Ugh some of the shit from China is awful. It’s fun finding out though.
This thread is my personal facepalm recently https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/how-did-this-even-get-through-qa-(chinese-boost-converter)/msg1364657/
And that also has some of the hallmarks I mentioned, that chip certainly looks like it has been salvaged from something else, but so far I've had nothing like that with my purchases to date.
Yeah... that DC-DC converter is exactly the kind of fault I'm talking about; one side didn't get flow-soldered right, so the other side was easily knocked off by handling at the factory or machine processing by the carrier if it was shipped in a bubble mailer or plastic mailing sleeve.
Yes. The T12/T13/T15 cartridge system is a complete unitized heater and temp sensor hermetically sealed away from the atmosphere inside a stainless steel envelope. This addresses the eternal problem that eventually faces all of the old-fashioned slug-in-a-metal-tube type irons; slow response caused by oxidation between the tip and the heater, and inaccuracy caused by oxidation between the tip and the thermocouple/PTC temp sensor.
My MLiNK S4 is an awesome station that highlights this to the extreme; when the handle and tip are fresh and new it solders like a dream. It uses a high-frequency (switch-mode) power supply and a handle based on the now-defunct T-200 soldering head technology that can deliver 90W actual to the tip, plus has sleep mode and a crisp backlit LCD display with set and actual temps all inside a nice extruded AL case with metal face and back.
Tip and heating element are modular plug-in, which is convenient. But as the tip and the temp sensor age and get crusty response time gets worse, overshoot gets worse, everything runs too hot or too cold until you replace the tip and scrub the temp sensor clean with steel wool. Eventually the sensor gets to a point where it crusts up in a matter of hours and you just have to replace the whole handle; the heater is modular but the temp sensor is not.
I wouldn't wait on ordering the Ayima FX-9501 handle; it's on sale right now, and you'll want a spare handle even if your deal falls through and you order a different kit that comes with the right handle. The hack 907/937 handle that comes with is hazard to the controller; if the contacts jam and bend inward, which they eventually always do, they can short out the main power to the heating element. I was just lucky with mine.
mnem
Lessons learned the hard way...
Your point about the oxidisation was well proven today while attempting some modifications to my Heathkit V-7AU I thought to myself that my iron was not responding much to the heat I was putting into it, I had to turn the heat upto 420 to complete a joint that was simple to do. After letting it cool down, I took the tip off and you was right, the slug in the tip was loose and oxidised, so I took a new tip and fitted it and I was now able to solder the same joint at 300 on the display, and the old tip showed no signs of degradation on the outside.
With that, I'm now looking forward to getting my new T12 setup even more and waving that drop in performance goodbye.
Now I know that my Hakko 936D is a clone but I really can't see that a genuine Hakko 936D would have performed much differently given the conditions of the tip which was a genuine Hakko one anyway.
It makes me shudder now thinking back to how I used to use mains heated irons made by famous brands like Salon and Weller before, and even fitting new tips to them, never restored their performance they had when they were new. That makes the sound of the hermetically sealed T12 tips with their integrated heaters even more enticing. Looks like the thread about soldering stations taught me a lesson and did me a favour, so who says that you can't teach an old dog new tricks? 
Glad I was able to pass on that hard-won knowledge to someone who could make use of it. Please remember to pay it forward!
The blue Hakk0 (Yes, seriously) labeled T12 OLED board is pretty well-known to be of decent quality; it was originally developed as an open source upgrade/repair project for folks who had one of the cheapo Hakko 937 clones where the controller board burned up but still had a good 24-28V transformer/rectifier bridge sub-assembly inside the case. Yes, this is a pretty common failure on many of them; even the better ones like the Aoyue. However there are oodles of similar boards out there like the Quicko that are based on the same open source design but you don't know where a particular manufacturer may or may not have cut corners. It does appear to use the same open-source Menu-driven PID loop firmware as the blue Hakk0 controller, though.
It would seem there is at least two different "styles" of these T12 OLED boards floating around; 4-wire or 5-wire connector for the handle. Is one or the other style any "better" in general?
Oh, good eye... I got so used to seeing the 4-pin connector on the cheaper non-sleep-mode 3-digit LED models I completely overlooked that on the Quicko version.
The blue Hakk0 controller comes with two sensors to go in the handle; one is a ball or mercury switch which is used sense when you lift the handle and it goes above horizontal or so; the other is a small glass-envelope thermistor (looks like a 1N4148 switching diode) soldered to the Earth GND contact to sense if the connectors overheat from age and corrosion or if there's an thermal runaway on the T12 cartridge itself.
It looks to me like the Quicko version omits that sensor for the sake of a few pence.
That means you guys are definitely going to have to rewire your Ayima handles; it's not going to be just a matter of checking to make sure the pinout is the same, as they can't be. Here's the pinout for that, which was the same as my Ayima handle; maybe the Quicko controller has that sense pin and they just omitted to use a cheaper 4-conductor wire & aircraft-style connector.
mnem
DOYT!
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