Hakko FX888D - Not enough heat at tip? (...and how to repair old tips?)

[sofakng]

I've been using a Hakko FX888D for a few years and I'd consider myself intermediate-level soldering skill, but when I use really fine-point tips (J-Tip [TR18-BR02] or Narrow-pitch soldering [T18-S4]), it seems like there is almost no heat at the tip.

Is this normal or is this improved with the newer T12-style tips?

Can I "upgrade" my FX888D with anything to help the heat transfer to the tip?

Also, how can I "repair" older tips that I might not have taken 100% care of?  (I always leave solder on the tips, etc, but sometimes they seem.... old?)

[thm_w]

This is normal. T12 may be a bit better. You'll see decent improvements moving to an induction type station (Metcal/Hakko).

But what temperature are you using, have you verified it with a thermocouple?

You can buy retinning solution or use fine sandpaper on the tip, but if the plating is worn through you are better off buying new tips.

[Shock]

If a tip is oxidized solder won't bond to it, this causes poor heating performance. The smaller the tip the less throughput there is (heat transfer to the pcb). So use tip rejuvenator/refresher to de-oxidize and apply fresh tin to the tip.

To prevent it occurring in the future replace dirty sponges and brass wool. Use only demineralized/distilled water on your sponge and keep it damp (not soaked) when cleaning the tip. If you have good brass wool it can help with cleaning as it has a scrubbing action.

To keep the tip in good condition leave solder on the tip when you are not using it. Don't clean the tip and leave it in the stand for a prolonged period or put it away clean. Moisture, flux and heating action will progressively make the tip more oxidized. When it has a coating of solder on the tip this keeps that surface protected then you just need to clean and tin a few times with fresh solder before reusing.

Things to note in this video. Don't use kitchen sponges they may melt or leave residue on the tip. Tip rejuvenator/refresher will tin the whole tip if you try, so don't exceed more than the original tinned portion.

[cdev]

I had that problem and it needed to be reset via a special sequence that I am sure I saved so give me a bit of time and its yours. I went through this whole thing around eight months or so on this site, a search will bring it up. (the reset sequence) Search on my username and FX-888d . Its nuts that Hakko doesnt tell people about this in a more prominent way.  Come back to this thread in a bit and I will post it for you. (DONE)

Couldnt be easier. No low temperature) that is NOT the way its supposed to work, A reset as shown in the video  fixes it. Now I just leave it at the default most of the time. Which is hot enough, only need to turn it down when I am doing something delicate.

Here is the "great reset" LOL.

https://youtu.be/ecH4c6NdBuo



BTW, I hate the hakko user interface, but I like the soldering pencil, its markedly better than my previous iron.

My other solderingIron is a fake 939 knockoff..  I really needed the real  hakko for soldering coaxial connectors which my previous iron wasn't cutting the mustard on. The knockoff would swing around quite a bit in temperature, it was maddening..

I keep some real colophony (pine resin) flux around, its a good thing to have for getting the tip really well tinned.

Let us know if this fixes it, you have to unplug it also when you do the reset then plug it back in and it should be fixed and not too cold. At least that's what happened to me.

Poof, fixed!

[xavier60]

I've been using a Hakko FX888D for a few years and I'd consider myself intermediate-level soldering skill, but when I use really fine-point tips (J-Tip [TR18-BR02] or Narrow-pitch soldering [T18-S4]), it seems like there is almost no heat at the tip.

Is this normal or is this improved with the newer T12-style tips?

Can I "upgrade" my FX888D with anything to help the heat transfer to the tip?

Also, how can I "repair" older tips that I might not have taken 100% care of?  (I always leave solder on the tips, etc, but sometimes they seem.... old?)

I have been using Hakko T18-S4 tips with my FX888D exclusively for the last 2 years for SMD to soldering 5mm brass screws to 2oz PCB.
Have you checked the temperature? I use an old tip with hole drilled into the end into which I insert some some solder then a K thermocouple.

[sofakng]

But what temperature are you using, have you verified it with a thermocouple?

I'm using around 650F (350C) when working with SMD components. 

I'd like to verify with a thermocouple but the Hakko FG-100B (solder tip thermocouple) is over $220.  There are knockoffs for around $20 but I'm not sure if they can be trusted?  I also heard you can't just use a thermocouple on a multimeter (ie. my Fluke 87 V) because you need to melt solder, etc?

[sofakng]

Have you checked the temperature? I use and old tip with hole drilled into the end into which I insert some some solder then a K thermocouple.

That's a very interesting idea!

I've never purchased a thermocouple before.  What would you recommend for my Fluke 87V meter?  Is the Fluke 80BK-A Type K the correct probe?  Can I buy a cheap one from Amazon or should I get the OEM Fluke for the extra money?

