DEADLY WIRING FAULT ; Atten 858D+ Hot Air Rework Station

[Lance]

No kidding. Can you take apart the nozzle where the fault is? Also correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the el cheapo PCB material that I currently forget the name of? Dave was complaining about it in the shanghai special.

[sacherjj]

Mine came today, a 110V version.  My tip is grounded properly.  The only major fault I see is the lack of grounding on the metal case.

[firewalker]

I believe Dave should issue a warning to his review description.


Alexander.

[shadewind]

I agree about the warning. I'll probably get myself an Aoyue instead, they seem to be of higher quality in general.

[saturation]

A recent report:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20110520/tc_yblog_technews/explosion-at-foxconn-ipad-factory-kills-2-in-china

When you hear of explosions and deaths in an electronics assembly factory, not electrical, you wonder about products like this.

Maybe Foxconn provides them with tools with the same focus on safety like this Atten rework station.

[Sionyn]

Q.C PASSED sticker

passed my arse

[Fraser]

This little hot air station is turning into a bit of a disaster area ! I have bought one but have yet to find time to correct the issues that have been discovered. Until then it sits in disgrace within it's box  

So far we know that the earthing can be poor or even incorrectly wired, the fan case can be subject to butchery, the handpiece design poorly accomodates the fan, heater cables are pinched, the air intakes are poorly formed and almost obscured, and finally it's output temperature stability with differing air flow rates and nozzles is poor. A recommendation to buy ..... I think not.... unless, like me you are willing to correct the above issues as a little project. At the cheap asking price it may, or may not, meet the needs of the hobbyist with available free time to sort it out.

I believe it may be worth Dave revisiting the ATTEN 858D+ and highlighting some of it's design compromises as an education in what the Far East manufacturers do to corner the market in cheap equipment.

Do I personally regret buying it.... interestingly NO  The unit is compact and has the potential to be very useful to me. I have a larger and heavier W.E.P 852D+ that is used in the lab and the 858D+ will suit my mobile needs. I will just have to sort it out first. No great shakes for me when I find a spare few minutes. At around £45 delivered it is still 'cheap as chips' if that is all you want to spend.

[sacherjj]

My fan was not as bad as Dave's but one side of the grind made an 1/8" hole.  It works pretty good though.  Definitely work the purchase for the price.

[ToddFun]

I picked up a nice BlackJack Hot Air Station at Circuit Specialists for $99 on sale. No problems that I noticed.
http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/9751
They are normally $119 USD and it is a very nice station for the price too. The added vacuum wand to move the chips around is handy and it has a mechanical arm that holds the hot air wand for you over your work so you can use both hands on the board. Just wave the board under the hot air wand with one hand and then pluck your chip or component with the vacuum or tweezers with the other hand.  This even makes assembly easier.  It works with through hole too but I find I have to suck the bulk of the solder first.

[Fraser]

There are definitely some good deals out there at the moment.

Sadly we have to dismantle our new purchases in order to check their safety and build quality as outward appearances can be deceptive. Your unit looks very nice indeed but it would still be worth doing some basic checks on the earthing, positioning of internal cables and fusing etc. I suppose the end user is now the QC officer for these products.

FYI ......The BK4050 is £120 in the UK from Circuit Specilists Europe. Once again the US$1 = GBP1 magic price converter strikes 

[ToddFun]

Yes, You're right. I should do a QC on it. I will video the tear down and checks at my "Dave Jones fan boy want-a-be" blog site www.toddfun.com
To busy right now with other things so it's might be a few weeks unless I get that itch.

[Didder]

I just received an Atten 858D+ hot air rework station direct from China.  When I plugged it in and switched on it was completely dead - no display or any activity.  On taking the front panel off I found that the power input socket had been mis-wired and mains active was tied directly to the exposed metallic parts of the heat gun.

This is a potential killer - no pun intended.  Please if you have purchased but not received one of these items check the mains wiring before switching on.  Even if you have one that appears to be functioning ok it would be best to have a look whether it has more insidious faults such as neutral to earth or active-neutral transposed.

For what it's worth the serial number of my unit is 1042111302610.

hello got one of these yesterday, good looking machine. How would I go about fixing this bad wiring problem, also would you have a picture of the problem.

[hannobisschoff]

man that is bad
surprised it did have any sort of qa test

What's a qa test?

