[WARNING] Fake Hakko 936 Being Sold on eBay (w/ Photos)

[Scott_S]

UPDATE: I have received a refund for the device and it has been sent back. I purchased a Hakko 888D from Adafruit and am looking forward to receiving it.

Hello there!

I'd like to provide a warning to anyone who is perhaps looking to purchase a Hakko 936 off of eBay. I have found a seller who I believe is knowingly selling counterfeit Hakko 936 units, and I would like to advise people from purchasing these units from this auction.

The auction in question is here: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/131298761024?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I purchased this unit as I found that it wasn't a bad deal, and I am just getting into soldering and wanted a decent and reliable unit. As it is difficult for me to find Hakko units in Canada that don't have ridiculous shipping and duty/taxes on them, I was trying my hardest to find a retailer/seller in Canada.

When I received it, I honestly believed it was a genuine unit. The handle feels great, it came with several tips (two of which have Hakko branding on them, and I believe may actually be genuine), and overall the unit seemed to be the real deal. It wasn't until I noticed that there was no Hakko branding on the ceramic heater, that there was a slight plastic rattle inside the control box, and that the iron itself was barely capable of wetting the solder on a smaller inductor that I figured it was bogus.

This is a list of the things I found wrong with the unit:

Code: [Select]

Regarding the iron:
1. The lettering is not properly silkscreened and as such some of the letters are not complete. It is not completely obvious, but the letter does not match up to the genuine handle.
2. The protective rubber that is supposed to reach up to the end of the handle before the heating element and tip only reaches halfway.
3. While the genuine Hakko handles *DO NOT* get hot after prolonged use, this handle gets unbearably hot within 30 to 40 minutes at 300C. The genuine Hakko handles do not suffer from this problem.

Regarding the ceramic heaters:
1. The ceramic outside of the heater is missing the Hakko branding.
2. The wiring is incorrectly coloured and is amateurly soldered, making is essentially dangerous to use.

Regarding the control box itself:
1. The serial and model number sticker on the bottom is incorrectly sized and does not match up to the genuine information sticker.
2. Within the actual unit, the transformer's sides are wrapped in yellow while the official Hakko transformer is not.
3. The control PCB itself has "YengPeng-2" silkscreened on it, which is absolutely ridiculous. The genuine control board has Hakko branding on it, and is not a yellow PCB.
4. TWO of the four screw mounts were damaged when I opened it up; I guarantee I did not cause this damage while I was opening it.
5. The casing itself is not the same casing as the official one;

Regarding the soldering iron holder:
1. The soldering iron does not sit correctly into the base, making it wiggle and nearly fall out. The genuine Hakko holder holds the iron securely and does not move.
2. The sponge that came in the base was not wrapped whatsoever; the genuine Hakko cleaning sponge comes wrapped in a Hakko bag with the lettering "Cleaning Sponge". It also has a hole missing in the middle, which the official one does not.
3. The actual construction of the holder does not match the construction of the official product.
Below, I will be adding photos of the unit, inside and out. I apologize about how many there are, I wanted to be as detailed as possible with this post.

[kingofkya]

Well first indication would be the fact hakko dosen't sell that model anymore.
http://www.hakkousa.com/detail.asp?PID=1250&Page=1

But anyways are you sure you waited long enofe i have never really had too mannyl issues with the clones, with one acception the wire generally sucks, and as you noted the connections to the handle can some times be bad.

 As a side note monoprices 24awg usb cables makes a nice replacement they have copper in them instead of cca the the clones liek to use http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=1030307&p_id=8641&seq=1&format=2)

If you were to guess i would bet the heater connections are loese or you just didn't wait long enofe for it to heat up.

[dannyf]

I have found a seller who I believe is knowingly selling counterfeit Hakko 936 units,

You should assume that anything sold on ebay is fake unless proven otherwise.

That works out much better for the buyers.

[TriodeTiger]

It's a shame, domestic and from a seller without too many red flags risen.

