EEVblog #1106 - Pace ADS200 Soldering Station Review (JBC Killer?)

[Shock]

TL;DR

Repairs an 11 year old DVD player smps for a cute coworker. 2 days to replace caps and find dead diode. Showed her but was still broken. Took 7 more days to find damage he did himself. Didn't get the girl or money for repair. Blames planned obsolescence. Irony is DVD player is obsolete.

Now suffering PTSD.

[tooki]

“Planned obsolescence”: the rallying cry of anti-corporate or anti-capitalist crusaders who don’t understand the concept of designing down to a cost (i.e. making something affordable by eliminating costs that only extend the lifespan beyond the amount of time the device is expected to be used anyway).

[Cliff Matthews]

An electrolytic capacitor placed very close, no actually _touching_, the most significant heat sources? It will dry out in a relatively short time and then bye, bye soldering station! Unless the owner knows how to replace capacitors (which should be the case). If it were a mass market product then I would say this must be a clear case of planned obsolescence, like the one I've discovered in one Philips DVD player (see https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/10-days-of-anguish-the-story-of-my-first-major-not-so-trivial-repair-of-consumer-electronics.127336/ for details). But in this case I'd say it must be the effect of piss-poor board design. If I bought this station the first thing I'd do would be unsoldering and moving the capacitor to another location.

Do you own the product? I've opened mine and no, it was not touching the 105c Nippon Chemi-Con el-cap. The regulator dissipation does not vary and the el-cap in question is just above the air convection intake (clearly the coldest part of the aluminum enclosure). At 126VAC mains (ANSI +5%) I measured the tab of the regulator at 85c (~80c @120v). So I decided to use a larger heat sink I had in stock and was satisfied with just 50c at 126VAC (47c @120v).

Pace may consider a larger heat sink, but a small plastic shroud may be enough. They have my pics and findings - Cheers!

[Shock]

I thought this was a "Production", "Military grade", "NASA approved" soldering station...
but in fact, it is increasingly looking like a DIY Soldering Station Kit.

Pace has been making production stations like this for decades, so they are increasingly looking... the same. But this one is blue with better accuracy, calibration free and a very comfy improved cool iron. Plus they lowered the price to make them more affordable.

You can make up all the stories you like but they work great. I've done several difficult repair jobs since receiving mine and they virtually paid for themselves before they even got through the door.

[Cliff Matthews]

In any case, if I were you, I would do some "pre-emptive" repair in the station itself, and install a bigger heatsink to the regulator as some other people have already done...  perhaps even a small fan if you live in a hot climate?

Why do you appear to troll? 6 of your 8 posts are from after you bought a used JBC AD2700.. How's that working out?

I'm not trying to be rude, but Pace has dedicated 50+ years of "Heart" to nothing less than the art of soldering and they actually appear here and comment on the forum. They make a side-step into the mid-tier market with some execution flaws they readily talk about, and all you can do is shoot like it's hay-day in the wild-west.

FWIW, they're weighing-out solutions, but they communicate and care. Tell us please.. what company gives service like we've seen at MikesRadioRepair? (and read viewer comments below the video..)

[tooki]

I thought this was a "Production", "Military grade", "NASA approved" soldering station...
but in fact, it is increasingly looking like a DIY Soldering Station Kit.

they virtually paid for themselves before they even got through the door.

oh, I see. I suspected that much.

Do you even understand what it means for an object to pay for itself?

[Shock]

I thought this was a "Production", "Military grade", "NASA approved" soldering station...
but in fact, it is increasingly looking like a DIY Soldering Station Kit.

they virtually paid for themselves before they even got through the door.

oh, I see. I suspected that much.

I own about a dozen irons and stations from over the last 40 years or so. The first Pace station I used was about 30 years ago. Since then I've worked on gear anywhere up to several hundred thousand bucks in value.

One of the secrets to making as much money as you want in electronics, find something that is broken cheap and repair it. It's a sellers market over here as well due to Australia tax, I've noticed similar in the UK although some local items are cheaper there than here.

The point I'm getting at is, even though I can buy all the junk I like, I'd rather prefer to throw my savings into other more important things. I choose to buy something not just because of the price but because it's good value and going fit a purpose.

I knew the ADS200 was going to do exactly what I wanted (and fit the purpose). You may feel the same way about your JBC AD2700 or have decided to pulled the trigger on the JBC BT2BWA because you like the knobs, and that is ok to.

Now all those are facts, "it is increasingly looking like a DIY Soldering Station Kit" is fiction.

[Shock]

In any case, if I were you, I would do some "pre-emptive" repair in the station itself, and install a bigger heatsink to the regulator as some other people have already done...  perhaps even a small fan if you live in a hot climate?

If Pace thinks it's an issue they will sort it out.

[Cliff Matthews]

..it's also made in the USA, which is in fact the real reason  you've been telling everyone to buy this station all over the place over the last few months...

