JBC Handle & Cartridge Data

[floobydust]

Is this for chinese reverse-engineering?
A lot of confusion is because the stand does some criss-cross with wiring between the handle and the base, and goes from 6 to 7 pins.

[a_volta]

Hi,
Which voltage does the NT115 handle work ?

[SiliconWizard]

Is this for chinese reverse-engineering?
A lot of confusion is because the stand does some criss-cross with wiring between the handle and the base, and goes from 6 to 7 pins.

This is a schematic that I posted to help with the pin-out, and it's part of the full schematic (that I didn't release, it's not open-source) of a soldering station that I designed. It is using the standard Hirose connector as can be seen. I don't know anything about the chinese stuff. I can just say that this works, with C210 cartridges/T210 handles.

[DerDaniel]

Hello everybody,

I have an update on my own table. I just made various measurements on a C245-906 and a C470-015 tip.

First, I measured the thermocouple in a molten wax bath (two to be precise).
For this, I melted roughly 250 ccm of wax in a pot with a diameter of 8 cm and a height of 5 cm. The idea was to have a big mass that cools down slowly and uniformly. Unfortunately, it became increasingly difficult to heat the big bath beyond 170°C, and the fuming became excessive; hence, I stopped at that temperature with the big bath.
To get above 170°C, I created a much smaller bath of 2 ccm, which only fit the C245 tip. However, the two tips behaved very similarly in the big bath; hence, I think the thermocouples in these are of the same materials, and we can transfer the findings to the C470 tip.





The second run with the smaller tip definitely produced some interesting changes in the µV/K values at higher temperatures. Thermocouples are not linear; however, the big jump of the µV/K and the fact that the second run ends up with lower µV values at the same temperature suggest that the cold junction heated up.
I had another thermocouple in the banana jack of the DMM that measured the voltages, which showed no significant temperature change. Hence, the cold junction must have been somewhere else. Can anybody elaborate on where the cold junction is, when you have multiple metals and hence thermocouples connected in series?
Furthermore the data hints to the thermocouple's non-linearity coming into effect above 170°C and the µV/K rises to somewhere in the 25 µV/K region. Future research in this region is needed (or just a multipoint calibration of the soldering station).

Lastly, I made several measurements that confirm the equivalent circuit from the first post. If I should elaborate further, please let me know.

If anybody is willing to donate a C105, C210 or C420 tip for the same torture - measurements I mean - please feel free to contact me. However I can't guarantee, that the tips survive. I haven't powered mine yet, so I don't know if the wax got into the tip and it will explode when it heats up.

[OneGeekGuy]

Hi,
Which voltage does the NT115 handle work ?

At least C105 tips with N105 Handle works at 12V AC. I can imagine NT115 since it was "upgrade" from JBC and work with same control units should work at same voltage 12V.

[DerDaniel]

Thanks for the info @OneGeekGuy, I already updated the table.

As you seem to have acces to a C105 tip, could you confirm some of the other data, e.g. the heater resistance?

[OneGeekGuy]

Heater resistance is 3.4Ohm, and for the TC I would need to figure it out how to do the measurements 

I measured heater resistance on C115 cartridge and same, around 3.4 3.5Ohm, so as said I would expect both work at 12V.

I just bought a AIFEN T-S2 solder station with NT115 handle (Clone), I am doing some measurements but looks like the clone cartridges from MAGMA brand have same resistance 3.5Ohm, but the solder station drive them at +-24V DC. I am curious how this would affect the life of the cartridge. The peak power is MUCH higher on the clone than in the real JBC.

Regards!

[DerDaniel]

A huge thanks to OneGeekGuy, he donated a C105 tip for measuring. 

Please see the following for the measurement result.


The measuring setup was again a 2ccm wax bath.
At 160°C the wax started fuming again, I opened the window and the cold air had an obvious effect on the cold junction. This time I had the thermocouple for cold junction compensation clamped to the C105 tip where the two alligator-clips made contact with it. Obviously, the cold junction isn't there either. I'm really running out of ideas where to make the compensation measurement.  However, I think the measurements are significant nonetheless.

A massive thanks to OneGeekGuy again for the sacrifice.

[costas]

Hello ,
At a JBC NANO station, you can use an AN115A tweezer, or you need something modified to recognize it ? I saw that the AN115 version without "A" works
Thank you .

[costas]

Hello ,
At a JBC NANO station, you can use an AN115A tweezer, or you need something modified to recognize it ? I saw that the AN115 version without "A" works
Thank you .

I tried with Chinese C115-k tips and BINGO, IT WORKS, without any modification, the station sees it as NT105 (old tweezers) but accepts it and does all the functions even though the tips for NANO are C105 with 2 "terminals" compared to C115 which are with 3 "terminals".

[tai]

Just purchased AIFEN A2 and was still wondering how can it support all C115(9V)/C210(12V)/C245(24V) in a single model - I guess AIFEN found that as long as power control is there, driving 12V tip on 24V source is possible. Good to know ohm values of the tips are standard as I was suspecting some of their MAGMA tips could be on nonstandard ohm value to support all tip types in single station model.

[Hydron]

RE the 12V/24V question with C210s, this official JBC station uses phase angle control of a 24V output for both C210 and C245 tips:
https://www.weidinger.eu/en/wl46586
In addition to that, it runs a few cycles at full duty 24V before the phase angle control cuts in, which does seem very aggressive and worries me a bit!

Other quick notes about this station if anyone is interested in one:
- I like the no-nonsense approach of just a big knob for temperature change and no bootup time
- There are issues though, probably the biggest being the total lack of a hibernation mode - if you forget to turn it off it'll run at the sleep temperature (180C?) indefinitely
- Phase angle control is also maybe not the best solution in some cases (it certainly can make noise if you have anything ferromagnetic underneath the station)

Maybe time to look at one of the chinese options, especially the dual-iron ones, but they all also seem to have limitations. DIYing a station is also totally doable (and I'm planning on doing it for some Weller WX tweezers I got cheaply) but is also a lot of work.

[harerod]

Hydron, I have a BT-2BWA station in my lab. A really nice tool.
As far as I understood, one can re-program the standby temperature. This requires a tool by JBC (JBC AC-A), which I couldn't bring myself to buy. The more advanced stations (with fiddly buttons and fancy display) can directly change standby temperature.

Here is a post that I made in a German forum:
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/482869

The PIC16F73 is memory protected. However, we can assume that the settings are actually in the 24LC02.
Some more important things came along, so I never followed up on that project.
And frankly - I only use that JBC to debug PCB's, not for production. Which means that I don't spend much on cartridges. It might also help that I have a whole range of cartridges and immediatly change to the cartridge best suited for the job at hand. With the short start-up time, it is also no problem to simply switch the station off, when not in use.