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[Anonymous.Engineer]

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[poorchava]

I've been using LF1600 for several years, I even did a teradown, but the video quality sucked. In general the innards look typical for a chinese equipment that is not a total junk. Atmega88, some jellybean parts from reputable manufacturers (OP07, some triac, voltage regulator etc made by TI, ST, ON and so on). Of course caps are capxon, but they do not seem to be operating at high ripple currents, so I'm not that worried.

One thing that pisses me off is that the hater fixing nut has cracked after several years (the plastic one that is knd of integrated with the heater, not the ine that holds the tip). It seems the be impossible to find that part alone as a spare and a replacement heater apparently costs about 1/3rd of the price of the thing itself.

The mechanical fit between tip and the heating element is not the best in the world, but not the worst either.

[Chromatic]

Hello kristapsdreija,

Thanks for your quick review, I am looking for a pretty cheap (not too crappy) but effective soldering station like this.
Can you please PM me the links on Reichelt website for the items (soldering stations, tips, PCB holder) ?

Thanks a lot
Regards

Chromatic

[KL27x]

I have a 75W Hakko 888 and a Xytronics 80W (75W? I forget) "intelligent PID" soldering iron (part of my rework station). A comparison is useful, because the Xytronics copies the handle quite closely (pretty much exactly, except the connector is reversed) and is designed to take the Hakko tips, and the power rating is the same.

After carefully comparing the two, I could find no major practical difference in actual performance. The Xytronics has the fancy Samsung controller chip in it in my version. And if the heater indicator is to be believed, it heats up quite a bit faster than the Hakko and is "intelligently" switching on/off very rapidly nearly all the time. But in practice, heat up time and performance are identical to the Hakko in any way I can practically observe. I strongly suspect the heater indicator on my Xytronics is just faked (or the gap between heater and tip is insurmountable, making any attempt at useful PID impossible). Once you turn it on, the numbers rise up very linearly and quickly, reaching exact set temp (BING!) way before the tip will even melt solder. Thereafter, the temp reading never, ever changes, and the heater indicator seemingly randomly and rapidly flickers all the time, even when you're holding it against a heat sink that it has no hope of ever reaching set temp. It never stays on or off for any appreciable length of time, which is quite bad PID, if it is actually accurate.

Nitty gritty: I notice the fit of the tip over the heater is grossly loose on mine, but performance doesn't seem to really suffer. The plastic is a little slippery in comparison. I'm not that surprised that the threaded part can eventually break from heat stress. The standby function did not always trip and the stand doesn't hold the iron in the same place. Lots of wiggle/droop.

[KL27x]

Thermal expansion seems to occur and it is not loose in use when heated. The retaining sleeve holds the tip securely.

I wasn't referring to the sleeve/tip fit. I meant the gap when you slip the tip over the heating element. There's a lot o poorly-conducting air in there, compared to the slip-fit on my Hakko. Again, performance of the Xytronic was not a complaint. The biggest irk was the weird (for show?) display behavior.

[gameru]

I saw that write made in Taiwan,but it has a sticker with QC Passed.I do not know what to believe,it is made in Taiwan or China?

[gameru]

I have some products which are made in Taiwan and don't come with QC Passed sticker.
All things which are made in China i saw that come with QC sticker

[FireFlower]

I work at factory and I think I have not seen any of our products to have Q.C OK sticker. It basically means very little, instead we have sticker with factory logo where we have our personal worker ID number and date when we did assemble / Q.C product. Depends on factory but I trust many factories know Q.C Ok sticker is starting to have bad reputation for some reason 

But seems reasonable solder, pretty fast also for fairly cheap solder.

[neslekkim]

But politics aside, what is it about a Quality Control (QC) sticker that leads you to think it is made in China?

This could be an reason: http://www.ebay.com/itm/281264441882

[gameru]

I found a video on youtube () go to 05:40 min,on the back don't have a sticker with made in Taiwan

neslekkim - What you posted it's a good reason to don't trust in QC sticker