Recent Posts

1

Repair / Re: Metcal PS-900 Soldering station heats up to over 400 °C

« Last post by Everbrave on Today at 08:24:59 pm »

You might need a tip that could also cope with the higher power, the problem with the PS-900 caused the element to burn out. I doubt the transformer is the limiting part.
My testing with the SP200 tip was to get the PS-900 working, it's not something I used long term.

I think the next most expensive model they offer (MFR?) may use the same/compatible tips as the SP200 but I've never seen one of those and I'm not sure what power they run at. Might be better to dig up some info on those and see if it's the same inside as the PS-900 but with a bigger price tag - the board has lots of missing bits which suggests either unimplemented features or cost cutting.

I have both the SP-200 and the MFR-1110 which also can have a hand-piece that can accommodate the SSC cartridges used with the SP-200. The MFR-1110 itself comes with another hand-piece for the SxP cartridges. The MFR runs at 60W which means the SSC cartridge can also run on 60W.
May be it is worth trying reducing the inductance of L3 a little, perhaps making a new inductor instead of modifying the original one, and see how it behaves
Any suggestions?
Thanks

2

Other Equipment & Products / Re: Soldering station, simple and resistant

« Last post by tooki on Today at 08:24:42 pm »

Excuse me, how come the Ersa 30 S 30w reaches 380° C and Multitip C25 with 25 w reaches 450 º C ? I thought that the temperature was proportional to the watts.

Temperature vs power is only proportional (more or less) when everything else is unchanged. But in those two irons, they’re clearly very different designs. The C25 has a much smaller mass to heat, and less surface area for heat to dissipate from, and uses smaller tips that won’t conduct as much heat.


Think of this wildly exaggerated example: suppose you have two heating elements for water. (Also assume that all tests start with the same temperature cold water, in the same ambient temperature and conditions.) One heating element is 300W, the other is 2000W. Which one will heat the water more? If you put them each into a 1 liter container, they will both boil the water, but the 2000W will clearly boil the water faster. But if we put the 300W one into a 1000 liter water tank, and the 2000W one into an Olympic size swimming pool (2.5 million liters), neither will boil, but the 300W one will eventually reach a steady state temperature that is much higher than the swimming pool.

3

Beginners / Re: Lifting and tilting 0402 SMD LEDs by solder paste while soldering

« Last post by ebastler on Today at 08:23:44 pm »

Yes, this time it looks like the paste did not want to wet the PCB either. Since it did that nicely in your prior attempts, maybe the PCB did not get up to soldering temperature.

As an experiment you could try to melt some solder paste onto an LED with a regular hand soldering iron. Just to check whether the LED contacts get wetted nicely or whether they don't "like" the solder paste.

4

Buy/Sell/Wanted / Re: SALE (World): Rigol DHO-804 Oscilloscope

« Last post by thm_w on Today at 08:22:14 pm »

You'll clearly get a good scope as there are already 16 positive reviews.

They are just editing out the logo for whatever legal or paranoia reasons. But as mentioned, no chance of warranty. So not really worth it unless its a lot cheaper than local.

5

General Technical Chat / Re: Submersible missing while visiting Titanic wreck

« Last post by floobydust on Today at 08:22:08 pm »

Think of all the money saved! Just have to type fast. "We tried to do that every five minutes" lol.

6

KiCad / Re: Learning KiCad lesson 1 - uploading footprints from SnapMagic?

« Last post by MarkS on Today at 08:19:53 pm »

I find them really only useful for obscure footprints and 3D models, but by the time I'm done correcting the weird mistakes, I'd just be better off making it myself.

7

Mechanical & Automation Engineering / Re: contact burnishing tools?

« Last post by Jeff eelcr on Today at 08:18:39 pm »

I used one for many years, started on pinball machines.
The one I had was a pen style, it held many thin replaceable blades.
Thin strong blades can give access to areas not easy to clean without time consuming disassembly.
The blades are similar to very very fine sandpaper but last a lot longer.
Pressure is what can cause damage to the contacts, to much and you remove more material than required and wear the blade and contact faster.
Jeff

8

Mechanical & Automation Engineering / Re: Astonishing machinery hoard

« Last post by thm_w on Today at 08:17:52 pm »

Everything is piled on top of another and nothing is plugged in, not sure how you would show the capability of any of these machines.

9

Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff / Re: DAB radio / Bigger (external) screen

« Last post by coromonadalix on Today at 08:16:35 pm »

to add     there is DAB radio projects floating around,  the hard part to get is the tunner section

some have done with avr, raspi and other ...   you have usb tunners ...  who can provide such functionalities ...

10

General Technical Chat / Re: Submersible missing while visiting Titanic wreck

« Last post by coppercone2 on Today at 08:16:35 pm »

hahaha
https://news.yahoo.com/news/hear-doomed-titanic-subs-sonar-170355060.html


I know that won't work too well I have seen spreadsheet blobs that could hang a super computer

it does not like going into the higher audio band, I imagine with ultrasonic there basically way no navigation system in excel