The results with the T12 clones seem to vary a lot. Some people have good results while others are total shit. Some people have multiple units with either result. I've been bitten by a well regarded cheap soldering station before and regretted not spending a bit more on a decent and proven station.
Yeah, I mentioned that too in a previous post. I think this is an inherent problem with things that are built to BOM price + a little extra. There's no room for QA and no room for extra care, so you always get a rushed job (of an otherwise good design - maybe).
I know it's been a few days since you wrote that (I've resurrected threads that had come to a standstill months earlier - this is an 'early intervention' by my standards
) but you've hit the nail squarely on its head regarding all those KSGER T12 soldering stations that Banggood had been dishing out willy nillly to every celebrity Youtube reviewer in sight over the past 12 months or so.
The only good thing about this being the fact that most of the reviews were honest appraisals despite one or two failures to spot the glaring safety issues in the controllers which were later corrected for in follow up reviews. Suffice to say that I could see the good side of these KSGER soldering stations and knew all I needed to turn yet another Chinese "Sow's Ear"[1] into a silk purse (both in terms of electrical safety and excision of the more mundane "accidents waiting to happen" poor quality workmanship in the wiring of the handles) when I ordered one from Banggood on the strength of all those reviews.
I know there are some idealists who argue that we shouldn't reward such shoddy design and workmanship by choosing such Chinese Junk over the more expensive western manufactured 'junk' (unfused Weller soldering stations anyone?) but we don't live in an ideal world were such "Protest by not buying" could possibly work.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm living in a world where I seem to be outnumbered a million to one by people who don't give a shit
how things work, just as long as they work (whether by technology or black magic - it's all the same to them) to provide them with today's modern version of Ancient Rome's "Bread and Circuses".
I'm not claiming I'm any better than the uncurious majority of my species, just stating how it is. It's a lot more complex than what I care to expand upon, suffice to say that it's now very obvious that human civilisation (is there any other kind?) is now inexorably headed to Hell in a handbasket of its very own making and the best we can do as we each continue life's journey is to make ourselves as comfortable as possible for the rest of our journeys to the grave (in other words, "Business as Usual").
That being said, I'm more than happy to accept such cheap Chinese technological marvels, "warts and all", safe in the knowledge that I can render them not only fully functional but acceptably safe to use in regard of the risks of electrocution and/or any threat of fire they may pose.
At least I have the comfort of knowing by personal inspection (and, where needed, intervention) just how safe and functional they are, unlike the case with goods of western manufacture where we only have the assurance of conformance to government mandated/enforced safety standards to place our faith in, aided by a free press to ensure these standards are applied and maintained.
I'm not a very trusting person when it comes to matters that concern my own safety.
Yes, these otherwise excellent KSGER T12 soldering stations do have some serious safety issues (along with the more mundane issues of poor workmanship in the assembly of their various soldering handles) so I definitely wouldn't recommend them to complete novices looking to buy their very first soldering iron. You need a collection of soldering irons and the skill to use them to rework these soldering stations into safe and functional devices before you can even chance trying them out without at least the protection of thick rubber gloves.
For those of you with a hobby level interest (professionals with access to soldering kit costing thousands of dollars need not read any further), this KSGER soldering station is your chance to (effectively) monetise your skills, perhaps even justify the expense of that 180 watt Parkside soldering gun you bought a year or two back and only used once in anger by making good use of it now in sweating the diode heatsink off the PSU board to file the end fins down so they clear the solder resist mask that was their only protection against contact with a circuit trace carrying (in my case -UK mains voltages) the 340 volt dc on the big mains rectified supply smoothing cap right next to that end of the heatsink.
It could also be useful in soldering an earthing tail to the soldering iron socket as a means of earthing the metal case without having to drill a hole and fit an earth terminal (the iron itself
was the only bit of touchable metalwork that
was actually connected to the earth pin of the C14 mains socket).