That's quite presumptuous of you to know me so well.. maybe now we can be buddies and you might want to think about contributing to EEVblog sometime. FWIW, I'm semi-retired and have wanted to own a good station for ages. I've known about Pace since working for Telefunken in the 70's. As as a kid, I'd buy PE and PM mags when they were in the small format (likely long before you were born).
Who knows my reasons, maybe I'm irritated at cheap Asian fakes and shit-ass quality and want to MAGA even though I live in Canada? Maybe lot of reasons, maybe I'm now beholden to one of the truest companies that felt good-will enough to surprise an old fart with something free that he can pack in his casket when he finally breaths his last resin fumes.. whatever.
I know this much, I used my station all day yesterday at 370c and nothing but the tip ever got hot, while my arthritis has never been better after holding this little beast for over 2 hours total.

And that is where the rubber meets the road..

[Shock]

If you want to buy American (regardless of the quality) and think everyone else should do the same, just say so. Let's not pretend there is any other reason.

Made in the USA (when the company means it) they are trying to keep their business and community employed as much as possible rather than outsourcing the entire operation to China or wherever and living fat. Sure it's national pride if you live in the US, I'm not from the US but it's a more noble cause than buying crap on Alibaba I know that.

[Shock]

I know this much, I used my station all day yesterday at 370c and nothing but the tip ever got hot, while my arthritis has never been better after holding this little beast for over 2 hours total.

Funny you mention that because I did a rather aggressive test and I couldn't get it hot either. I have a sneaking suspicion some math was used.

[tooki]

I'm sorry , I didn't mean to disrespect your soldering iron. You forgot to mention that it's also made in the USA, which is in fact the real reason  you've been telling everyone to buy this station all over the place over the last few months...
(even before you had the chance to try it out for yourself)... I mean, the internet is a big place, but I seem to find your posts telling people to buy Pace everywhere... here, on youtube.  Was it you chastising Louis Rossmann  on his youtube channel for not promoting American products?... Yeah, it was.
If you want to buy American (regardless of the quality) and think everyone else should do the same, just say so. Let's not pretend there is any other reason.

Wow, it takes a special kind of stupid to accuse both an Australian and a Canadian of only choosing this item because of national pride for a made-in-USA product. 

[omglol]

Sorry to interrupt the chat.

I am buying the ADS200, but cannot decide if it is worth buying ISB Tool Stand or not? How does the software SetBack timer work? If the temperature of the tip does not change by some amount in some time, the MCU assumes the tool is idle and lowers the temperature?

[tooki]

Sorry to interrupt the chat.

I am buying the ADS200, but cannot decide if it is worth buying ISB Tool Stand or not? How does the software SetBack timer work? If the temperature of the tip does not change by some amount in some time, the MCU assumes the tool is idle and lowers the temperature?

I don’t own a Pace myself, but what you describe is exactly how the auto setback on my Ersa i-Con nano works. (When at the setback temp, putting the tip into the brass wool cleaner causes a temperature drop, too, telling it “wake up!”.) It’s not bad, but the one downside is that when it’s decided to begin the drop down to setback and is in the cool off phase, then attempting to use it won’t wake it up, because it’s expecting the temp to drop. A true setback-sensing stand or handle would avoid this problem, and so if I were buying something now, I’d get it with the ISB stand.

[omglol]

I currently own ERSA i-con 1, which has accelerometer built into handle, so as soon as you pick it up (after being idle) it starts heating up. But my ERSA broke down, so I am looking for a replacement.

However, looking at ADS200 user manual, (software) SetBack time can only be set in intervals of tens of minutes, so the lowest possible setting is 10 minutes, which kind of makes it unusable? It would be nice if Pace changed this in firmware so you could also set it to 1 minute, for example.


https://www.paceworldwide.com/sites/default/files/ads200operationmanual816.pdf

[Shock]

However, looking at ADS200 user manual, (software) SetBack time can only be set in intervals of tens of minutes, so the lowest possible setting is 10 minutes, which kind of makes it unusable? It would be nice if Pace changed this in firmware so you could also set it to 1 minute, for example.

Definitely not unusable, it's only 10 mins and if you clean and tin your tips after completing a section of soldering it shouldn't matter that much. But a good question for Aaron from Pace.

[omglol]

Yeah, it would be nice if Aaron could comment on this.

[PACE-Worldwide]

I am buying the ADS200, but cannot decide if it is worth buying ISB Tool Stand or not? How does the software SetBack timer work? If the temperature of the tip does not change by some amount in some time, the MCU assumes the tool is idle and lowers the temperature?

Sorry to interrupt the chat.

I am buying the ADS200, but cannot decide if it is worth buying ISB Tool Stand or not? How does the software SetBack timer work? If the temperature of the tip does not change by some amount in some time, the MCU assumes the tool is idle and lowers the temperature?