(Sorry for so many questions)

[cdev]

Get whatever they recommend. Don't spend all that money unless you like wasting money.  And who does? Not me, I am a huge cheapskate.

[xavier60]

Have you checked the temperature? I use and old tip with hole drilled into the end into which I insert some some solder then a K thermocouple.

That's a very interesting idea!

I've never purchased a thermocouple before.  What would you recommend for my Fluke 87V meter?  Is the Fluke 80BK-A Type K the correct probe?  Can I buy a cheap one from Amazon or should I get the OEM Fluke for the extra money?

(Sorry for so many questions)

The Fluke 80BK-A is correct.
I just checked the idea again and got a 346°C reading with the station set to 350. A while back, I bought a Fluke look-a-like K thermocouple probe on ebay. It works as well as my genuine one.

[cdev]

Did you perform the Official Hakko Fx-888D reset procedure?
Sorry to ask.. I just was curious.

[niconiconi]

I've been using a Hakko FX888D for a few years and I'd consider myself intermediate-level soldering skill, but when I use really fine-point tips (J-Tip [TR18-BR02] or Narrow-pitch soldering [T18-S4]), it seems like there is almost no heat at the tip.

Is this normal or is this improved with the newer T12-style tips?

Can I "upgrade" my FX888D with anything to help the heat transfer to the tip?

Also, how can I "repair" older tips that I might not have taken 100% care of?  (I always leave solder on the tips, etc, but sometimes they seem.... old?)

I bet it's completely normal. Small tips have low thermal mass and worst heat transfer, and they're serious limitations.

I also own a tiny T18-BR02 tip which I purchased for soldering Micro USB connectors. But while it looked like a good idea on paper, in practice, i found it's not useful at all due to its low thermal mass. When the iron tip meets the metal connector body, the solder joints often have no reaction at all and remain solid.

To successfully solder something, the problem is not temperature but heat. A large tip like a conical tip or a chisel tip has high thermal mass, which means it can store a lot of heat and dump that heat to the joint at once. The large size also means heat transfer is more efficient. In other words, it has low "output impedance", and the thermal mass acts as a capacitance to improve your "transient response". If you use a small tip, the performance is going to be worse.

From experience, I found even soldering something trivial under ideal conditions, like a tiny SOT-23 chip over ground planes, with a standard conical tip (not a fine tip), can be a challenge. Even when using standard Pb solder and conical tip, at 350 °C, the ground plane acts as a huge heatsink, the solder barely melts. Often I have to turn the temperature up to 400 °C. For lead-free solder the situation is worse, temporarily turning it up to 450 °C is necessary. Now imagine if you also have to use a tiny tip for this job, the situation is going out of control...

The same thing happens when you're solder a metal connector, or a QFP pin with vias to a ground plane. If the tip is tiny, the heat transfer will be worse, so you basically have to:

1. Turning the temperature up to eleven. It works for a while, then the tip oxides within minutes and no longer works well.
2. Tinning the tip with a large drop of solder. Molten solder has the best thermal conductivity and also increases the thermal mass of the iron tip. However, the physical size of the solder drop removes any precision-work benefits when using a tiny tip.

Thus, while I must definitely acknowledge other people may them useful under some circumstances. But my own conclusion is that a tiny tip is not personally useful. My recommendation: Just learn drag soldering with a standard tip, not a fine tip.

Or if you are like me who's not very good at soldering, get a stereo microscope, then you can solder the pins one by one and clearly inspect each joint. Use desoldering wick to rework the bad joints. Just rinse and repeat until all pins are perfectly soldered.

[floobydust]

Louis Rossmann:
"... conical tip so again it is pretty awful, there is really almost nothing worse in life than soldering with a conical tip" (33:40)
"... soldering with a conical tip is just worse than being stabbed in the eye" (34:00)

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/which-additional-tips-for-hakko-fx-888d-soldering-iron/msg2390097/#msg2390097

[niconiconi]

Louis Rossmann:
"... conical tip so again it is pretty awful, there is really almost nothing worse in life than soldering with a conical tip" (33:40)
"... soldering with a conical tip is just worse than being stabbed in the eye" (34:00)

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/which-additional-tips-for-hakko-fx-888d-soldering-iron/msg2390097/#msg2390097

Yes, conical tip is not especially good at heat transfer. However, the tiny tip mentioned by the OP in question, T18-BR02, is basically a tiny conical tip not much bigger than a QFP pin. Now just imagine using that for soldering.

[niconiconi]

BTW, I hate the hakko user interface

Did you program the temperatures? I think the intended way of using the user interface is to store your preferred temperatures as options, then you can recall them later on just with a single button press without the need of clicking and holding. I don't mean it's really a good user interface, but at least it should make your job easier (BTW, despite reading this feature the first day I bought it in the manual, years later I still haven't bothered to do that... Time to do this today )

[IanB]

I've been using a Hakko FX888D for a few years and I'd consider myself intermediate-level soldering skill, but when I use really fine-point tips (J-Tip [TR18-BR02] or Narrow-pitch soldering [T18-S4]), it seems like there is almost no heat at the tip.

