Pace ADS200 soldering station

[Shock]

Yeah looked like tequipment were slow to up date their prices. The free shipping and discount code is what makes it great to buy from them as it's a little sweetener on top of their prices, which I've found are generally competitive.

[winston_charges]

Pace ADS-200 or Metcal GT-90?

My primary use case is soldering bullets on 8-10 gauge wire, maybe 6 in the future, for r/c batteries and sometimes replacing ESC leads (same wire) where I don’t want to heat the board any more than necessary. While they are simple jobs they are very important connections and I’m sure both stations are a nice improvement over weller 1010. Both stations have decent discounts atm.

Not sure where the metcal is made, obviously the Pace is USA.

Is there still any issue with the ADS-200 and decent size chisel tips in the ultra version? I would assume that was a teething issue that’s long resolved?

[Shock]

There are two versions the GT90 and GT120, both made in China as far as I'm aware. The release videos looked like it was a little slow heating. It's not as quick as the MX5200 series, I doubt they can make a cheap temp adjustable station with the same performance and wouldn't it make all their other products obsolete?

They take both cartridges and conventional tips but the implementation of this was a bit weird, swapping small parts over on the plastic handpiece. An external smps is negative for me due to reliability and clutter. Probably best to look at the cost of the tips and decide if the lower performance, conventional tips, cheaper model ideas are worth it. Or do you go the expensive GT120 route with cartridge tips and what benefit will it bring you, at what additional cost.

[Shock]

No problems with the Pace ADS200 I'm aware of, and yes there are large chisels.

[tooki]

The case of JBC CD-1BQF is probably NOT made of aluminium.

I had that station at my old workplace. It's plastic.

Temperature cannot be adjusted when the handpiece is in the stand.

Indeed. Completely inexplicable design decision.

Handpiece and stand must be kept clean to make good contact or the sleep function will not work. (Marked red on the attached picture.)

This never proved to be a problem, and that job was at a vocational training center, where apprentices didn't always take the best care of things. About 20 benches, each with a JBC, and sleep was never a problem in any way, no matter how dirty the handpiece and stand. I cannot imagine how dirty you'd have to get it for the sleep detect to start failing.

[Bud]

Temperature cannot be adjusted when the handpiece is in the stand.

Indeed. Completely inexplicable design decision.

Not only that, it also nags you with a message that stays on the display for several seconds and blocks the keypad. Drives me nuts....

[winston_charges]

Maybe some helpful information if you're looking at picking up one of these while the discount is active...
If you order from Pace worldwide, the lowest cost version without ISB stand now comes with a single tip. Not so from tequipment.
On Amazon, there is a version without ISB stand that includes 3 tips, with a different set of tips than every other combo, forgoing the 1/32 point for a 5.15mm ultra chisel tip, which is is sold by and ships from tequipment, but you are stuck with the $17 dollar shipping and tequipment will not sell that station and tip group through their website directly, even if you take 40 minutes talking with their chat and request a quote. Even though I would prefer that three tip set I have to lose the free shipping and 6% eevblog discount so over all it's probably not worth it.

I was hoping they would sell me the ISB version with the same three tips they include on the amazon package, but no go and took too much time for them to get me an answer. In fact, after 30 minutes I had to go and they emailed me later and said they couldn't do it. I was quite surprised and figured a custom quote for basically something they sell on Amazon would be easy.

[bdunham7]

I was hoping they would sell me the ISB version with the same three tips they include on the amazon package, but no go and took too much time for them to get me an answer. In fact, after 30 minutes I had to go and they emailed me later and said they couldn't do it. I was quite surprised and figured a custom quote for basically something they sell on Amazon would be easy.

