Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Mr. Scram]

I'm not quite sure what to do. I seem to have a streak of bad luck after having a lot of good fortune on the 'bay, and received shipment of unused "as new" items with one item being defective. I got a fairly good deal on the total set. The seller offers to reimburse X% of the purchese price, which is the same X% the defective item would have been of the total amount if everything would have been new. It's the same percentage relative to the total set in both cases. That doesn't seem unreasonable, but due to it being a good deal this ends up being a rather low amount and nowhere near what a new or second hand replacement would cost. Going for the full amount of a replacement doesn't seem fair either, as that would amount to roughly half the price of what I paid for the full set.

The guy has been very friendly and cooperative all along. I'd like to be fair, but not sell myself short.

[Specmaster]

Woohoo! Now if only I had the time today to actually even open it

Great, go on, you know you want to. 

[tggzzz]

I'm not quite sure what to do. I seem to have a streak of bad luck after having a lot of good fortune on the 'bay, and received shipment of unused "as new"items with one items being defective. I got a fairly good deal on the total set. The seller offers to reimburse X% of the purchese price, which is the same X% the defective item would have been of the total amount if everything would have been new. It's the same percentage relative to the total set in both cases. That doesn't seem unreasonable, but due to it being a good deal this ends up being a rather low amount and nowhere near what a new or second hand replacement would cost. Going for the full amount of a replacement doesn't seem fair either, as that would amount to roughly half the price of what I paid for the full set.

The guy has been very friendly and cooperative all along. I'd like to be fair, but not sell myself short.

That does sound suspiciously like a way of selling normal items at the normal price, plus offloading crap. I would want the reduction to be the same as it would cost me to replace the faulty sub-order.

[Specmaster]

I'm not quite sure what to do. I seem to have a streak of bad luck after having a lot of good fortune on the 'bay, and received shipment of unused "as new"items with one items being defective. I got a fairly good deal on the total set. The seller offers to reimburse X% of the purchese price, which is the same X% the defective item would have been of the total amount if everything would have been new. It's the same percentage relative to the total set in both cases. That doesn't seem unreasonable, but due to it being a good deal this ends up being a rather low amount and nowhere near what a new or second hand replacement would cost. Going for the full amount of a replacement doesn't seem fair either, as that would amount to roughly half the price of what I paid for the full set.

The guy has been very friendly and cooperative all along. I'd like to be fair, but not sell myself short.

Oh dear what a dilemma. Well it strikes me that the best of approaching this is to put yourself in the sellers shoes, suppose for one moment you was that seller, faced with this problem, what you want to do? You also would not want to be sold short, would you?

Now I have no idea just what it is that you brought but speaking as a non involved party, it strikes me that the seller is being fair with you and himself at the same time. Neither of you was aware that there was a duff one in the set so I guess if there was 10 items, refunding you 10% of the total price would seem fair to both parties. Does the operation of the remaining items depend on the duff one to work or will they work on their own?

If they will work on their own, then I'd accept his offer, if on the other hand they wont, and you don't think you could repair the faulty item, ask for a full refund and return the whole set to the seller seems to be fair all round. 

[bd139]

Great, go on, you know you want to. 

I can't help it. Early lunch break...

It's an amazing little box. That's all I can say for now.

Couple of photos quickly. As per Dave's mantra; don't turn it on. Take it apart!



As expected, just a switch and DC socket.

Action shot. Did some soldering with it quick; just some resistors to a bit of stripboard. Wow. I am now Asaruludu, wielder of the flaming sword. It's pretty damn excellent, even at a miserable 15.5 volts.



Note the bodge to get power to it quickly. I don't have time to stick the right plug on the power supply at the moment so it's being driven off the bench supply I am awaiting the arrival of a pack of Anderson Powerpole connectors which I'm going to standardise on. A pair of these will be fitted to the rear panel.

Thanks to everyone who has been promoting these. Weller might be evicted. I'll run some proper boards through it and see how I get on

So shopping list:

1. Some more tips
2. A mains base station and iron (you need an iron to fix these)
3. A stand.
4. Tip thermometer.

 

[Specmaster]

Great, go on, you know you want to. 

