Pace ADS200 soldering station

[labjr]

I would go with Dave's recommendation of using ultra performance tips unless you're soldering very fine parts. I think the tips look smaller in person than they appear in pictures. Ultra performance tips have more thermal mass in the tip for a more steady temperature and less PID lag time when soldering larger components. I would describe it as a flywheel effect.

[PACE-Worldwide]

So glad to get great answers here.  Here's another dumb question...

I was investigating why my ADS200 hadn't shipped yet.  Apparently, one of the tips I ordered (the 1131-0051-P1) isn't in stock (even though it shows in stock on their site.  Would also have been nice of them to notify me instead of me having to email them).  I ordered two of the Ultra-Performance series tips (because...why not?)

What is the actual difference between the standard blue series tips and the ultra-performance blue series tips?  The Pace website really doesn't seem to explain it, unless I'm missing it.

In the meantime, I'll see if they have the 1131-0013-P1 instead.  It's almost the same, but a 3/32" chisel instead of 1/8"!  I just figure a chisel point for general work and a conical point (I ordered the 1131-0001-P1 as well) for finer stuff should cover most of my needs.

Hi Philb,

labjr is correct. The only difference between the standard AccuDrive Blue Series Tips and the Ultra-Performance Tips is the the higher mass of the tips. The tips use the same amount of wattage but because they are thicker, and have a more optimized shape, the thermal pipeline in improved, resulting in better heat throughput. This is especially important if you have heat-sinking, multilayered, high mass pcb assemblies. If you are not working with tough, heat sinking boards and components, I would stick with the standard tip cartridges, which cost a bit less.

Aaron

[PhilB]

Sounds good to me. It appears they have the 1131-0013-P1 in stock, so I told them to give me that instead.

Thanks for the info, as a consumer, it should probably be on the Pace website!

[Shock]

Thanks for the info, as a consumer, it should probably be on the Pace website!

It's breifly mentioned in the brochure. Pace has been in the middle of redesigning their website. I didn't realize it was up, looks good.

[Geoff_S]

It's a pity paceworldwide doesn't actually sell worldwide ! 

[PACE-Worldwide]

Thanks for the info, as a consumer, it should probably be on the Pace website!

It's breifly mentioned in the brochure. Pace has been in the middle of redesigning their website. I didn't realize it was up, looks good. https://paceworldwide.com

The old one is still at https://www.paceworldwide.com

Yes, after months of delay, we finally put up our new website! It's not 100% yet, and we only list about 700 products out of 1600, but by the end of this year, we should have everything listed. Please feel free to review the new site. I'm especially interested in finding various glitches that you may find.

The new site also displays list pricing based on your IP address, so Europeans should see prices in Euro, UK residents should see £, and US/Canada should see US$. IN Asia/Australia, it should should our export list pricing (slightly higher pricing) in USD. Can some of you in Europe, UK and Australia confirm?

Thanks all!

Aaron

[Geoff_S]

I looked last night at the ADS200 and it showed a list price of USD $0.  It even let me add it to the shopping cart at that price, but I wasn't cheeky enough to click through to final checkout.  Perhaps I should have

Aaron, just to clarify - is it Pace's intention that international buyers would be able to buy direct from the paceworldwide site at the appropriate export list pricing ??

[PACE-Worldwide]

I looked last night at the ADS200 and it showed a list price of USD $0.  It even let me add it to the shopping cart at that price, but I wasn't cheeky enough to click through to final checkout.  Perhaps I should have

Aaron, just to clarify - is it Pace's intention that international buyers would be able to buy direct from the paceworldwide site at the appropriate export list pricing ??

Shock had informed me of this problem early today. The pricing glitch is one that PACE made because we forgot to insert the export pricing for all ADS200 units & tips. My bad! The real prices should be up by tomorrow. Also, since our website commerce section is not automated, if you ordered the zero price item, someone from our Sales Administration would put a kibosh on the order. When you order through the website, a message is sent to our Sales team and they immediately enter the order, so they would get back to the customer right away about a $0 order.

It is PACE's intention that customers have the ability to buy direct, but that capability was always available with our old site. It was just a super hassle because we forced you to register, then jump through hoops to actually buy. It will be a lot easier with our new site, without the need to register. I still recommend you purchase via your local distributor. Keep in mind while direct pricing may seem less, Australians will have still have to contend with exorbitant shipping, customs/duty costs as well as the significant amount of time in transit and customs delays -- these issues are taken care of by your local Australian distributors. A few months ago, I received an irate email from an Australian customer who was shocked that the shipping cost was more than the ADS200 price. After purchase, the unit took about 4 weeks to receive, partially because of a customs hold-up. You avoid this if you buy locally.