I wouldn't count on the Amazon description to be accurate--the Pace p/n they list for the kit that purportedly has that 5.15mm chisel tip (8007-0584) is the exact same p/n that is listed on Pace and TEquipment sites with the standard tip set.

https://paceworldwide.com/ads200-accudrive-soldering-station-td-200-3-tip-bundle-120v-only

The base kit without ISB (8007-0578) is the same on both Pace and TEquipment sites but as you say, Pace says that a 1/16 chisel tip is included while TEquipment says no tip included.  I've no idea what you'll get if you order this, perhaps Pace added the tip to the package without changing the p/n or perhaps you'll actually get a tip with the TEquipment version.  In any case, 6% plus free shipping more than covers the price of a tip.

My strategy is to get the ISB/no-tips kit and then buy the tips I actually want.  The differential cost of the 3-tip kits would only make sense if I actually wanted all 3 of the tips they offer.

[winston_charges]

My strategy is to get the ISB/no-tips kit and then buy the tips I actually want.  The differential cost of the 3-tip kits would only make sense if I actually wanted all 3 of the tips they offer.

Yeah that’s what I’m gonna do. The only way the tip combo was gonna make sense for me was the tip group listed on Amazon which I would use all 3 size chisels, but need to get through tequipment for the shipping and discount code, or it’s a wash at best. The Amazon tip combo wasn’t available with ISB stand either.

If my use case is almost always to turn the station on and use it for 5-30 minutes and then turn it off, is ISB beneficial to tip life? I would probably only use it maybe 6 times a year. Leaded solder only. I get that for $20 on the kit it’s probably recommend, but a cable to the holder seems like just enough of an inconvenience to make me wonder. I assume it would be in my best interest to set the ISB delay to 0-5 seconds range?

[Shock]

It's easier to just get the ISB version in my opinion. You can always desolder it and reattach it later if you change your mind. Making one isn't worth your time.

One benefit of a shorter timer and low setback temp is less baking of flux on the tip and resulting fumes. Aside from that the convenience is really the "instantly on" part as the station has sleep and standard setback anyway (though longer timers). To come out of standard setback the tip needs to see a temp drop or you can hit a button on the station.

You'll probably figure out your timeout preference as you use it. I tend to adjust things based on how annoying they are.

[Hydrawerk]

The case of JBC CD-1BQF is probably NOT made of aluminium.

I had that station at my old workplace. It's plastic.

Some old JBC compact stations used to be made of aluminium I think...

[bdunham7]

Got the ADS200 yesterday and I have a few observations.

First, it's interesting to see the late-70's technology--PLCC, red LEDs, 7805 regulator and 5V logic, iron transformer, etc.  And then there's the low-volume industrial construction--extruded housing (but cut at jaunty angles), crude die-cast front frame that has been sandblasted to hide the grinding marks.  Assembly was good except they left too much cable inside the ISB stand and it was hitting the iron.  I'm not sure whether that's all good or bad--I suppose it cuts both ways.  It's certainly durable and repairable.

At first glance it certainly works well.  I got larger tips (the large Ultra miniwave and the 13/64" chisel) and with the latter I was able to solder up a penny in short order.  Another review mentioned that you really can't get 120W out of it and so far I concur--even with the big chisel tip the power consumption of the unit peaked at 90W and the station draws ~8W at idle.  I was using the 370C setting, perhaps you won't get 120W at that temp.  Has anyone managed to get 120W of heat out of the unit?

As others have noted, the 7805 regulator plus its non-anchored heat sink (why?) are right up against the filter capacitor.  Fortunately, since it is just "flapping in the breeze" you can just bend it out of the way a bit.  I wondered if that really mattered and how hot the regulator was running, so I took an IR photo of it.  There's about 28V being dropped across the regulator (I measured it) and after ten minutes or so it stablized at ~80C, so not terrible but not something you want butted up to the capacitor.  Maybe some Kapton tape on the capacitor would be good.  The whole circuit board seems to be sort of "hey, it works", which it does.