I can't help it. Early lunch break...

It's an amazing little box. That's all I can say for now.

Couple of photos quickly. As per Dave's mantra; don't turn it on. Take it apart!



As expected, just a switch and DC socket.

Action shot. Did some soldering with it quick; just some resistors to a bit of stripboard. Wow. I am now Asaruludu, wielder of the flaming sword. It's pretty damn excellent, even at a miserable 15.5 volts.



Note the bodge to get power to it quickly. I don't have time to stick the right plug on the power supply at the moment so it's being driven off the bench supply I am awaiting the arrival of a pack of Anderson Powerpole connectors which I'm going to standardise on. A pair of these will be fitted to the rear panel.

Thanks to everyone who has been promoting these. Weller might be evicted. I'll run some proper boards through it and see how I get on

So shopping list:

1. Some more tips
2. A mains base station and iron (you need an iron to fix these)
3. A stand.
4. Tip thermometer.

 

I knew that you would like it, wait till you get 24V on it. Really nice pieces of kit aren't they? As to a mains base station, you can these already made don't forget. Also how did you find the standard 907 handle which I see you used?

EDIT:

I see that my second station parts are still shown as being somewhere in the air between China and the UK, which is where it has been for the last 3 days now, what are they using as the transport plane, this?

[bd139]

I reckon there is a temporal vortex somewhere.

I knew that you would like it, wait till you get 24V on it. Really nice pieces of kit aren't they? As to a mains base station, you can these already made don't forget. Also how did you find the standard 907 handle which I see you used?

They are indeed very nice. Pleasantly surprised. Plan with this one is to use it as the backup iron at this point and buy another one with 24v power supply, then mod it for safety.

The 907 handle isn't too bad. A mile better than the old ones you used to get from Aoyue.

Here's a good size comparison:

[Specmaster]

That's what I thought too. Compared to that Weller, the 907 is a similar length in terms both the iron protrusion and the handle length but miles slimmer. The 9501 looks much longer but when you fit the tip in, its overall length is the same because more of the tip goes inside the handle. 

[Calambres]

I see that my second station parts are still shown as being somewhere in the air between China and the UK...

Hahahaha... ditto for my Quicko T12!

[bd139]

Thanks to a network outage which has kicked me off the company network, I have put the 9501 handle on. Even better!

Warning if you swap the handle over: you're supposed to use the mercury switch but mine didn't come with one. I have bodged the ball switch in and it works fine

[Specmaster]

Thanks to a network outage which has kicked me off the company network, I have put the 9501 handle on. Even better!

Warning if you swap the handle over: you're supposed to use the mercury switch but mine didn't come with one. I have bodged the ball switch in and it works fine

No, you can choose which type of switch you use, the ball switch is probably the best one as it responds to vibration so it will switch the iron ON quicker, whereas  the mercury switch will need to be tipped into a certain orientation before it will switch ON.

Unless you actually order a 9501 handle that states it is specifically for the OLED controller that the handle will not come with either the switches as its a direct replacement for the original Hakko iron which instead relied upon a dedicated iron holder/stand that had a cradle connected to a micro switch fitted to it so that when you picked the iron up, the micro switch would signal the controller to switch on to full power. 

So you like the 9501 handle even more than the 907 eh? It does give you more control of the tip.

Postman, (lady actually, quite nice one too) has just been and delivered my new pre-wired 9501 handle which is fitted with the 5 pin plug/socket already for the controller (when it turns up) and that also has the ball switch fitted and also the thermister

[Specmaster]

Thanks to a network outage which has kicked me off the company network, I have put the 9501 handle on. Even better!

Warning if you swap the handle over: you're supposed to use the mercury switch but mine didn't come with one. I have bodged the ball switch in and it works fine

What price is the Weller now then?

[bd139]

Congratulations on your successful post office delivery

Weller is probably worth about £120 because it has a box and all the accessories and it's a new line TCP one. I'm going to keep it around for a bit just in case these things only last a short period of time. I'm going to attack some heavy ground planes with it tonight and see what happens.

