Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[AVGresponding]

Yeah smells like a clone. One reason I went with Metcal rather than Hakko. Lower risk. Was it advertised as a genuine or clone iron?

Yep, it's a clone. Mnem gets the cookie for having the fastest fingers.

The listing shows a genuine one in the pic, mentions the brand as Hakko, but that's it.

The handpiece is as poor as Dave suggests, and doesn't contact the tip casing, so the ESD safe claim is bs. Trying to decide whether or not to open a dispute.

I reckon I could easily get my money back, but... the thing is, all the bits and pieces together are easily worth what I paid without the soldering station, and from what I understand I could get a genuine Hakko handpiece and be fully functional.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.


Oh, and could I get a pic or two of the innards of a genuine one please?

[bd139]

I vote free iron. Cloners are rip off merchants and hurting them and the folk selling the rip offs is morally acceptable IMHO.

eBay will shut sellers down like that as well if you complain.

[mnementh]

I'd look at the seller's history before going aggro; see if there's a pattern of selling this product or products like it. It's entirely possible he's ignorant; may have gotten it in a box lot, etc if this isn't the sort of stuff he sells regularly.

The stand is worth ~$15, the tips ~$2 each, the handle ~$8, the power station... ummm... to me it's worth the satisfaction of beating it to death with a post maul, but objectively another ~$20 and not a penny more as then you'd be getting into the realm of a civilized soldering station like the OLED T12. Add the handful of extra goodies probably another $10-15.

How to proceed is up to you and your conscience, I'd say.   

mnem
*desperately sorting photos*

[med6753]

Another can replaced (Upper left) on the Type 106. This is the -150V supply which also functions as a reference for the other supplies. It was -150V before and after the re-cap. 2 more cans top side to replace and a few axials underneath to do and the PSU is completely rebuilt.



Still fighting a bias stability that has improved as the PSU is being rebuilt but still shows some issues. It is extremely touchy to any adjustment. Q34 is a 2N2501 which is the metal TO-18 equivalent to a plastic 2N3904. In fact, later S/N's of this unit use the 2N3904. So I figured I'd throw in a 2N3904 and see what happens. It works but appears to be less stable. So the 2N2501 was put back in. Once the re-cap is complete going to perform a complete calibration. If the bias is still unstable I'll have to dive into that circuit deeper and figure out what's up. Most likely a carbon comp is going high. But we'll see. And BTW, Q43 and Q54 are also 2N3904. For once Tek used common parts rather than the exotic stuff they seem to favor.   

[mnementh]

Yeah smells like a clone. One reason I went with Metcal rather than Hakko. Lower risk. Was it advertised as a genuine or clone iron?

Yep, it's a clone. Mnem gets the cookie for having the fastest fingers. The listing shows a genuine one in the pic, mentions the brand as Hakko, but that's it. The handpiece is as poor as Dave suggests, and doesn't contact the tip casing, so the ESD safe claim is bs. Trying to decide whether or not to open a dispute.

I reckon I could easily get my money back, but... the thing is, all the bits and pieces together are easily worth what I paid without the soldering station, and from what I understand I could get a genuine Hakko handpiece and be fully functional.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

Oh, and could I get a pic or two of the innards of a genuine one please?

I've handled oodles of clone Hakko handles; not one didn't come with all 3 contacts in the socket inside the handle.  QUALITY of those contacts, however has been HUGELY variable.

Now the ESD-safe claim... that's another story. I've seen several where the shell conductor ultimately connected directly to the GND pin of the IEC connector instead of having a safety resistor; however, Hakko has also produced them with no safety resistor.



mnem
 

[Ice-Tea]

   Fan wiring in an old HP bench power supply. I'm sure it didn't leave the factory like this. But who does something like that 

I see some discoloring of the insulation suggestive of black tape goopy. Is it possible (the dwagon suggested, just for the sake of your sanity ) that said wannabe sparky taped it up and that tape dried out/fell off over the decades...?

mnem
 

Mhh, who knows. Much off the plastic sleeves are slimey, the tape on this may have returned to dust a long time ago..

[AVGresponding]

Yeah smells like a clone. One reason I went with Metcal rather than Hakko. Lower risk. Was it advertised as a genuine or clone iron?

Yep, it's a clone. Mnem gets the cookie for having the fastest fingers. The listing shows a genuine one in the pic, mentions the brand as Hakko, but that's it. The handpiece is as poor as Dave suggests, and doesn't contact the tip casing, so the ESD safe claim is bs. Trying to decide whether or not to open a dispute.