Hi Guys,

To answer some of your questions about our programmable Auto SetBack feature in ADS200, the feature was never intended to provide an instant idling capability as our ISB (Instant SetBack) Tool Stand does. It’s more of a safety feature intended to shut down the iron when a user goes to lunch or a meeting. If enabled, it also triggers the AutoOff feature, which cuts power to the handpiece, preventing users from leaving a hot iron on overnight or over the weekend.

Auto SetBack uses the internal tip sensor to perceive a period of inactivity (it must not vary more than ±10°F/C) and will set its Tip Temperature to a lower set point after a selectable period of inactivity (from 10-90 minutes in 10-minute increments). Unfortunately, the sensing of inactivity can be affected by many external factors that prevent SetBack from engaging: air conditioning, any type of fan or wind blowing near the iron, the tip accidentally touching an object, a fume extractor functioning nearby … even the shape of a tip can affect whether or not Auto SetBack properly engages. For example, very low mass fine point tips have always proved more difficult to reliably engage the Auto SetBack feature properly: they tend to trigger SetBack even in use because the tips require very little energy to keep running at a steady-state temperature, so the power supply perceives that the iron is inactive. In the case of some of the very large mass tips, the opposite may occur – the iron never engages the SetBack mode. This is because the front of the tip is at a steady ±2°F/C from set temp when it is idle in the Tool Stand, but the sensor is actually seeing a swing fluctuation of over ±10°F/C, striving to keep it at a steady state. I’m not saying the the Auto SetBack feature is unreliable, because in 95+% of all situations, it works perfectly. But I’ve seen enough of the exceptions to know that the better solution is the ISB Instant SetBack Tool Stand, which uses a simple switch to turn on/off SetBack.

The 10 minute increments are intended to simplify operation of the unit. At one point in time, we had a SetBack timer that was programmable in increments of 1 minute intervals, but that scheme was abandoned when customers complained that setting the unit to 1 minute resulted in false alarms when using certain tips. When I set up my ADS200, I use a SetBack setting of 90 minutes and 90 minutes for AutoOff. This assures me the unit will go turn itself off within 3 hours, just in case I leave it on by mistake.

Why didn’t we build an accelerometer into the handle of the TD-200 Iron? We looked at this and cost considerations came up (handle tooling was crazy expensive & complicated), and most other methods required us to add a wire to the Iron’s cord, making it thicker and less flexible. Since there have been customer issues with the flexibility of our cords, we opted for the tried and true ISB Tool Stand, which avoids thickening of the cord. 

All in all, if you are truly interested in saving tip life, it’s a good investment to buy the ADS200 with ISB Stand.

Bestest,

Aaron

[Brumby]

The 10 minute increments are intended to simplify operation of the unit. At one point in time, we had a SetBack timer that was programmable in increments of 1 minute intervals, but that scheme was abandoned when customers complained that setting the unit to 1 minute resulted in false alarms when using certain tips. When I set up my ADS200, I use a SetBack setting of 90 minutes and 90 minutes for AutoOff. This assures me the unit will go turn itself off within 3 hours, just in case I leave it on by mistake.

Why do time increments have to be linear?  If I was programming something like that, I might have a sequence that might look like: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120 minutes (just an example).

[Shock]

Why do time increments have to be linear?  If I was programming something like that, I might have a sequence that might look like: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120 minutes (just an example).

Not specific to this setting but in general unless it is detrimental to the user, configuration should be as flexible as practically possible. That way you keep everyone happy.

[Cliff Matthews]

I guess no one's posting to this thread anymore.. but since it's linked to the YT video, I thought it would be nice to redirect to the main thread. This covers firmware updates, Pace responses to questions, and other little niggles (as Dave calls them..)

Edit - I wonder if Dave upgraded his station firmware to 1.4 yet, I never saw 'hide nor hair' of it in his moving videos.. 

[scopeman]

Hi there! I’d like to clarify several points in this thread, some of which I’ve already mentioned on the other EEVBlog “JBC Killer” thread started by Cliff Matthews. We are taking every comment posted on the EEVBlog very seriously. Our engineers have reviewed the various comments and are looking at ways we can enhance your user experience:

PACE’s Take on Dave’s Review: Some at PACE were irritated by some of Dave’s comments and procedures during the first video, but most agree that the second revision was objective, fair and balanced, despite the fact that it is not complementary in many places. We agree with him on many points, both positive and negative. It’s been a tremendous feedback experience which will ultimately benefit the end-user!