I got my (newer, but still obsolete!) 888 from an Albertan company:
https://solarbotics.com/product/44162/

That one is the newest in the line with digital display, if you can return yours, that is.

I wonder if just replacing the element would be enough for your counterfeit (but surely you can get some bargaining points in a return if it's domestic? threaten?)

[Scott_S]

Well first indication would be the fact hakko dosen't sell that model anymore.
http://www.hakkousa.com/detail.asp?PID=1250&Page=1

But anyways are you sure you waited long enofe i have never really had too mannyl issues with the clones, with one acception the wire generally sucks, and as you noted the connections to the handle can some times be bad.

 As a side note monoprices 24awg usb cables makes a nice replacement they have copper in them instead of cca the the clones liek to use http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=1030307&p_id=8641&seq=1&format=2)

If you were to guess i would bet the heater connections are loese or you just didn't wait long enofe for it to heat up.

I'd generally agree with you, but there's often discontinued items being sold that are simply older stock from warehouses, etc. As an example, you can still purchase discontinued Pentium 4 CPUs that have retail packaging and everything, as there's always leftover stock for years afterwards (especially with the volume of which Hakko would be producing these units).

As for not waiting long enough, 20 seconds at 400C with a chisel tip equivalent to a T18-D16 is definitely long enough to wet a joint. Considering that Dave has done larger joints that have a huge ground plane around them at 350C with his Hakko 888, I think that sounds fair.

I was hoping that a domestic seller with good ratings would be at least somewhat trustworthy, but I won't be making that same mistake again. No worries though, the seller issued me a refund as soon as I requested it (seriously, within 5 minutes of me requesting it) and I sent the unit back today. I have already purchased a Hakko 888D from Adafruit as it wasn't too much more expensive and I decided to suck it up and accept the duty for shipping it across the border.

[rickselectricalprojects]

I have the yihua yh936c and it was about $35 and i got it about a month or two ago and while i dont use it 24/7 it does get a fair amount of use and i have ran into no problems yet. I did see daves teardown and while i wasn't impressed with the quality i can't complain for $35. That is probably the yihua just with a fake hako logo on it.

[neslekkim]

Since we are on it, where can one find an good 220volt version of an 936 clone today, that is acceptable good?
Going to learn my nephew a few tricks, and since I don't know if it is going to be used a lot, I don't want to waste too much money on it.

[Fsck]

www.active123.com is a seller in Canada for genuine hakko (and obviously other electronics) by the way.

[Shock]

There is a bad shopping experience thread at the top of the buy/sell/wanted forum, you can spend all day warning about ebay sellers.

"Bland NEW IN BOX WITH FACTORY WARRANTY" the free tips (worth about $30+) and the solder make it a little obvious.
But then when you go to shipping you will see "Expedited Int'l Shipping" and that is enough to tell you it's not local and therefore likely Chinese.

After reading their feedback you can see they are selling fakes and counterfeits, I expect you didn't read that prior to purchasing which is a mistake on ebay.


 

[Monkeh]

Okay, I haven't even read this thread, but I have something to say.

Stop embedding large numbers of high resolution images in your posts. It is pointless and makes for a ridiculous crawl as the browser loads and resizes every one of them.

Use the forum upload facility or resize your images appropriately.

[Shock]

Okay, I haven't even read this thread, but I have something to say.
Stop embedding large numbers of high resolution images in your posts. It is pointless and makes for a ridiculous crawl as the browser loads and resizes every one of them.
Use the forum upload facility or resize your images appropriately.

Embedding the images is less taxing on the web server so benefits everyone and is cheaper for website owner, you also don't need to click to see each image.
Dave can control how large the images end up on the forums through the CSS/theme. Limits to control photo usage can also be placed on user accounts and groups.

So I don't see any problem here.

[Monkeh]

Okay, I haven't even read this thread, but I have something to say.
Stop embedding large numbers of high resolution images in your posts. It is pointless and makes for a ridiculous crawl as the browser loads and resizes every one of them.
Use the forum upload facility or resize your images appropriately.