I reckon I could easily get my money back, but... the thing is, all the bits and pieces together are easily worth what I paid without the soldering station, and from what I understand I could get a genuine Hakko handpiece and be fully functional.

Thoughts and opinions welcome.

Oh, and could I get a pic or two of the innards of a genuine one please?

I've handled oodles of clone Hakko handles; not one didn't come with all 3 contacts in the socket inside the handle.  QUALITY of those contacts, however has been HUGELY variable.

Now the ESD-safe claim... that's another story. I've seen several where the shell conductor ultimately connected directly to the GND pin of the IEC connector instead of having a safety resistor; however, Hakko has also produced them with no safety resistor.



mnem
 

Yeah the contact is there, it's just too deep inside the handle to contact the tip shell. If it did, it would be direct to earth ground.
The only good reason for doing that is if you had a mains voltage heater coil, which this obviously doesn't.

Other differences, my xfmr looks grungy compared with the genuine one, would it hold up under full load? Who knows...
The power to the heater coil on this is regulated by a triac rather than DC reg that the genuine one looks to have, with that (I'm guessing) 6-10A-ish bridge on the board. No heatsinking on my triac either...

I'm leaning heavily towards a dispute, but I'll sleep on it first.

[mnementh]

I've handled oodles of clone Hakko handles; not one didn't come with all 3 contacts in the socket inside the handle.  QUALITY of those contacts, however has been HUGELY variable.

Now the ESD-safe claim... that's another story. I've seen several where the shell conductor ultimately connected directly to the GND pin of the IEC connector instead of having a safety resistor; however, Hakko has also produced them with no safety resistor.

https://youtu.be/LEs2pzw5mYE

mnem
 

Yeah the contact is there, it's just too deep inside the handle to contact the tip shell. If it did, it would be direct to earth ground.
The only good reason for doing that is if you had a mains voltage heater coil, which this obviously doesn't.

Other differences, my xfmr looks grungy compared with the genuine one, would it hold up under full load? Who knows...
The power to the heater coil on this is regulated by a triac rather than DC reg that the genuine one looks to have, with that (I'm guessing) 6-10A-ish bridge on the board. No heatsinking on my triac either...

I'm leaning heavily towards a dispute, but I'll sleep on it first.

Mmmhmmmm... The shell contact is the first one the base of the tip should come into contact with, not the last. If it's stuffed way down in there, then it has been damaged and bent all to fu**.



This it what's inside your clone FM-2028 handle; the contact you can see here is the one for the shell. My guess would be that either it was bent a little too far in towards centerline, or one of the cheap T12 cartridges has an irregularity in the plastic end... whatever the cause, I'll bet it caught on the end of the cartridge, and yumyucks there just jammed it in.

I wouldn't be surprised if it shorted one of the hot contacts and the whole damned thing is dead, or if the cartridge is unable to go all the way in and make contact on the last two rings.




mnem
 

[Neomys Sapiens]

Aaand the story of the (second) PG502 did work out nicely:
after contacting the seller I got my money back and I got to keep the parts mule for free.
But before I use the parts for the mechanical restauration of the first one, I have to give it a complete shakedown. So nothing but time was lost - and a TM-module parts mule is also another usable module frame for whatever purpose.

[Saskia]

will be able to pick up my pynq board next week. had given it to someone to implement some stuff, but apparently ..
been asked to fix some audiophool dacs (Cambridge Audio) that are not recognized on the USB port ...
plus a 3d printer board where someone had mounted the drivers incorrectly.
Currently no time for that, the job is keeping me excessively busy.

[BU508A]

Today my Rohde & Schwarz NGB 32 / 10 power supply arrived.
Packaging was okay, no mechanical damage visible.
I tried to play a little with it but ...... möööööööp!
Dead as a Dodo.   

Output voltage is constantly at -0.67V and cannot be changed.   

I've bought it via German ebay Kleinanzeigen and payed via banking transfer (this is very usual in Germany) so no buyers protection. Contacted seller but no response so far.

Here are two photos of this poor bugger:



Edit:
Teardown

[bitseeker]

Was just reading the Condoraudio document. CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE JUST TELL ME I NEED TO REPLACE A SINGLE CAP AND ALL WILL BE FINE???