ADS200 vs JBC: Comparing the ADS200 to the JBC is like comparing a Prius to a Lexus …. But, as Dave has explained multiple times, we understand there was a massive thread on the forum asking if this is a "JBC killer" or not. For the record, PACE’s goal was not to create a “JBC-Killer” which is a premium soldering station at a premium price for both station and tips. It was to design a powerful production soldering station with a wide variety of inexpensive tips that could withstand the rigors of multi-shift production, yet be inexpensive enough to sell to technicians and engineers who simply cannot afford a premium Metcal or JBC. I think we have succeeded spectacularly, if customer feedback is any indication.

ADS200 Display: We agree that there is no reason for the wacky screen anomalies and overshoot flashes when the tip initially heats up. Also, I’ve always felt the flashing of the display/LED during SetBack was really intrusive, but no customer ever directly complained about it on our previous stations! But now we’re in the age of social media, this type of feedback flows freely, and we get it! I believe these things can be resolved via firmware update, but give us some time to get it together.

Look of the Aluminium (we spell it "Aluminum"): We have been using these custom (not off the shelf) aluminum chassis extrusions since the 90’s. Yeah, old school. Some people think it’s great, some sexy (Dave does!!!) and others think it is ugly and antiquated (I tend to lean towards the last one). But creating a modern and sexy new case would have added at least 3-4 months for tooling, required us to redesign the pcb and a host of other issues. In the end, time-to-market concerns and the fact that the ulta-sturdy case is practically invulnerable to burns, 3 foot drops onto a cement floor and other customer abuse, led us to stay with the proven and rugged old-school extrusions.

High $542 price in Australia: Distributor mark-ups are very complicated, especially in Australia and other foreign countries. Mektronics sells the standard ADS200 for $542 Australian dollars which is equivalent to about US$397. Mektronics must ship from US to Australia, an extremely expensive endeavor probably costing thousands. Using the cheapest UPS shipping setting on our website will cost you US$250 for one ADS unit! Plus, add on duty, taxes, Customs etc and voila’! After all is said and done, it wouldn't surprise me if Mektronics made only 20-25% margin on that $542 price. I really don't see it as price gouging. Note that JBC products may not be as expensive to ship since JBC manufactures & ships out of Spain. It’s also possible that Mektronics is getting a special deal or much better discount pricing from JBC. By the way, in Brazil the mark-up is almost 3 times the list price in the US because of taxes and duties!

“Crappy” User Interface?: I don’t agree. Yes, the display is old-school and basic, but we’re going for utter simplicity here. Just push the Red “UP” button to raise the temp, or Blue “Down” button to decrease the temp. Or use the pre-sets. Try to change the temperature with an FX-951 like that and you’ll get a cryptic set of codes that require you to consult the manual (Rossmann describes it as an "80's alarm clock interface"). The ADS200 unit has much more capability built in if you wish to delve into the set-up mode. But our goal was for a customer to open the box, plug in all in, and be up and running, without a manual, within 2 minutes. Done!

I short I recently purchased three of these and a SX-115 and can say that they are all top shelf. The three ADS-200's have the auto setback feature and I have that set for 350F so that by the time I take the iron out of the stand and have it in place to solder a joint it is up to 700F. I also have the autosetback set to it's shortest time to setback setting which should increase tip life. So far in two months of fairly heavy use I have no complaints and can say to Pace "Job well done". I purchased ours from tequipment.net so it may be that they might offer a discount to EEVBlog members but since it was a corporate purchase I did not ask.

Sam
W3OHM

[tooki]

Aaron, do you know anything about what the Swiss distributor is doing? Their website doesn’t even list the ADS200 yet. (I’m not reeeeeaally in the market for a new station, but man that thing is sexy!)

This is their page for soldering stations (rework stations have a separate page) https://shop.sibalco.ch/Kategorie/Loetsysteme-34545154

Sibalco is a long-time distributor for PACE. I'll ask Neil Manson, European Regional Sales Manager to give Sibalco a call to push them to update their site! Surprises me that Farnell isn't listed, as they're a key PACE distributor in Europe.

Aaron

Just FYI, Sibalco still hasn't updated their site to reflect the ADS200, and the PACE website still doesn't list Farnell as a distributor for Switzerland. (Farnell isn't listed for several other countries that Farnell definitely ships to, like Germany. Someone probably needs to go through the whole list of Farnell countries and update your list.)

[pshersby]

I use this station,  was looking for a tweezer handpiece because I'm doing repair work,  none available at the moment but PAce had the following to say about it

Good Morning.
 
Thank you for your recent enquiry via the PACE Worldwide Website.
 
Currently, there is no Tweezer handpiece available for the ADS 200 but I can tell you that one will be introduced later this year.  In the meantime, the MT-100 and TT-65 handpieces are available and can be used in conjunction with the ST 50 Power Source.
 
I hope that this information helps, should you require any additional details please do not hesitate to contact me.
 
Regards
 
Doug Winship

PACE Europe Limited

[joeqsmith]

Cliff's thread is still the main area.   

Yep, no tweezers.  They posted recently with an update.