Embedding the images is less taxing on the web server so benefits everyone and is cheaper for website owner, you also don't need to click to see each image.
Dave can control how large the images end up on the forums through the CSS/theme. Limits to control photo usage can also be placed on user accounts and groups.

So I don't see any problem here.

I see a problem: A wall of huge images which have to be resized on the fly client side, to the detriment of a browser's ability to.. browse. I'm sure it's fine on your overclocked i7 with 32 gigs of RAM, but my laptop (and my phone, and most tablets, and many other people's computers) does not appreciate resizing all those images just to view a thread.

Embedding images: Fine.
Embedding 24MP images: Not fine.

[AwArD_RzD]

In the last two year i bought 2 new hakko from Solarbotics in Canada (one 888 and 888D), prices was good and the shipping price was fair, i think they are located in Calgary, for anyone in Canada who don't want to be hit by customs fee i think it's a good place to order some hakko tip and solder station.

[Scott_S]

Okay, I haven't even read this thread, but I have something to say.
Stop embedding large numbers of high resolution images in your posts. It is pointless and makes for a ridiculous crawl as the browser loads and resizes every one of them.
Use the forum upload facility or resize your images appropriately.

Embedding the images is less taxing on the web server so benefits everyone and is cheaper for website owner, you also don't need to click to see each image.
Dave can control how large the images end up on the forums through the CSS/theme. Limits to control photo usage can also be placed on user accounts and groups.

So I don't see any problem here.

I see a problem: A wall of huge images which have to be resized on the fly client side, to the detriment of a browser's ability to.. browse. I'm sure it's fine on your overclocked i7 with 32 gigs of RAM, but my laptop (and my phone, and most tablets, and many other people's computers) does not appreciate resizing all those images just to view a thread.

Embedding images: Fine.
Embedding 24MP images: Not fine.

Sorry Monkeh! I had scheduled my server to resize the images but apparently hadn't scheduled it properly. That has been corrected.

As for those saying I should have noticed that they were selling counterfeit units before-hand, I (once again) would generally agree with you- if they were selling it outside of Canada. However, this is being sold within Canada, where it is illegal to sell counterfeit units (unless it is explicitly stated that they are knockoffs, in which case they cannot have official branding on them that would mislead someone).

[Monkeh]

Sorry Monkeh! I had scheduled my server to resize the images but apparently hadn't scheduled it properly. That has been corrected.

Thank you!

It doesn't look all that shoddily constructed, either. If it simply performed it'd be acceptable, if they didn't pretend it was a real Hakko.

[dannyf]

the manual is entirely in Chinese

So the English on the left is also in Chinese?

Or this is where your unique definition of "entirely" comes into play?

[Scott_S]

The manual might actually be in Japanese, just written in Kanji. I only know some basic Kana, so I couldn't read any of it to give a better opinion on that. But lack of any Kana characters on the front page (or even Hiragana characters) makes me think that yes, it might mostly be in Cantonese.

[elgonzo]

Yes, it is Chinese. And as Scott already hinted at, it is Traditional Chinese.
Quickly verifiable by looking at 2nd character in the heading for "table of content", which differs between traditional and simplified Chinese.
(See here for a comparison between trad. and simplified Chinese for "table of content"; the forum software does not seem to like Chinese characters, hence the link.)

(Random rant: While the Cantonese dialect also also has a written form, it is not the same as Traditional Chinese. It would be unlikely that a manual would be written in Cantonese script, as it would be marketable only in HK and some minorities in the Guangdong area. On the other hand, Traditional Chinese is an official Chinese writing standard in both HK and Taiwan. Writing stuff in Traditional Chinese makes it marketable in both regions.)

[dannyf]

Cantonese is not a language: it is a dialect and when written down, it is the same as Chinese, traditional or simplified.

[dannyf]

mojo-chan, please take your BS somewhere else.