BTW, while KSGER and other stations from banggood etc. may be good for hobbyist use, they probably wouldn't hold up for production use. The quality is questionable with dozens of variants of the same product from different sources. And there's no certifications for safety or otherwise. So it's not an apples to apples comparison. People are used to cheap knock-offs of everything. It seems unreasonable to expect real companies such as Hakko & Pace to compete price-wise with goods from Bangood and Aliexpress.
I'm not saying you're wrong about questionable (build) quality but many of us have had problems with $200 - $500 soldering stations. Plus we're electronics engineers and can fix stuff.
I took a Ford quality course once and was told that quality is meeting the requirement, if the tool does the job and does it well, it's a quality product. But from a cost perspective, real quality is getting it right first time and keeping it reliable.
My Jabe UD-1200 arrived today, I peeked in the box and all looks good.
I bought my Hakko FX-951 from Tequipment.net, I sure hope it's not a fake.
Let us know how the Jabe station is. I wonder how the Chinese come up with these brand names? KSGER? Jabe sounds like a shortened form of Jabe eee cee.
Now if they could cut the prices in half. The station is over $200. And the tips are $11-15 and up. Would be nice if the cost was the same as the knock-off FX-951 and T-12 tips.
Speaking of Pace, I wonder how big the company is. For some reason I thought of thousands people. Looking at Linkedin ("Pace worldwide"), there are only 26 people (probably, more in reality, not everyone is on Linkedin), and by far most of them are not engineers. Seems to be a very small business.
Jabe is set up and tested. It works fine; the 3 tips that came with it are all fairly small, I selected the biggest and tried to melt a spot of 60/40 solder on a solid copper PCB plane, it had no problem at all, took maybe 8 seconds or so.
The unit itself is large, heavy, and sturdy. It has an LCD display with poor contrast but it's readable.
I only paid $180 plus $44 shipping DHL express from Aliexpress - they took about 4 days before they shipped but then it only took about 3 days to get here from China. The outer box had green tape that said "Examined by US Customs & Border Protection" but it came very quickly.
@Gandalf_Sr, how does it compare with t12? Is there a huge difference in thermal performance?
@Gandalf_Sr, how does it compare with t12? Is there a huge difference in thermal performance?
The KSGER T12 (one on left w black handle) is a bit faster but the tip is much bigger. The Jabe (one on right w green handle) is rated at 130W vs the KSGER's 70W altough the power supply in the KSGER is 24V x 5A which is 120W.
My view is that the Jabe is not that much better than the KSGER, certainly not to warrant the $180 price tag; the Jabe is heavier and more expensive probably because it uses a power transformer vs the KSGER's SMPS.
I'd have to get bigger tips for the Jabe to make a better comparison - I might buy one honking great big one.
Interesting. I would have thought the Jabe would at least equal the KSGER. Even though the tip is smaller is has a good thermal mass at the base. It can supply more power and I would think the Jabe has a faster control loop. Maybe try a genuine JBC tip?
Let us know how the Jabe station is. I wonder how the Chinese come up with these brand names? KSGER? Jabe sounds like a shortened form of Jabe eee cee.
Now if they could cut the prices in half. The station is over $200. And the tips are $11-15 and up. Would be nice if the cost was the same as the knock-off FX-951 and T-12 tips.
I've had one of these for about a week now. It works well but the LCD quality is not as good as the original JBC. It's a bit wishy-washy with inconsistent blacks across the display but still quite usable. The other thing is that I had to add an offset of about 20 degrees C to get the tip temperature to match up with the display temperature. It would be nice if JABE could add the tip calibration procedure the KSGER has so you can store different profiles for the many different tips. Also as one of the youtube reviewers said it does not work to well with the C210 Nano iron and tips. But other than that it is as solid and quality made as the original JBC
cheers
I've had one of these for about a week now. It works well but the LCD quality is not as good as the original JBC. It's a bit wishy-washy with inconsistent blacks across the display but still quite usable. The other thing is that I had to add an offset of about 20 degrees C to get the tip temperature to match up with the display temperature. It would be nice if JABE could add the tip calibration procedure the KSGER has so you can store different profiles for the many different tips. Also as one of the youtube reviewers said it does not work to well with the C210 Nano iron and tips. But other than that it is as solid and quality made as the original JBC
cheers
If they're gonna do a good knock-off they may as well rip off the control circuitry too.
Might want to make sure on the T12 clone the SMPS has proper primary/secondary isolation, it's been mentioned the ones with the air gap may have a heatsink that has inadequate clearance.