Thanks for the feedback!

Aaron

[Shock]

The website looks really good on my screen, nice clean simple layout. The "contains" and "works with" sections work quite well for your products as there are many options. It seemed very easy to find products and get an order started, I like it. Pass my complements to the chef. Well done.

Recently I became the owner of a new looking Pace Arm Evac 105E Fume Extractor from a liquidated business. It was sitting without the hose like in the image and my wife just saw it for the first time and said "ahh new toy" then slowly to herself "pace arm fume extractor, ooh".

[Simon]

I would be very careful about getting pricing right. You definitely don't want to go and do a cole and palmer!

[mcconkeyb]

Yesterday I ordered a ADS200 Soldering Station direct from Pace and was able to get slow ground delivery from ? to Canada for $35US. Then I selected several tips for this new soldering iron, and when I went to the check out, the cheapest gound shipping was a couple of dollars under $400, nearly 4 times the price of the order. Does anyone have any idea why the shipping on the soldering iron tips is over 10 times the shipping price of the soldering station itself?

The faster shipping methods were so ridiculously expensive that I LOL for several minutes after seeing them. The overnight rate was nearly $5000.00US How many customers do they have using this???

Is this a bait and switch type situation? We'll send you the station for a reasonable price, but now that we have you, ha ha, we will drain you for the tips?

[Styno]

Is this a bait and switch type situation? We'll send you the station for a reasonable price, but now that we have you, ha ha, we will drain you for the tips?

Well, before jumping to conclusions, without more information it might be more helpful to assume Hanlon's razor. Why not first ask Pace what's up?

[mcconkeyb]

Is this a bait and switch type situation? We'll send you the station for a reasonable price, but now that we have you, ha ha, we will drain you for the tips?

Well, before jumping to conclusions, without more information it might be more helpful to assume Hanlon's razor. Why not first ask Pace what's up?

Inquiry was sent 2 days ago, waiting....
In the mean time, they have processed my order for the station, but no word on the tip shipping.  waiting...
Posted this here, just to check if others are seeing the same thing.

[PACE-Worldwide]

Yesterday I ordered a ADS200 Soldering Station direct from Pace and was able to get slow ground delivery from ? to Canada for $35US. Then I selected several tips for this new soldering iron, and when I went to the check out, the cheapest gound shipping was a couple of dollars under $400, nearly 4 times the price of the order. Does anyone have any idea why the shipping on the soldering iron tips is over 10 times the shipping price of the soldering station itself?

The faster shipping methods were so ridiculously expensive that I LOL for several minutes after seeing them. The overnight rate was nearly $5000.00US How many customers do they have using this???

Is this a bait and switch type situation? We'll send you the station for a reasonable price, but now that we have you, ha ha, we will drain you for the tips?

Hi mcconkeyb,

We did indeed receive your first order, but we noticed there was several glitches in the checkout process. For one, the order generated did not show part numbers. And you found just another anomaly in the shipping process! We're working on it and will get back to you soon.

Aaron

[PACE-Worldwide]

Inquiry was sent 2 days ago, waiting....
In the mean time, they have processed my order for the station, but no word on the tip shipping.  waiting...
Posted this here, just to check if others are seeing the same thing.

The first I heard of this tip shipping situation was here in EEVBlog a few minutes ago! So I've reported it and we'll try to rectify it as soon as we can.  We appreciate your feedback and hope you'll keep us informed if you find any other issues with the new site.

Aaron 

[PACE-Worldwide]

RE: New PACE Website

By the way, another glitch has surfaced: Many of you probably cannot access the new website. For some reason, Many people in the US can only link to the old website. It seems that the new site is slowwwwwlly downloaded to various servers around the world, but is taking it's good old time in many areas. For example people in Boston Mass only see the old site, but in UK and Australia, they can access the new! Believe it or not, I cannot enter the new site at the office in Maryland, but I can access it in Virginia, where I live! This is extremely frustrating for us at PACE as well as our customers. Just want you to be aware of the situation so you're not confused.

Aaron

[Shock]

People seeing the old website is quite common when making changes. Takes a while sometimes for the servers to update entries and cached pages. You generally figure out all the customers who have caching or dns problems as the old page loads but the dynamic content (such as ordering) is broken.

[mcconkeyb]

RE: New PACE Website

By the way, another glitch has surfaced: Many of you probably cannot access the new website. For some reason, Many people in the US can only link to the old website. It seems that the new site is slowwwwwlly downloaded to various servers around the world, but is taking it's good old time in many areas. For example people in Boston Mass only see the old site, but in UK and Australia, they can access the new! Believe it or not, I cannot enter the new site at the office in Maryland, but I can access it in Virginia, where I live! This is extremely frustrating for us at PACE as well as our customers. Just want you to be aware of the situation so you're not confused.

