc. and time will be the ultimate judge on this.

[mnementh]

You're talking about two entirely different things here; what is considered safe voltage drop (how much current can the wire dissipate as heat before it becomes a dangerous unintended secondary heating element) and how much can you lose BEFORE IT AFFECTS PERFORMANCE.

I spend a LOT of time sucking too much juice out of too small wires, on a much smaller AND larger scale. Some of the mini-quadcopters I work with can draw current spikes in excess of 200A for very brief periods; and we're doing that through 14-12ga wires and XT60 connectors theoretically rated at 30A. Those charts are WORTHLESS in this application; if your wires aren't fat enough, the quad simply cannot respond fast enough and you lose control or it falls out of the sky when the voltage sags enough to make the FC reboot.

Empirical evidence trumps all the calculations in the world; simply upgrading to heavier wires (all 4-6 inches of 'em) often makes a night & day difference in the quad's performance.  Yes, the engineer in me knows "That just means your mathematical model doesn't cover every variable"; I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT if Empirical Engineering gets me to a satisfactory solution easier and faster.

The same applies here; I don't for a moment believe the engineers building a BOM at Weller and Aoyue (especially Aoyue) are going to spend the money on expensive, heavier (in Aoyue's case, custom coax with extra conductors) silicone cable if there wasn't some real benefit to it. And I DO believe the vendors selling this gear on AliEx are going to use the cheapest pigtails and cheapest silicone multicore cable from whatever supplier they can get them from; whether KSGER approves or not.

All this back and forth aside, it's easy to confirm for yourself: just try upgrading the wires and SEE if it makes a difference. It costs what... half an hour and a few scraps of wire. We've spent more than that discussing it here.


Cheers,

mnem
*Currently nuking a Makita*

[bd139]

Yes. As an example, my little 1N5401 in series gets pretty hot. That only drops around a volt in total.

[Specmaster]

Not to surprised at the IN5401 getting a bit warm as it rated as a 3A diode and has a forward voltage of 1v anyway and it is dissipating all of that energy within a very small package.

I have just removed the top of my T12-952 and ran it for a few minutes at 480C while holding the tip against a large piece of metal to simulate a very large ground plane wicking away the heat and in doing so, forced the system into overdrive trying to maintain the temperature. While doing this I was also holding the cable carrying 24v+ from the PSU to the controller and it did not get warm at all, I could have held that wire all day.

The ratings on the cable current carrying capacity charts are not the maximum permissible loading before the cable suffers irreparable damage but that they are the ratings that the cable is capable of carrying 24/7 without any undue increase in the temperature of the cable being detected.

I don't deny that it always better to use larger cables if possible, that goes also for things like car engines, bigger is always better.

I considered using larger gauge cable myself when building my second system but took the view that it was worthless doing so when the biggest bottleneck of all was the 4 core 22ga flex between the station and the tip which I could do nothing about. This flexible cable has the added disadvantage of having the worst grouping factor applicable added to it as it is encased in a outer sheathing which will seriously hamper any heat up from being dissipated, unlike the internal cabling in the case which is open to free air and also surrounded by a reasonable amount of metal to soak up any heat generated. When my Blue controller caused the T12 tip to actually glow bright red there was not a hint of internal damage to the components or the internal cabling.    

[mnementh]

Okay, I'll admit I was maybe being a little dramatic with my "dangerous unintended secondary heating element" remark; but the thermodynamics involved CAN make a small current increase cause a lot of temperature increase once the conductor's capacity is exceeded.

And I too have found that I can "overdrive" my KSGER station; if I crank it up on a heavy thermal load, it will trip my DC-DC converter to CC mode even with the current set at maximum. I suppose I should see just how much current it draws in that state... 

Anyhoo... I guess I've flogged the point enough...  Folks who want to mod their station already have plenty of discussion to peruse as they make up their minds. 

mnem
*Holds finger where Makita just bit me* Does this look infected?

[Specmaster]

It is still the best soldering kit I have ever used, and maybe if I was actually using it for extended times I might actually consider modding it by replacing these thin gauge wires with something a bit more substantial, but truth is that for the most part of the week it doesn't get switched on, even for 30 minutes so its not currently a major issue for me at all, even if it might take a second or 2 longer to reach temperature and regulate it on large jobs, its really not going to worry me like it would do if I was using it in a sort manufacturing process where time is costing me money. 

[bd139]

BTW I have sketched up an analogue only controller for one of these irons.

Trying to get parts count down to below China. Reckon I can do it

Currently at 4 BJTs, 1 MOSFET, 6 resistors, 1 trimmer and two capacitors for fixed temperature output. This gives PWM proportional control no less

(voltage controlled current source, capacitor, pseudo-UJT/SCR circuit, MOSFET driver)

Need to shape the output a bit better though as it's currently spending too much time in the MOSFET's linear region which means "poof!"

[Specmaster]

Wow that sure sounds good, are you going to make it when you have cracked the parts count? 

[bd139]

Yeah I'm going to. Then I'm going to find out LTspice was a lying bastard as usual and watch it go up in flames immediately! I'll publish the design when it's working.

Random side point... I've actually written a "minimal jelly bean parts inventory" which consists of only simple, easy to obtain parts and values and all my designs will all use subsets of that inventory. I've written analysis tools to simplify things into this inventory. An example, I only want to specify 10, 22, 47 decade parts in resistors so people reproducing the designs so the lowest denominator of "shitty resistor kit" will always have an option. This week's tool is "rcomb" which you drop a value in and it gives you a series or parallel combination optimised for the above with tolerances:

$ ./rcomb 91650
100000 || 1000000 = 90909.0909091 -> 0.808411446709%

I'll post it in another thread once I'm sure I've ironed out the bugs

[bitseeker]

BTW I have sketched up an analogue only controller for one of these irons.

Trying to get parts count down to below China. Reckon I can do it

Sounds like a cool project.

Need to shape the output a bit better though as it's currently spending too much time in the MOSFET's linear region which means "poof!"

I've done that before. The poor thing emitted a pretty blue conical flame out the face of the TO-220 package — followed by plenty of magic smoke, of course.

[mnementh]

BTW I have sketched up an analogue only controller for one of these irons.

Trying to get parts count down to below China. Reckon I can do it

Currently at 4 BJTs, 1 MOSFET, 6 resistors, 1 trimmer and two capacitors for fixed temperature output. This gives PWM proportional control no less

(voltage controlled current source, capacitor, pseudo-UJT/SCR circuit, MOSFET driver)

Need to shape the output a bit better though as it's currently spending too much time in the MOSFET's linear region which means "poof!"

How are you measuring TCPL voltage? The Hakko/OLED T12 controllers do this by turning everything off (actually, I think the original Hakko design did it with AC powering the heater, and the processor would shut off power while the AC voltage was swinging +2V/-2V) every 10th mS or somesuch.
 
I mean yeah you can make an analog comparator, but then you have to make sure it only samples while power is switched off. Seems to me this is a project that just screams "micro with a PID controller", which is why that's what everybody's using.


mnem
"Always some m***f***r tryin' to ice-skate uphill..." ~ Blade   

[Ero-Shan]

The German in me likes mayo on chips

The German that I am finds it revolting.

You're not the only one. Mayo and chips don't do together. Yuck!
About 17 years ago I quit on Ketchup, though. Alas, dry chips are just not the real thing. 

Not much TEA for me currently - some other hobbies took over for a while. But I still read this thread about very other day. And keep replying way too late. Sorry.