I ordered a clone temp meter, but don't know if I should trust that either, it's also from China, but doesn't have any HV to worry about. When it arrives I will try to calibrate tips. It's not really needed in my case since I mostly stay in the 320 to 370 range in temp.
What would you recommend as a test procedure to validate the differences between the clone and Hakko tips?
I already have heated all my tips up for at least few minutes.
I brought the Hakko tips because of the rumors that the clones are bad. The Hakko cost me $11 each and I only needed 3 for now. Buying clone tips seem to come in sets with a lot of types I wouldn't care for. So to get what I wanted would cost about the same.
As for shorting out HV, yes 120v not as exciting as 240v, but since mine is in a grounded metal case I would hope that one of the 2 fuses blow before anything more than frying the insides happen. Yes a pop, internal lighting bolt, fire and smoke may happen. I have shorted a 20amp wall socket and it had sparked more than 5cm coming out before the breaker blew.
The cloned/fake Hakko FG-100 tip thermometers are just as accurate as the
way overpriced originals (think "Russ Andrews' Pricing" on the part of Hakko's sales department) since they both rely on a cheap as chips K type disposable thermocouple with cut 'n' dried behaviour, requiring only a well defined response from the electronics (also a commodity item) to display temperature to within +/- 3 deg C of the hot/cold juntion temperature difference in the TC circuit at typical soldering temperatures.
As you noted, at least in this case you don't have any high voltage concerns. However, the 9v PP3 that's normally pre-installed still poses some risk, even if it has nothing to do with an electric shock hazard. These "Super Heavy Duty" batteries, just like the EverReady heavy duty batteries, are just high current output versions of good old fashioned Carbon Zinc dry cells which, contrary to the adjective "Dry" can become anything but in just a few months time of moderate to heavy use, exactly like the batteries of old.
The resulting 'wetness' from cell leakage is a rather corrosive alkaline solution which destroys battery contacts (and any other metals it comes into contact with) in short order. Provided you catch a leaking battery pack in time, in this case you do at least have the option to replace the battery snap on connector. The round cell battery holders (AA, AAA, C and D cells) usually end up corroded beyond any such redemption, often being an integral part of the device in question which then ends up in a landfill rubbish dump.
Whilst in this case you could take a chance, even though it may only involve a simple cost effective battery snap replacement, it's still advisable to remove the supplied PP3 and replace it with a more reputable brand of alkaline PP3.
Heavy Duty is all fine and dandy when you need several hundred milliamps out of a little PP3 for an hour or two's use where the risk of leakage should never arise because they'll be changed out so frequently they'll never reach the 'leaky' stage (in theory - folk being folk, they tend to confound the battery maker's neat expectations of battery usage).
In this case, just a milliamp or so current demand, we don't need such 'heavy duty' performance. The longevity of Alkaline is the perfect fit with its low risk of cell leakage. You can use "Heavy Duty Alkaline" but you won't see any benefit with such batteries over the 'normal alkaline' type.
If the Hakko tips show some small NTS effect, it's probably a lot less pronounced and over much quicker than clone tip users had been reporting. Once the clone tips have been 'burnt in', they behave perfectly fine afterwards so there's no way you can check this with any of the tips you've been using for more than a few minutes or so.
You might be able to see the effect if you retest at the 480 deg setting on a tip that's only been conditioned for just a few minutes. However, at that temperature setting, it's not a test I'd care to run for more than a minute or two (plenty of time to see any such effect, if it exists) to avoid needless wear and tear on the platings (also, make sure the tip's well tinned beforehand to minimise oxidisation from this high temperature test).
That's why I suggested you take careful note of your next brand new Hakko tip's behaviour on it's very first use out of the packaging. If you've still got any unused clone tips to hand, you can do the same (looking specifically for this destabilising effect on your KSGER's temperature control during this initial 'burn in' period). It's worth doing simply to 'get your eye in' to improve your chances of spotting a most likely short lived version of this NTS effect with a brand new Hakko tip, should you be able to afford yet another one (the ones you've got may well last you so many years, you may have forgotten all about this post by then.
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Despite what is said about the quality of clone/fake T12 tips, they're so incredibly cheap, especially when bought in packs of ten or more, it seems worth investing in a pack of ten for less than the price of, in my case (the UK being served by the usual profiteering bastards all too keen to toe the Hakko line on pricing... and then some!) a single Hakko original T15 tip, and play a "Numbers Game".
I haven't yet had a proper chance at putting my tip collection to productive use due to receiving two too many broken Mustool G600 LCD display microscopes (I don't want to land up with a nose pock marked with soldering iron burns) but when I do finally get such a chance, I'm hoping to gain a better idea of just how bad these clone tips might actually be to help me swallow the "Russ Andrews" pricing on a carefully selected choice of genuine Hakko T15 tips, hence my interest in this NTS effect since it's probably a good indicator of the quality difference between the original and clone tips.
When it's this cheap to verify the rumours about clone tip quality, I'd prefer to make the modest investment in a pack of my own to decide for myself whether a genuine tip or three is actually worth the expense. I mean,
just how bad do these clone tips
have to be before you've burnt your way through more than the price of a single Hakko tip's worth of clone tips in a year's worth of hobby level use with a soldering station that can treat the tips even more gently than an FX-951 station?
There's
every incentive to try out at least one pack's worth of clone tips before making any decision to purchase genuine Hakko tips.
As you pointed out, once the case has been properly grounded to eliminate (reduce) the electrocution hazard (to a vanishingly small risk in practice - there can't be an absolute cast iron guarantee in this being forever true), any electrical faults will be no more dramatic than a muffled crack with perhaps a small wisp of magic smoke seeping out.
I have exactly the same philosophy. In this case, the only difference is that I feel rather obliged to maximise the benefit of opening it up to check for any such dangers by removing any and every such opportunities of catastrophic failure that the Lord Murphy could take advantage of in punishing Mankind's (the Chinese branch of it at any rate) hubris in it's perceived success at mastering electricity.
Earthing the case is simply a backstop measure against the severity of such 'punishment' becoming elevated into the category of 'capital'.
That business of shorting out an electrical outlet neatly demonstrate's the effect of inductance and the limitations of circuit breakers. Basically, 'electrical inertia' in action before your very eyes!
JBG