[Specmaster]

Oh I see, I have just updated my other post with more info. 

[bd139]

Ah that makes sense now. The ball switch is pretty neat to be honest. I have set the sleep timeout to 5 minutes though from the default of 1 minute. It managed to go unconscious while I was having a sneezing fit 

[Specmaster]

Can't you crank up the voltage on your bench supply to 24v?

[Mr. Scram]

Didn't you get that sweet TTi supply?

[Specmaster]

Didn't you get that sweet TTi supply?

Speaking of TTi, did you get your TF930?

[bd139]

Didn't you get that sweet TTi supply?

I did and used that for this. It tops out at 16V but at 4A. I was using pissy little Pomona leads so it lost about a volt at full whack. I don't have enough leads lying around for remote sense either. This was "uber bodge"

I have actually lost the 2.1mm jack I had lying around to chuck on the power supply I have destined for this. Ordered another one from RS which will be here tomorrow. Then it'll be 19.2V which is as far as I'll go on this until I work out what to do next.

Big plan is:

Power supply 1 - DC ... Boost converter from 12-14VDC to 24VDC -> portable iron.
Power supply 2 - AC -> bench iron.

I've got a couple of SLA batteries lying around which can be used for running this up elsewhere then.

DC/DC converter I am going to use: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150W-Boost-Converter-DC-DC-10-32V-to-12-35V-Step-Up-Voltage-Module-UK-Stock/191479480602

Looks like it might fit in a larger Quicko case.

Edit: better price Aliexpress link! https://www.aliexpress.com/item/FREE-SHIPPING-5PCS-LOT-150W-Boost-Converter-DC-to-DC-10-32V-to-12-35V-Step/1886880830.html

[Mr. Scram]

Speaking of TTi, did you get your TF930?

I'm waiting for the invoice. I first added a few other items slowing the process down and then they were closed for the holidays. I poked them last week to make sure I wasn't forgotten, but I was assured that things would be packed up shortly and a corrected invoice would be sent.
 
I'm not sure what the current hold-up is, but most of the delay is all my own doing. If I were more sensible I would have made sure that things were wrapped up before the holidays. I'm not in a hurry though, I just hope I don't get the yellowed runt of the litter.

[Specmaster]

Speaking of TTi, did you get your TF930?

I'm waiting for the invoice. I first added a few other items slowing the process down and then they were closed for the holidays. I poked them last week to make sure I wasn't forgotten, but I was assured that things would be packed up shortly and a corrected invoice would be sent.
 
I'm not sure what the current hold-up is, but most of the delay is all my own doing. If I were more sensible I would have made sure that things were wrapped up before the holidays. I'm not in a hurry though, I just hope I don't get the yellowed runt of the litter.

Fingers crossed none of them will be that. Rest assured I get the best if I can help it, because I go and collect mine and build up a re pour with the man there 

[Specmaster]

Any of the UK lads and Lasses on here interested in a cheap stand by iron, you might want to cast your in the direction of Lidl's this week, they have this temperature controlled iron, stand, base, 2 reels of solder and sponge, for less then £9, might be worth a punt??

[bd139]

Those things are, and I'm quoting someone else here, "suicide irons". This is why CE mark means fuck all; you can self-certify the things.

Edit: when you think a whole Quicko setup costs you £30 at least, then consider that is £9 with (a) import taxes paid (b) approval [hahaha] (c) packaging and marketing (d) VAT, you've got to think of all the corners they cut in the engineering side of things.

My nan's electric blanket plugged into the light fitting was less insane.

[Specmaster]

That's the logical answer, but these things in their shops and in Aldi are often used as loss leaders to get people into their shops.

EDIT ADDITION:

Actually I have a number of their tools and also some power tools and they really do perform really well and I've never noticed anything remotely suicidal about them, power drills especially are good value, 18v and 24v versions, industry standard batteries etc.

[bd139]

The German biscuits are enough to get me in there