[saturation]

A quick report, I received a 858D this week that was pre-made for 120V; its was sold via eBay direct from China as an Atten brand, but it came as a WEP model, with a different box, but the same accessories.

The build quality is lower that Dave's video.  It had a fine cover of dust, more outside than inside the unit.  I disassembled the unit and cleaned it.

The following are immediate issues, more later.  Tracing the power lines, its fused to the hot line and properly grounded, but its the neutral line that's switched. 

The 20mm glass fuse panel mount holder is made with low quality plastic that it disintegrated with a single opening.  These models come with 120V transformers, and the power cable is not removable.

Photos and more later, since I continue to dissect it and haven't been able to turn it on.  Just a word of caution if you order one, you have to do your own QC, i.e., quality control, since the manufacture of this item has fairly erratic QA, quality assurance.

[Madman]

I ordered a 220V too but haven't received it yet. I will do a full check-up before plugging it in. Thank you all for the heads-up :-)

[saturation]

I've completed a 'QC' safety inspection, basic circuit analysis and performance test on the 120V unit I received, and I'm impressed it works so well for something so cheap.  Once you get the bugs ironed out, its well worth the $63 I paid.

More later, but here are key items. 

I've re-viewed Dave's good video.  I'm not sure who cloned who, but there are subtle build difference between WEP/Yihua versus Atten, or it could be these are 120V versus 240V models.  If you need 120V, you must buy the 120V unit as the heater is mains powered.

Operation principle:

The unit is basically a mains powered hair dryer, with a "light dimmer" style Triac to adjust temperature to the heater, and the speed knob is a variable resistor that just reduces VDC fed to the fan.  A uC receives feedback from the heater sensors to maintain output temperature as dialed in. 



Here are the key issues:

WEP units have Yihua labeled PCBs, Dave's Atten had Atten labeled PCBs and used a different uC 

"120V" units have different transformers, in my case a 110V/50 Hz labeled one

The heater assembly is for 110V

The heater assembly has a temperature sensor than maintains output temperature once dialed in

The handset interface PCB has some exposed parts that were shorted with solder debris when I received mine, I had to clean it up and cover it with liquid insulator

The power switch was connected to the neutral line, I re-routed it to switch the hot line

The heater shroud is grounded, so are all exposed metal parts

The dialed in temperature needs to be calibrated to properly read output in Celsius

 

[saturation]

The mains plug is hard wired using a snap on strain resist then glued to the chassis, this is different from the Atten 858 unit reviewed by Dave.

The glue is weak.  Above it is the fuse holder with a plastic bolt.  Initially, the insulated heat shrink blue wire was nearly touching the casing of the transformer.  It was repositioned as in the photo, also the other end of the fuse block was bent away from the transformer body.  The fuse holder wasn't tightened properly so the assembly eventually spun when the fuse was screwed back in, breaking the glue hold that initially held it to chassis.  Simply tightening the plastic bold was enough, and I'll add better glue later. 

From the 120V, mains wiring, the blue wire is hot to the fuse, with the output wire going directly to the PCB.  The yellow wire is grounded to the transformer mount, the brown wire is neutral headed to the switch block.  The hot wire and neutral wire has to be rewired for safety reasons.



You can see the transformer is 110V for the 120V market.  The color code for the secondary is labeled GRE but the wire is yellow.



The heat gun has its shroud grounded by a high temperature soldered white woven insulated [ probably glass/silica] wire.  The heater is wrapped with mica paper and inserted into the shroud.  The yellow wire is the reed switch sensor.



The wiring harness interface PCB.  The white woven ground wire on the left is connected to the green ground wire on the right.  The yellow reed switch wires on the left are grounded on one end and then to a yellow sense wire on the right.  Note, the exposed wires with insulation stripped off; these were shorted by solder debris were later cleaned and the exposed wires covered with liquid tape.  The clear and grey wire on the right are connected to the neutral line of mains voltage and are connected to the large pair of red wires on the left.  Red and blue wires on the left are thermal sensor wires from the heater and are connected to the same color wires on the right.  VDC power for the fan is from the black and brown wires from the right.



The heat gun disassembled. Power to the fan is taken from behind the PCB.  The mains wires are the solder points to the far right on the PCB, well separated from the VDC and DC sense wires grouped on the left.  The nozzles of this unit are bolted to the gun like a clamp, versus Dave's unit had which were simply inserted.