[bdunham7]

So on the power thing, I tried measuring the input current just to see how it behaves.  It looks like it uses a balanced zero-crossing cycling at ~300ms intervals, so it is either on or off.  The means that the temperature setting won't affect the maximum power throughput.  This confirms that even with the 5.15mm/13/64" chisel tip, it is nowhere near the advertised 120W.  This is the input current during a startup cycle, voltage was controlled to 120VAC +/- 1V.  This means that there is maybe ~75-80W at the tip.  Hmmmmm.

[Shock]

It's probably the calculated peak power rating of the station on paper rather than averaged measurement. JBC provides theirs as peak now so I assume Pace does the same.

This lines up with the T12/T15 handpiece of 70W. As well as the T245/A which was originally about 75W, then 90W and currently listed as 130W peak (I highly doubt their station suddenly jumped in performance).

Pace already had an entire series of Intelliheat ST stations which were rated about 80W and the WJS rated 120W (fairly fast stations). Back when I did the ADS200 heater supply voltage and resistance math (not a perfect calculation) I got about 90-110W pulses.

[bdunham7]

It's probably the calculated peak power rating of the station on paper rather than averaged measurement.

If your 120W 'peak' is the tippy-top of the sinusoid, which is pretty much what you see in my screenshot, then (and only then) you have 120W.  But that's a pretty scandalous way to rate power, sort of like PMP (Peak Musical Power) in those 5000W car audio amplifiers.  It certainly makes me wonder how much the ADS200 actually outperforms a good T12/T15 based system for large soldering jobs.  Anyone with both an FX-951 (or similar) and an ADS-200 system care to comment?

[Shock]

I've got two FX951 but only a couple of tips as I didn't want to invest too heavily. Best I recall is the fine tip was about 14s from room temp to over 300C/570F. I disabled the lockout key and buzzer, had a short play and then threw them in a box.

One thing that really disappointed me, as the FX951 stations were secondhand and cheap (wouldn't have brought if they weren't) it also meant secondhand handpieces. The sleeves (sponges) are quiet disgusting and I think the handles are sort of a softer plastic. Anyway I ordered a new handpiece that came with a sleeve and first time I connected the sleeve into it, already started to see plastic fatigue in the handle.

[bdunham7]

In case anyone reads this and is contemplating whether to take advantage of the Pace sale, I don't want to unfairly malign the ADS-200.  There are some errors in the way I measured the current and a real issue with how my scope deals with gated measurements.  It looks like the system can do at least 90-100W with 125V input and perhaps even more.  I'll rewrite this post when I have more info.

[Hydrawerk]

My JBC AM-2A rework station delivers about 90W to the C245 series cartridge...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/jbc-am-2a-soldering-station/msg2324346/#msg2324346
I am not sure about new JBC compact stations. I do not have any.

[bdunham7]

OK, I think I've resolved the largest issues.  The first was my Klein x10 line splitter and Fluke i400E current clamp--it turns out that the position of the clamp makes more of a difference than it ought to and there is actually a volt or so sag in the splitter under load (yes, even at 1A!).  I switched to an i1010 current clamp, verified it was accurate using a calibrator, compensated for all the sags to make sure the ADS-200 had at least 120V under load and switched the scope to AC coupling.  This is about as accurate as I'm going to get using input current until I come up with an improved system for doing these measurements.  Taking the ADS-200 apart far enough to measure the actual power to the handpiece directly is more than I want to do, unless someone has a handpiece where their cat chewed the cord. 

The results show that there still is not much justification for calling this a 120W system.  First I measured the test setup noise with nothing turned on, then I measured the input current with the handpiece disconnected.  I also had a Kill-A-Watt in line, this agreed closely with my current measurements and showed that the ADS-200 has 8.0W and ~14.8VA standby, with a PF of 0.56.  The Kill-A-Watt display can't react fast enough for the rest of the test.  As you can see, the input current over a complete cycle--including the off time for tip measurement--is 843mA, or ~101VA.  The current over just the actual on-time is 940mA, or ~113VA. 

