Aoyue Int9378 - Teardown

[tx8]

Its the ugliest solder station on the market gets a facelift...

There is:
Atmega8a with an ICSP header
Opamp
Transistor
a 4 digit / 8segment display
lots of triac diode stuff

...and thats mainly it as far as i can see.
The atmega is the only smt device and the complete thing is hand soldered with lots of additional flux without cleaning obviously.
The massive Power supply has a hand written rating of 220v 75W - 26v. There is no other note about power consumption either on the machine nor in the manual. One cable inside was stuck between the chassis due to lack of cable binding. I had to free it and it looks almost broken. Contacted tech support for a replacement. Will have to wait.
The spool holder was supposed to be attached to the iron holder and could not stand alone because it had only one large rubber foot on one side (fail).
But its pretty handy to have everything seperate i think so i added some.
The iron itself uses a 8pin conector and is working with 24v DC.
I shut up now...

Enjoi

[TheAmmoniacal]

What do you think about that soldering station as a semi-professional "first" station? How is it different from the Aoyue 908?

[tx8]

It may look different in my video but the Int9378 is only a solder station. The 908 seems to be a rework station with a hot air unit included.
until now i am pleased with the performance but the cable could be even softer though its not too bad.
If you look at the aoyue product line the newest models have a different tip/heater assembly like the 2930 compared to the older 9378...

http://www.aoyue.com/en/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=455
http://www.aoyue.com/en/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=454

I wanted the old tip design because they are super cheap everywhere.
Anyway if you can afford to stick to hakko, pace, ersa or weller

[amyk]

I wanted the old tip design because they are super cheap everywhere.

In other words, Hakko-compatible?

[tx8]

Yes, Hakko 900m series compatible.

Are the new aoyue tips compatible with other brands, thats what i want to know.
Google pictures suggests they are at least not compatible with the hakko ones.

[tx8]

Aftermarket tips fit as bad as the original tips so i had to take same action. Furthermore had to sand down the metal sleeve you see in the video about 1mm to get best thermal conductivity because these aftermarket tips seem to be a little longer. After all they work pretty good.

http://youtu.be/5E4hHuAmLe4