The heat has to reach the tip. Using a fine point tip and expecting heat is like trying to empty a swimming pool with a straw.

Is this normal or is this improved with the newer T12-style tips?

Yes, it's normal. Fine point tips exist for marketing, they are not meant to be used for actual soldering.

Can I "upgrade" my FX888D with anything to help the heat transfer to the tip?

Yes, use a bigger tip like a spade tip or a horseshoe tip.

General note: you do not need to use a fine point tip for small pitch SMD soldering. Watch videos to see how to use a big tip for this purpose.

[Shock]

Don't tell people to reset their factory cal offset until they have a Fakko FG100 or something to calibrate with. It's entirely possible to end up worse than where you started, and has happened to others here before. But yeah messing up the calibration is a little too easy to do by accident, it's a quirk.

[floobydust]

Soldering a single SMT IC pin, it might be a myth?
I was soldering wires to pins on an RTL2832U (making RTL SDR) 0.5mm QFN-48 and as soon as the Hakko conical tip touched the IC, it cooled down and literally got stuck to the IC.
If I cranked up the temperature, there might be enough heat for a fraction of a second and then it was gone. That's when I learned the tip is useless.

[Shock]

It will work, just how well depends on circumstances.

[niconiconi]

Soldering a single SMT IC pin, it might be a myth?
I was soldering wires to pins on an RTL2832U (making RTL SDR) 0.5mm QFN-48 and as soon as the Hakko conical tip touched the IC, it cooled down and literally got stuck to the IC.
If I cranked up the temperature, there might be enough heat for a fraction of a second and then it was gone. That's when I learned the tip is useless.

This is exactly what I meant when I said "just imagine (the nightmare)..."
Even a standard conical tip can have difficulties for heating up metal connector pins or a SOT23 land pattern connected to ground planes - 400 °C required from experience. Tiny tips like TR18-BR02 are not much bigger than a single QFP pin, thus much worse than a standard conical tip.

[m3vuv]

its a case of horses for courses i find,if i have to do small smd stuff i wrap some 2mm copper wire around my normal conical tip and set it to 480 degc,not the best solution ,i can also drag the wire over a file to narow it,maybe not the best solution but is cheap and has got me out of the brown stuff a few times !.

[John B]

I've been using a Hakko FX888D for a few years and I'd consider myself intermediate-level soldering skill, but when I use really fine-point tips (J-Tip [TR18-BR02] or Narrow-pitch soldering [T18-S4]), it seems like there is almost no heat at the tip.

Is this normal or is this improved with the newer T12-style tips?

Can I "upgrade" my FX888D with anything to help the heat transfer to the tip?

Also, how can I "repair" older tips that I might not have taken 100% care of?  (I always leave solder on the tips, etc, but sometimes they seem.... old?)

Funny you say that, as I never did like the fine tip on the FX888D. I mainly use an FX951 with the T12 tips. For a while I thought the 888 and 951 were actually pretty comparable, and with a larger chisel tip, like a 1.6mm, the 888 does keep up. But lately I've been using a fine T12 tip with the 951 and it's surprisingly powerful. Fine enough to do individual SOIC pins and 0603 stuff, but the larger part of the tip will also transfer enough heat to do a soldered down TO-220, DPAK etc.

[xavier60]

No one else has tried the T18-S4 tip? I use it for everything that I need to do with the FX888D.

[tooki]

I bet it's completely normal. Small tips have low thermal mass and worst heat transfer, and they're serious limitations.

…

To successfully solder something, the problem is not temperature but heat. A large tip like a conical tip or a chisel tip has high thermal mass, which means it can store a lot of heat and dump that heat to the joint at once. The large size also means heat transfer is more efficient. In other words, it has low "output impedance", and the thermal mass acts as a capacitance to improve your "transient response". If you use a small tip, the performance is going to be worse.

…

Thus, while I must definitely acknowledge other people may them useful under some circumstances. But my own conclusion is that a tiny tip is not personally useful. My recommendation: Just learn drag soldering with a standard tip, not a fine tip.

…

Completely 100% agree with the entire post (including the parts I omitted for brevity). I’ve used superfine tips on both Ersa and JBC, and they’re indeed a pain in the ass because there’s just not enough mass. There do exist the rare situations where it’s needed, but it really is rare.

[cdev]

This is how I soldered when I had to overcome the problems with my fake hakko 936 iron. Now I have been having good luck with the default tip that came with my 888d, which is a D tip, I think.

The factory reset, which is hard to find out about on their site helped me a lot.