Hi,
after reading about the adventures some people have with DDE units, I thought to publish my issues with my DME-2A 4-tool unit because I cannot find much info anywhere. I guess not many people own a DME, or they don't have any issues!
It is a great tool, works better than any other station I had before, but I expected to be better for the money.
0. DISPLAY
The display is touch, and maybe this is it's downfall because I see videos of other stations DDE etc with real menu buttons, where the menu is as fast as you can press the buttons. This touch screen is slowwww, it needs about 1-2 seconds to think what you pressed, before acting about it.
1. INDICATIONS
I would expect the display to be more utilized. There are all these pixels standing there and very few info is shown. Especially in my favorite screen with all four tools showing in four windows, it doesn't show temp when in stand, just says STAND/SLEEP/HIBERN. respectively. And in a few seconds that four window disappears and goes back to the single last tool used screen. I want it to stay permanently on four tools!
2. FIRMWARE
This is the firmware it came with, bought brand new in 2021.
The latest firmware on JBC site have a minimum serial number restriction (Minimum Serial: 267898), that excludes my unit which has older serial number and limits my option to the already installed version 8886541. That means there is no hope for future bug fixes? However, there seem to be no missing options from the menu (profiles, station name etc are there), so I'm assuming this is not a case of smaller flash memory MCU, but that Minimum Serial indicates some hardware incompatibility.
3. HIBERNATION
I don't have the problems others are saying about some tools not coming out of hibernation.
All tools are responsible as they should when I pick them up.
BUT, during experimenting, interchanging tools to other stands, confuses the station and hell brakes loose.
Tool connected to Port1 via Stand-on-Port1 but rested in Stand-connected-to-Port2 is identified as Port2 tool and vice versa!
This is logical to the point that it is using the wiring for each stand-tool combination to identify the state, but it makes the practice of two users sharing the same station fail prone, if you have different settings in each tool.
The slow responsive display creates even more misunderstandings.
4. WEB MANAGER LITE
I was not able to connect my unit and control it via the web utility that JBC provides.
Not sure what that would offer me, but it doesn't work anyways.
5. MAJOR BUG (maybe...)
During boot, the station seem to go full power, assuming by bad hardware design until the firmware is loaded.
Is this only in my device, or it's normal and expected behavior on JBC stations, maybe to preheat the tools to start soldering faster? It does seem to heat the Port1 tool(T245) at full temp 320°C(maybe sees it as primary tool) , Port2 tool(another T245) at 150°C(SLEEP temp) and the same on Port3(PA120) at 150°C.
Also, the transformer buzzes a lot on boot and when 2 or more tools are off the stands.