In my estimation, claiming a power output of more than 85W for this system as measured would be questionable.  There's the possibility of almost 100W during the on time, but unless it has a mode where it can be on a greater percentage of the time than shown here,  that's not a reasonable way of rating it IMO.  And then there's likely to be some additional losses in the system, but since I can't accurately quantify them I'll give Pace the benefit of the doubt and assume that 100% of the difference between standby and full-on ends up in the tip.

[Shock]

The ADS200 is temp regulating with controlled 8-10ms pulses. Variances in line voltage and the tip sizes may change up averaged power as well. I've not logged any of the regulation, but it looked fine on my scope years back.

I don't think any manufacturers implied any station delivers the stations power rating "constantly" to the heater. Without measuring direct at the heater (accurately) power has only been a best guess when appraising performance.

What I look for is the heatup speed based on the tip mass. That mostly accounts for the regulation and you can assume you'll get a similar recovery speed. The important part is similar to JBC heat up speeds (which isn't so clear on their display) and better than the FX951. Even appears better than Hakkos newer FX971 station (100W rated handpiece). Seemingly Hakko thinks 6 extra button presses (than needed) to change the temp is still a good idea.

Check out this Unisolder video which shows the Paces handpiece heat up on a differently designed controller. Obviously you cannot expect that much controller in the ADS200 (Pace designed it to look like their other stations), but you can see the similar performance (on another 120W capable station).

I don't consider Paces station overrated. You can see the Unisolder station reporting just over 100W at full speed (Unisolder has a lower voltage I think). There are diminishing returns in performance over 100W for these class of handpieces, past a certain point the tip has to be wider to utilize it.

[bdunham7]

I don't think any manufacturers implied any station delivers the stations power rating "constantly" to the heater.

Well, the ADS-200 never delivers 120W as far as I can tell, even with 132V input.  And the lowly FX-888 appears to deliver 60-65W all  the way up to 350C and even more (80+ W) at lower temps.  My main concern here, beyond my belief that truth-in-advertising is important, is that I have a job coming up that involves some high thermal mass soldering tasks.  I will definitely find out how the ADS-200 stacks up there.

The station is very nice to use and already has a home on my bench, so I'll move on for now and ask a different question.  Which tips are best for mid-to-large thermal masses?  And for normal assembly and rework?  I've got the large ultra miniwave and the 13/64 ultra chisel.  The tips seem very light, are the ultras much better than the standard?  And are those really big chisels (1/4 and 5/16) worth getting?

[tooki]

The station is very nice to use and already has a home on my bench, so I'll move on for now and ask a different question.  Which tips are best for mid-to-large thermal masses?  And for normal assembly and rework?  I've got the large ultra miniwave and the 13/64 ultra chisel.  The tips seem very light, are the ultras much better than the standard?  And are those really big chisels (1/4 and 5/16) worth getting?

Big chisels are a huge help when doing things like shield cans or coaxial connectors, especially if big ground planes are involved.

[Shock]

For the best thermal performance. Largest tip for the pad possible with greatest contact surface, but avoid exceeding the pad size too much. You can always use temperature control if it's too hot. Prep the pads and component by cleaning and use flux.

I have the tip tinned and cleaned immediately before using, place the tip on the pad and touch some solder into the junction, pause then pulse some solder either into the pcb/component or molten pool until I have a nice fillet. This helps by allowing the heat to transfer to the pcb/component preheating before full solder flow and by adding additional fresh flux from the solder wire which aids in wetting/flow.

If you cannot solder joints in a reasonable time then normally you have the temp too low or need additional preheating to reduce the delta temp. For drag soldering tips are typically multiple times wider than the pad width as you are preheating pads as you move, again start with a clean tip and use flux on the pins/pads.

Might as well get the ultra version of the tips where possible.

[Shock]

Saw this old image of Paces cartridge handpiece design with a transparent socket, shows where the oring is etc. The TD100, TD100A and TD200 are basically the same thing internally. TD is an abbreviation of Thermodrive.

[grantb5]

Thanks!  We just got a new unit at work and the o-ring came out. We had no idea where is was supposed to be located.