If you'd bought the cheaper plastic cased version, this obviously doesn't apply (and quite possibly in this case, there's a fair chance of it using a slightly different design of PSU board free of this defect). My concern is with the better quality extruded aluminium cased version which I'd chosen specifically for both this and the fact that it was supplied with the "cheap 'n' nasty" plastic soldering handle which I preferred for its simple push fit tip changing feature, light weight and, most importantly, its very short tip to grip working distance which trumps all other considerations imo, oh, and not forgetting its "starter" T12-K tip which most of the alternative options either left out or else cursed with a small collection of tips provided simply as an excuse to inflate the price.
The user interface seems to have been well thought out imo. A rotary encoder with click stops and a push operation being the sole interface input control provides a compact and usable interface. No hunting for the 'right button' to press and no complex to navigate menu system for normal use.
For those of you who haven't viewed the many youtube reviews on the KSGER and have expressed a strong dislike for the way some 'updated' soldering stations have had their 'new fangled' digital interfaces (badly) implemented, here's a brief run through of "normal use" with the KSGER unit:-
Dialing the temperature up and down in increments of your choosing, a simple push to take it out of sleep or standby to your preset temperature (which you can adjust up and down in preset increments of your choosing), a quick twist three clicks to the left to put it straight into standby, if you don't wish to wait for your programmed timeout to expire and do this for you at a setback temperature of your choosing, another three clicks left from there to take it straight back to sleep if you don't want to wait for your programmed timeout to expire and do this anyway, a similar three clicks to the right if you want a timed temperature boost of your choosing with a similar leftward twist to cancel it early - what's not to like about this little soldering station?
For anyone who hasn't already seen the many youtube video reviews on these KSGER units, I can only suggest that it would be worth taking some time out to watch a few of them. It's not all 'sweetness and light' even after all the safety and wiring issues have been addressed.
There does seem to be a peculiar need for each brand new tip to be submitted to a "burn in" process before you can achieve stable temperature control over the tip. However, once "burnt in", they seem to perform just fine thereafter.
There is obviously some initial change taking place with a new never before used tip, when it is used for the very first time, which destabilises the PID control algorithm during the first few minutes of attempted use. With a dialled in temperature of 300 deg C, it only takes 2 or 3 minutes to settle down sufficiently to be usable. I have noticed, however, that selecting higher temperatures (350 or 400 deg), the instability returns again at these elevated temperature settings, requiring an even longer period to settle down.
Unfortunately, trying to speed this "burn in" period by selecting 480 deg doesn't seem to be any help (you can see the power percentage alternate between 0 and 100 instead of settling at or around a sane average such as say, the 18 to 28 percent mark seen at the lower 300 deg setting.
Whilst I've done a modest amount of soldering at the 300 deg setting during the past 4 weeks that I've had it in my possession, I haven't had much chance to experiment with this "burn in" process to the higher temperatures with my remaining unused tips to come to any definite conclusion as to how severe an issue this would be in practice.
I did notice, after persuading a tip to stabilise sufficiently at around the 450 deg setting, that running the tip sensor calibration process would improve the situation somewhat but I still felt the need to re calibrate again before seeing sufficient stability at the 450 and 480 degree settings, settings I don't plan on using on a regular basis, if at all, anyway simply to avoid unnecessary stress on tip life.
One thing I did learn (the hard way - how else!) was that when checking tip temperatures with one of those thermocouple thermometers designed for this job, it's all too easy to mistake the variations in temperature for poor thermal contact when checking a brand new tip that hasn't yet stabilised.
You land up feeding it fresh solder attempting to get an improved thermal contact and stable reading when the problem all along is actual temperature variation of the tip itself so you find yourself playing a futile game of "Chase Will o' The Wisp".
In this particular game, it's "Five strikes and you're out!" rather than the more common three strikes so beloved of American baseball fans and that of their legal system. I'm now down one thermocouple - it fell apart on me.
Never mind, at least I've still got another four left to burn out.
At this rate, I'll be adding a pack to my next Banggood order within the next month or so.
Unfortunately, this makes calibrating a new tip next to impossible until it has achieved some level of stability at the 450 deg mark since this is the starting point for the calibration process which also uses 350 and 250 degree calibration temperature points to complete the procedure. Whilst a calibrated tip seems to achieve improved stability more quickly, it's a bit of a "Catch 22" situation.
