Quick diversion into soldering ... Referring to my comment about soldering irons in this thread in December 2017 I decided to have a look at new ones again due to some major annoyances.
Honestly I'm not that happy with the T12. I had to do too much frigging around with it to get anywhere and the handle is dicky already. Plus it takes bloody forever to get on the slow boat from China whenever it does go wrong which means I have to have two on hand. Plus the three stands I tried were shit. And my Quicko unit doesn't allow me to cal due to a software bug. All I want to do is solder shit!
Ergo it was back to the Weller for a bit. Which isn't bad but has some problems hitting ground planes hard due to the new tip styles which is a bugger as I do a lot of work on ground planes. Also due to magnastat everything stuck to the iron like glue like component leads and SMD parts. Where did the 0805 go? Oh it's stuck half way up the iron. And the last straw: Last week I bought a lower temperature chisel tip for the Weller, a and found that the thing won't fit in the handpiece due to the tip being too wide at the top. The shank won't screw up. Genuine Weller 4PTA6-1 tip from RS. Fuck it had enough.
So reviews were consulted, information collated (thanks to this forum) and a spreadsheet knocked up and ranked.
One new Metcal SP900 arriving tomorrow
Not as good as the MX but more cost effective for low volume and repairs.
The SFV tips are less expensive for sure, but I haven't seen enough feedback on them as to how they compare to MX series tips. It's pretty clear they've redesigned to eliminate clonage, and at the lower price point there should be less incentive for them to clone for a while. I look forward to your review of this budget-priced Smart-Heat station.
Please remember that I said that the clone T12 gives you "80% of the Hakko at 20% of the cost"... and the quality of the handle/tips are most of that 20% you don't get. Having used genuine Hakko, I can tell you there is no comparison in the quality between the two; the Hakko genuine handle is easily exponentially better in overall quality, as are the tips. That's why I recommended, if you're going to use it constantly, to invest in genuine Hakko for the tips you use most, and if you really need the best, go with a genuine Hakko (I think they no longer have the FX-9501, you'd have to go with the FM-2028 instead) handle as well. You'll find even the cheap handles make much more reliable contact with the genuine Hakko tips because their contact rings are much more precisely manufactured.
For you folks having trouble with the strain relief wiggling loose; I had that problem on one of my handles. I applied a little silicone RTV sealant as shown in the above pic.
Also, on the genuine Hakko handle, the socket is actually attached to the cable with a crimp ring; using a tiny zip tie doesn't work right and it all tends to jam up inside the handle. You are SUPPOSED to be able to unscrew the handle apart and everything inside is loose enough to just push out by pushing on the cable, or to pull out along with the tip.
If you attach the cable to the socket using several wraps of thin copper wire (I just stripped about a foot of Cat5 cable for the wire - use solid-core Cat5 cable, not ultra-flex stranded) and either twist and nip short (or if you're feeling froggy you can spot-solder like I did here, but you have to be super-quick or it'll melt the tab on the socket). I also put a small rubber o-ring between the socket and the spacer that goes into the threaded part of the grip as seen here; this reduces the endplay of the socket quite nicely.
And finally... in case you didn't know... there's a right and a wrong way to assemble the handle. There's a slot in the side of the socket which needs to align with this little pip on the handle; when you do, it all just slips in together easy as biscuits & gravy. When you don't you have to jam it all in and then the socket doesn't make good contact because it's jammed crooked and it can't float to equalize the spring tension. Once that's in, I drop in my o-ring, make sure it's flat, then screw together the rest of the parts of the grip.
Remember... these parts ARE a clone of the real Hakko handle... and while they might not be great quality, the did generally clone EVERYTHING, even if they and their vendors didn't fully understand all the features they were cloning.
I've made several of these clone handles that absolutely work as well as a real Hakko handle, as long as you use them with a real Hakko tip or an especially well-made clone tip with good, true/concentric slip rings. If you want to see what I'm talking about, just chuck one up finger tight in your drill from the business end, then run the drill and see how the slip ring area wobbles/doesn't run true. A genuine Hakko tip is almost as true/concentric as a drill rod.
Hope this little slideshow helps somebody else make their clone T12 work a little better, and be a little more of a keeper!
mnem
*Solder-ify*