For your own safety never expect those cheap smps to isolate live voltage properly when switched off. They often are switching neutral, so pull the plug to be sure. Might pay to check both the top and bottom of the PCB for any obvious design or assembly mistakes, while you are there clean the flux off any hand soldering.
Would be interesting to see how much it overshoots as well, I've seen in video jumping around as high as 30C at idle, so this probably explains why you feel the performance is better than the Jabe. But it was probably unrealistic to expect JBC performance from the Jabe anyway.
Might want to make sure on the T12 clone the SMPS has proper primary/secondary isolation, it's been mentioned the ones with the air gap may have a heatsink that has inadequate clearance.
The KSGER PSU PCB has an air gap and it is isolated by a transformer. It needs for the ground input pin to be connected to the case though.
The KSGER PSU PCB has an air gap and it is isolated by a transformer. It needs for the ground input pin to be connected to the case though.
You would have to look, but apparently on some versions a heatsink is placed across the airgap, which has creepage issues.
There is probably a few other design issues like the way the mains connector is soldered to the PCB and the clearance underneath the PCB without an insulating material, but I don't design power supplies, so I'm speculating.
Edit: On the controller check if the VBAT pin of the micro has a resistor to ground (R10 on the PCB), it may cause current drain on the backup battery decreasing its life to 30 days.
Thanks Snoopy.
Those aspects of the heatsink bridging between the high and low voltage sides looks kind of scary, I need to do something about that!
I figured the CR2032 battery was flat as the time I set was lost during power disconnects but it would have lasted all of 30 days if I hadn't have watched that video. Anyway, I removed R10 and put a new battery holder + battery in and confirmed in now keeps time over power outages, I didn't test the current draw by the video says 1 uA which I calculate is theoretically good for almost 23 years.
I'm thinking I'll reverse-engineer the KSGER circuit onto my own PCB, has anyone already done that? I figure it's awful similar to
PTdreamer's here.
I opened up the two units I have and both are slightly different to each other but neither seem to have the backup battery drainage problem.
Hmmm, mine is in an extruded aluminum case and the power connector is soldered directly to the PSU PCB.
I bought two units from different ebay sellers but there are several versions from the official KSGER seller on aliexpress
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32836043839.htmlDoes anyone know what sort of display module is used on these ? Looks really good
cheers
Snoopy, that looks like my head unit. It's an OLED display, do you want the actual part number?
Would be interesting if someone designed a controller PCB that had all the bugs worked and used an AC heater supply. There's also Unisolder but it looks too complicated. And they don't offer an assembled PCB.
Would be interesting if someone designed a controller PCB that had all the bugs worked and used an AC heater supply. There's also Unisolder but it looks too complicated. And they don't offer an assembled PCB.
Why would an AC heater supply be better? My comparison with the big heavy units like the Jabe UD-1200 made me realize that the big units use transformers but that's why they cost so much more; you can't get a 200W 24V transformer for less than $40 on its own.
As long as they are properly insulated, wouldn't a 110-240V AC 24V 5A SMPS supply PCB be better?
Why would an AC heater supply be better? My comparison with the big heavy units like the Jabe UD-1200 made me realize that the big units use transformers but that's why they cost so much more; you can't get a 200W 24V transformer for less than $40 on its own.
As long as they are properly insulated, wouldn't a 110-240V AC 24V 5A SMPS supply PCB be better?
Zero crossing switching, reliabilty and simplicity. Transformers aren't that expensive. And you can reuse them too. If there was something out there which I felt was a good design I would build a soldering station.
Zero crossing switching, reliabilty and simplicity.
SMPS is everywhere, including expensive gear. There is no need to even design it, an off-the-shelf one will just work. So, I disagree that a classic EI/toroidal transformer would add much value to put a heavy clunky transformer. It's the opposite: it would rise shipping and storage price.
Even though I myself use a lot of traditional toroidal transformers and I like them because of the reasons you mentioned.
Gandalf, while I remember check your Hakko FX-951. It's easy to misinterpret the set temp for calibration offset and end up accidentally neutering the stations performance in config.
I was helping a forum member who was having performance issues with a FX-888D, he just came back to confirm it was in fact calibration and tip geometry that solved his issue. So give the manual a good read and check the calibration against your new thermometer at different temps.
It's not necessarily going to make the T12 cart a super performer but you might be surprised, most people seem to have no problem with that station for standard soldering.