[saturation]

I noticed a manual, FWIW, is not available on pdf anywhere on the net.  I scanned the English section as png graphics for reduced size.

Last fault I found, the ground connection from the heat gun to the chassis is not connected because of insulation caused by the paint.  Paint has to be stripped off on all screw joints so a proper connection can be made.  This also is required to make better connections between the top metal cover and the bottom half, where the ground wire is screwed in.

[saturation]

858D temperature calibration.  Updated data now inline with Hakko's recommendations.

The heat gun was fixed with a helping hand and a 1000 Celsius K-thermocouple fixed 5mm from the nozzle tip with another helping hand, and the angle adjusted for the maximum temperature transfer.   Per Hakko, this produces a fairly cosistent temperature in the 'sweet spot' and minimizes variation of temperature with air speeds.

858 8        5 LED speed speed 120 120 121 150 148 146 200 203 202 300 310 315 400 412 420 480 494 493

858 LED = readout of unit in Celsius
8 speed  = #8 fan speed temp in ^oC
5 speed  = #5 fan speed temp in ^oC


http://www.hakkousa.com/kb/Article.aspx?id=10340&cNode=0T3N5T

[SimonIremonger]

I found, indeed, that the casing was not grounded anywhere!  Same problem with paint all over the place.
Also, the mains plug didn't comply with BS1363 (shrouded earth pin!) and contained 13A fuse, highly inappropriate for the very thin bundle of strands in the cable...
I changed cables, scraped off paint all of those spots, and added a ground tab using the transformer's connection to the casing, directly to the earth pin on the inlet.

Initial looking at the circuit board suggests, also, that little attention is paid to isolating low and high voltages anywhere.  Had anybody noticed this?

[saturation]

I didn't think its too big a risk, as the minimum for safety was the chassis grounding and the fuse.  However, if you feel so compelled, you can take a dremel tool and cut grooves into the PCB to separate the mains voltage from the DC voltage.

As example, see the pic I posted of the handpiece PCB: this combines VDC for the fan connection, the temperature feedback sensor and the line voltage VAC for the heating element. 

The 2 large red wires at the bottom are VAC.  Its fed by the grey and clear wires coming from the station, on the right of the picture.  Notice how the DC and AC elements are grouped together and separated, and from the lighting you can see the conductive traces behind it.



I think the separation is adequate, but if the AC did cross over into DC it would burn the components and at worse open circuit the device and at best, sustain a short long enough for the fuse to blow.  So, insure the fuse is well done and your grounding connections good.

I found, indeed, that the casing was not grounded anywhere!  Same problem with paint all over the place.
Also, the mains plug didn't comply with BS1363 (shrouded earth pin!) and contained 13A fuse, highly inappropriate for the very thin bundle of strands in the cable...
I changed cables, scraped off paint all of those spots, and added a ground tab using the transformer's connection to the casing, directly to the earth pin on the inlet.

Initial looking at the circuit board suggests, also, that little attention is paid to isolating low and high voltages anywhere.  Had anybody noticed this?

[ablacon64]

Man, this is crazy. I'm glad you're fine. I've never seen something like this before, someone may get killed indeed.

[SgtRock]

Dear Tasman"

--I am glad to hear you are all right. You may indeed have saved someone's bacon with your warning. First they try to kill you with their fritzy "One Hung Low" DMMs with phoney CAT certifications, and now this. I am constantly reporting substandard knockoff products to eBay (a fat lot they care). Lately eBay  is swamped with phoney Hakko parts that do not fit right and may ruin your good Hakko equipment.

--Apparently a bunch of these mainland companies ship all of their incorrect first attempts and mistakes by beginning solderers out the back door and into the grey channel. Then they claim that was not us, it was one of those dastardly knockoff companies. If somehow they do get enough bad feedback, they just change to another one of their endless stream of identities.

--I had one of these companies tell me they would replace a two dollar defective party if I would change the feedback. I told them, that if they were truly honest they would replace the part and then ask for a change of feedback. I then told them I did not want a new part, but that I would change the feedback if they stopped selling it. Answer came there none.

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[saturation]

The 858D is not something you'd run out of the box, but a unique feature of eevblog is finding value in devices and then hacking them to reveal their better potential.  In the case of the 858D, the basic design is sound, but the implementation requires rework.

[Chet T16]

I was sure i took my 858 apart when i got it and it was fine, starting to doubt myself now :/