Anyhow, this is the only troublesome aspect of my improved KSGER soldering station. It could simply be an issue that afflicts only the clone T12 tips but I'd have to invest just about what I paid for a ten pack of these in order to buy just one genuine Hakko tip to test this hypothesis so I'll persevere for now. In the end, it may come down to splashing out on a genuine Hakko tip but I'll save that option for later consideration.
Of course it's quite possible that this "burn in" characteristic has always been a feature of the original Hakko tips but was never noticed on the more conservatively responding Hakko soldering stations and is only now being revealed by the use of the KSGER's more aggressive PID control algorithm.
KSGER may even have decided that, since it's a relatively short lived phase of the tip's total service life, it would be best to take the long term view and not to try to accommodate this initial short lived behaviour and let the end user deal with this minor inconvenience of having to 'burn in' new tips.
Needless to say, I'd be very interested in seeing a video review where brand new Hakko tips are tested in one of these KSGER soldering stations for just such behaviour. It could save an unnecessary expense on my part (and no doubt many others if the same behaviour is revealed with genuine Hakko tips).
Other than that downside with the need to run in new tips, this KSGER soldering station seems to function very well. Indeed it seems to offer better performance than the original Hakko soldering stations were able to offer with the T12 and T15 tips.
Bear in mind that I've only actually had experience of the basic Antex soldering irons, an ancient 120W Weller soldering gun, long since burnt out and now replaced with a cheap Parkside 180W soldering gun that looks like a Russian knock off of that ancient Weller. The rest is simply what I've gleaned by watching youtube review videos and taking note of their comments.
Going from my own experience, this is a vast improvement over my previous Antex based soldering iron usage where I now no longer have to agonise over whether to switch the Antex off to save wear on its tip and heating element whilst it roasts itself to an early demise keeping a soldering iron holder nice and toasty in between soldering activity when I spend the next "10 to 15 minutes" prepping the next lot of joints to be soldered which typically takes a lot longer than anticipated, or else switch it off and risk the need to solder another joint or two just after it has cooled down and be forced to allow it more time than it really needs to get back up to its unregulated soldering temperature. I reckon my irons have spent more than 90% of their on time just idling away in the iron holder, literally burning themselves up for no productive purpose.
Being able to stop worrying about leaving an iron running hot and idle is the main bonus I'm getting with this soldering station. The temperature control and almost threefold power rating over my 25W Antex is the icing on this particular cake for me.
Others more used to a 70 to 120 watt soldering station setup, otoh, may not regard this as much of an improvement, especially when you take into account the need for so much electrical safety remedial work being required to make it sufficiently safe for peace of mind. That business with the need to 'burn in' new tips could prove to be the "Last Straw" as far as anyone considering it as a cheap alternative to a brand named replacement for their venerable soldering station setup that's seen better days.
Of course, anyone with a set of genuine Hakko T12 or T15 tips might regard this as an attractive alternative to their existing bulky and klunky soldering station(s), especially if the thought of reworking the PSU to resolve the safety issues holds no terrors for them (and likewise for the handles).
Anyway, those are my observations and views on the cheap Chinese made KSGER Soldering stations for what they might be worth. If you haven't already done so, you can find more information by checking out the several video reviews of the various KSGER soldering station options on youtube.
JBG
[1] I've had plenty of experience of Chinese 'skimping' during the last nine months or so with the (in)famous FY6600 arbitrary wave function signal generator manufactured by Feeltech (now rebranding themselves as "FeelElec"). Not so much electrical safety, although there was an element of this with regard to the floating grounds carrying the inevitable half mains live 'touch voltage' common to all Class II smpsus fitted with the mandatory EMC reduction Class Y capacitor which represented an element of ESD risk to any device being tested. It was more a case of overcoming "Bean Counteritus" where the accountants are given more control over design and manufacturing than sanity would otherwise dictate.
Although the problems with the KSGER unit looked typically Chinese in character, what was novel was the fact that such safety issues in an item intended for sale to Western Civilisation should be so blatantly overlooked to the point they were. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed such disregard for safety was even possible, not even by the Chinese. Of course, I'm a little older and wiser now so such shoddiness by the Chinese will be assumed until verified otherwise from now on with any further purchases of electrically powered Chinese manufactured goods.