Aaron

Thanks Aaron for the update. I got a message on my telephone from PACE, but its hard to return calls during business hours, if you could have your colleges use my email that would be very helpful! Hopefully that part of the order processing works. Cheers, Brian

[knotlogic]

The new site also displays list pricing based on your IP address, so Europeans should see prices in Euro, UK residents should see £, and US/Canada should see US$. IN Asia/Australia, it should should our export list pricing (slightly higher pricing) in USD. Can some of you in Europe, UK and Australia confirm?

Hi Aaron.  How does this work if I'm in Asia, but would want to purchase a station shipped to a US address?  Where I live there's a lot of us who handle the shipping and import fees ourselves because local prices are regularly quite insane.


And... a more general question for existing users (but probably particularly Shock ):  Would it make sense to consider getting an ADS200 when I already have a Metcal MX-500?  (For personal use.)  I love my Metcal.  It's a joy to use comming from Wellers at work I've used in the past, but I've found on some boards I do with any kind of larger ground plane, I struggle with getting enough heat to the joint.  I actually have a repair job which I've put aside indefinitely because I can't solder the SMT inductor in place.  Granted I could try to pick up a bigger tip, or a higher temperature rated one, but the one frustrating thing about the Metcal is it needs a different tip for a different temperature, there's no fine control, and those tips aren't cheap  (while I am... budget conscious).  It probably doesn't help that the MX-500 is only rated at 40W.

[Shock]

And... a more general question for existing users (but probably particularly Shock ):  Would it make sense to consider getting an ADS200 when I already have a Metcal MX-500?  (For personal use.)  I love my Metcal.  It's a joy to use coming from Wellers at work I've used in the past, but I've found on some boards I do with any kind of larger ground plane, I struggle with getting enough heat to the joint.  I actually have a repair job which I've put aside indefinitely because I can't solder the SMT inductor in place.  Granted I could try to pick up a bigger tip, or a higher temperature rated one, but the one frustrating thing about the Metcal is it needs a different tip for a different temperature, there's no fine control, and those tips aren't cheap  (while I am... budget conscious).  It probably doesn't help that the MX-500 is only rated at 40W.

From others observations the MX-500 40W apparently has similar performance to the FX-951 which is 70W.

The obvious advantage of temp adjustable is you can turn up the heat for the application. As for buying another soldering station, I don't see that as a problem. Most people end up doing this anyway when they upgrade. The tip tool also that comes with the Pace is better than a silicon pad for removing tips.

[knotlogic]

The obvious advantage of temp adjustable is you can turn up the heat for the application. As for buying another soldering station, I don't see that as a problem. Most people end up doing this anyway when they upgrade. The tip tool also that comes with the Pace is better than a silicon pad for removing tips.

Hmm, would you consider the ADS200 to be an upgrade over the MX-500 then?  My hope is that with the appropriate tip and set temp I'd have an easier time with ground planes and the like.

[Shock]

Hmm, would you consider the ADS200 to be an upgrade over the MX-500 then?  My hope is that with the appropriate tip and set temp I'd have an easier time with ground planes and the like.

An upgrade in every way but you cannot overcome physics, there is a wall. The only way to deliver more heat into the joint with just an iron alone (aside from prep cleaning and flux), is a larger tip providing more contact, higher temp and more power available to recover losses. I assume the heating efficiency of the MX-500 40W is not three times its power rating, so similar to FX-951 70W does make sense. If I was presented with buying both stations new and even if the MX-500 had similar performance as the ADS200 I'd go with the ADS200 due to the price/operating costs, temp flexibility and aluminum handpiece.

[2N3055]

.. I'd go with the ADS200 due to the price/operating costs, temp flexibility and aluminum handpiece.

This sums it up very nicely.

[labjr]

Keep in mind, the ADS200 heats up in half the time of the FX-951. I imagine it also recovers from thermal loads better.

While SMT has placed new demands of soldering stations to do precision work without damaging components and PCBs, I'm not expecting a product that will weld a trailer hitch at 400F with 20 watts of power.

[PACE-Worldwide]

Announcement from PACE:

We are in the process of reverting the new paceworldwide.com website back to the old version of the site because of major issues with the ordering and search functions. This may take a few days to revert back to the original site, so you may still see the new site for a while, depending on your location. The site will re-launch in the near future.

If you have ordered anything from the new version of the PACE website, all orders have been entered and are in-process, but they may not show up in your account. Please feel free to contact me directly at acaplan@paceworldwide.com if you have any concerns or questions.

Thanks for your patience in this matter.

Best,

Aaron