You need to replace a single cap and all will be fine...until you need to replace the next one...and the next one...

[bitseeker]

.......Snicker........

I hear that on the other side of the pond the day is also celebrated. But over there it's called, "Good Riddance Day."

[Saskia]

Win 7 on Ryzen 3600x / Asus X370 Pro -> success. runs like a charm. Never had such a fast spider solitaire.

[xrunner]

Today my Rohde & Schwarz NGB 32 / 10 power supply arrived.
Packaging was okay, no mechanical damage visible.
I tried to play a little with it but ...... möööööööp!
Dead as a Dodo.   

Now that's a Real Man's power switch!

Power On!

[mnementh]

Win7 has cooties.

mnem
eeewwww... yuckyputz...

[Saskia]

some of my software is dependent on W7 and / or XP and I don't see why I should trash it. I also hate W10. And Dilbert has cooties.

[mnementh]

I am a boni-fied crusty old fart, and I hate to admit it but... I cringe every time I fire up my one ToughBook that still has Win7 on it. It feels like I'm looking at everything through a Vaseline lens.    I literally prefer the whole feel of my older XP ToughBook. 

mnem
"Get off my lawn!!!"

[mnementh]

      

Taste the Rainbow, Bizzitches...

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2314755/#msg2314755

mnem
*This Blast from the Past Brought to you by FUKKITOL*

[tggzzz]

I am a boni-fied crusty old fart, and I hate to admit it but... I cringe every time I fire up my one ToughBook that still has Win7 on it. It feels like I'm looking at everything through a Vaseline lens.    I literally prefer the whole feel of my older XP ToughBook. 

mnem
"Get off my lawn!!!"

That's why I use xfce with, iirc, the 12.x widgets. It behaves like winxp, and is perfectly usable on a 1.6GHz atom netbook from a decade ago.

[BU508A]

I was curious what's inside the R&S NGB 32/10 so I did a little teardown.

Let's start with the bottom and some beautiful wiring. Next one are the mains input filter caps.


This is the backside with the fan motor. A massive diode below the fan.


The left side. Some huge relays on the right and a part of the transformer.


Electrolytic capacitor bank, left and right side.


The right side. Pre-regulation PCB.


Overhead mounted main control and regulation PCB.


Top view, other side of the overhead mounted PCB.


And this makes me frowning: two blown fuses, slow blow 10A, 5x20mm:


Will check the schematics towmorrow...  *sigh*

[Neomys Sapiens]

      

Taste the Rainbow, Bizzitches...

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2314755/#msg2314755

mnem
*This Blast from the Past Brought to you by FUKKITOL*

Ewww. Show it again when you got Staeubli.
Also missing out on brown, violet, white, and grey.

[bitseeker]

I was curious what's inside the R&S NGB 32/10 so I did a little teardown.

...

Cool. Added to POI along with the previous post with the pics of the front panel.

The list of equipment in this thread is getting kinda long.

[GreyWoolfe]

You're better off without the fuckin' thing; the way they made that lil' bastard, the card is right in your way anytime you want to change the handle, and you have to hold your hand in an awkward position to change the temp unless it's up on the shelf. 

If I'd been arsed to hack the stupid thing on mine, I might have discovered whatever fault it had BEFORE it died in a blazing fireball of toxic smoke. 

BTW, welcome to semi-civilized soldering iron country; let me know when you get tired of the mentally-defective firmware on that thing and want to convert to a nice user-friendly OLED T12 controller. 

mnem

You keep bitching about your experiences with that Hakko and I have no issues with mine. Works fine.

Sounds like an operator issue to me. 

I have no issues with mine either and I also have a Metcal MX 500.  I use them both depending on mood.   I like them both equally.

[worsthorse]

I am a boni-fied crusty old fart, and I hate to admit it but... I cringe every time I fire up my one ToughBook that still has Win7 on it. It feels like I'm looking at everything through a Vaseline lens.    I literally prefer the whole feel of my older XP ToughBook. 

mnem
"Get off my lawn!!!"

i am pretty sure i am older. i am definitely crustier.  i hate WIN10 so much that i bought a stack of dell business machines from a local university because they had W7P keys and could be easily restored to their WindowSevenish glory to run all the goofy old software i have from that era. plus the user interface is simpleminded and archaic, like my mind.

* worsthorse wanders over to the comfy sofa, curls up, pulls up the asbestos blanket and waits to be flamed.