Aixun T3B strange behavior (must invert Live/Neutral)

[eliocor]

I recently bought an Aixun T3B solder station and it works really well (T115 handle), but...
when I turn it off (switch in OFF position), every few minutes the T3B awakes from the OFF state and after 1 second it turn itself off.

see video (some parts of it are accelerated just to not be too tedious):



I think this behavior is due to the slow charging of the SMPS input capacitor because of small dispersion currents....
In fact the proposed solution*  was: swap thevLive/Neutral connection! See video:



To me there is something wrong in such solution: I live in continental Europe, where a device must work regardless of Live/Neutral connection (mains plugs are not polarized)!

- Should I consider the device defective and send it back?
- Is this behavior acceptable in Europe?
- To your knowledge, what IEC norms discuss about the Live/Neutral swap?
- Just another reason to build a DIY soldering station which overcame this and other problems!


*) it works, but I had just to rotate 180° the schuko plug to solve the problem

[ndarjo21]

Hmmm. Strange problem. Lol. Make me dont wanna buy this soldering station.

[ndarjo21]

Mate, did this station also have problem with overshooting temps and grounded board?

[Swake]

Very strange indeed. That should really not happen. What if you move the station to another socket that is reversed, will you swap the wires again? No it is not realistic to expect a user to have to do that. Looks like a severe issue with the power supply or the grounding.

This reminds a similar situation of lighting appliances with LED's that are still faintly visible when turned off.

The temperature overshoot is on the T3A model, and worsens with firmware 1.34. I don't know if it happens on the B version too, would be nice if someone could investigate that.

Well.... I was in the market for a new soldering station and my mind was going into a T3B-210. After this I will rethink twice.

[ndarjo21]

Yeah. The t420d have overshooting problem based on a comment in youtube. The aixun 320 we havent know it yet cause other people who buy it didnt have thermometer. I also plan to buy t3b or mechanic c211(which use linear transformer). The mechanic nano prime also seems good, but it beyonds my budget. Some other member also buy gvm h3 i think. Maybe we need more time to get a review. Lol

[ruslan_nesterenko]

Hello, could someone please do a full firmware dump of the Aixun T3B? Please!!! First attempts to dump the bootloader from T3A, Mr. c0d3z3r0 on github made a script to build it, but the bootloaders are different. Full firmware works but nibs is not detected.  Please who has a T3B dump! Thanks in advance!

[Swake]

All Aixun firmwares, including T3A and T3B are on github here: https://aixun-updates.github.io/
Is this what you need?

[c0d3z3r0]

All Aixun firmwares, including T3A and T3B are on github here: https://aixun-updates.github.io/
Is this what you need?

That's only the main firmware without bootloader

[Swake]

Pardon my ignorance about the subject. I had the impression that STM32 controllers have a bootloader that is backed in at the factory and cannot be changed.

[ruslan_nesterenko]

All Aixun firmwares, including T3A and T3B are on github here: https://aixun-updates.github.io/
Is this what you need?

Not really, I need the firmware with bootloader. That is, I need a complete firmware image.

[janoc]

Pardon my ignorance about the subject. I had the impression that STM32 controllers have a bootloader that is backed in at the factory and cannot be changed.

Not really true - or rather not quite. While there is a "baked in" bootloader in the ROM that cannot be changed, you can always implement your own and use that to flash the firmware. That is a quite common approach allowing to support things the factory bootloader does not - e.g. flashing from USB on chips that can bootload only from UART (STM32F1xxx), fancy encryption, supporting mass storage bootloading instead of the default DFU, etc.