JBC JT6040 Hot Air Station - a look inside + accessories - worth the money ?

[Fraser]

I recently purchased a very nice condition used JBC JT6040 professional hot air station and accessories kit. The unit was originally purchased sometime around 2007 to fulfill the SONY service centre equipment requirements of an Audio Video repair centre. Apparently SONY provide a list of equipment that service agents must have in order to be accredited. The JBC hot air station was such a requirement so clearly SONY liked it !

The owner of the unit advised that it had only been used about 8 times as the tech mainly carried out out work not requiring a hot air station. The Audio Video Centre closed and the JT6040 just went into storage and has been there ever since. The veritable 'Barn Find' of JBC hot Air Stations  I was fortunate to win this system at a very reasonable price and when it arrived it was better than expected. Not only was it in excellent condition, it also included some accessories that were not even shown in the auction 

So what was in the box ?

This was the 'Deluxe' kit so it included parts that are normally optional extras. the parts list is as follows:

1. JT 6040 230V/800W Hot Air Station

2. JT6040 230V 700W Hot Air Wand

3. Foot pedal for foot operated hot air

4. 3 sizes of hot air nozzle, two of which are angled types

5. A complete set of PCB protector shields, Tripod IC lifters and combined Protector/IC Auto lifters

6. Storage unit for PCB protectors and Auto lifters with accessory draw

7. Spare filters for the Vacuum intake port

8. JBC approved sticky flux in brush type bottle

9. Instruction manual.

So there you have it, the complete kit    This would have cost a small fortune in 2007 when it was on sale and would not have been an easy purchase for a service agent to make when wanting to become a Sony Service Centre, especially if not needed for most work taken on at the time. With only 8 uses, I doubt the unit came anywhere close to paying for itself.

For anyone wondering what the PCB protectors and auto IC lifetrs might be.......

A You tube video of the IC removal process using a JBC hot air station and the protection shrouds in combination with auto IC lifters

https://youtu.be/s0cKS2fq43M

It is a great system and the lifters are somewhat rare on the secondary market, except when sold with JBC systems. The clever design helps to avoid collateral damage and the need to hold onto an IC with tweezers whilst awaiting desoldering temperature to be achieved. NO more accidentally lifted traces either. Why no one else has not made clones of the system I do not know. It is very expensive to buy from JBC.

So I had this veritable JBC time capsule in its original box but would it still work ? Hmmmm read on to find out 

The system was assembled and tested..... it all appeared to be working fine and I could see from the lack of oxidisation and discolouring on the wand/nozzles that it had indeed seen very little use. the unit was working well but I had concerns about noises that the main blower turbine was making. It did not have the expected 'clean' howl of a turbine as there was a distinct nocking sound and unidentifiable noises emanating from the pump. I suspected dry Oilite bearings as the unit had been unused for a long time. I was going to investigate the internals of the unit anyway so I was not concerned about the blower turbine needing a service. I also wanted to check the rubber bellows of the vacuum pump to see whether they had perished.

The top cover was removed easily for access to the internal parts. At this point I would like to say that I was disappointed to see an 'all plastic' casing on such an expensive professional product. I am used to the metal cases of PACE and Weller stations. Once the cover was removed it was easy to identify all sections of the design. The control and display boards were in the front section of the casing whilst the main casing plastic chassis contained the power control board, bellows type vacuum pump and Blower turbine unit. The front and rear panels are easily removed to provide access to the various sections of the unit. Not a bad design but I saw relatively poor cable management within the main unit and there were cables that carry mains voltage in contact with the top of the Blower unit that will inevitable vibrate against them. Hmmmm not that impressed on the cable management front 

To remove the Blower turbine unit I had to remove the rear panel and move it out of the way. This allowed me to unscrew the two blower unit mounts from the chassis and slide the blower backwards to disconnect its output pipe from a silicone coupling that forms part of the front panel Wand connector. The JT6040 uses an easy disconnect wand system that allows replacement of the wand and hose in seconds. The wand connector incorporates a 6 pin electrical connector as well as the air path and air seals etc. A very nice and convenient design  . The Blower unit has a 'nose' attached to it that interfaces the various cables with the air path of the blower. This 'nose' is held in place with 4 screws and is easily removed to enable removal of the whole blower unit from the station. A two wire motor connection between the Blower and the main power control PCB also needs to be unplugged.

Once removed from the station, the Blower Turbine unit was dismantled, inspected and repaired. The full story of that repair may be found in another thread on this forum.... here......

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/jbc-jt6040-hot-air-regenerative-pump-repair-help-needed-to-pull-the-rotor/

I am pleased to report that the issue with the Blower Turbine unit has now been resolved and the JT6040 is back in perfect working order. At this point it may be worth me stating the systems specifications:

Station power consumption : 750W

Hot Air Wand Heater Power Consumption : 700W

Wand output temperature range : Officially 150C to 450C but mine goes up to 460C

Wand Air Flow range : 6 to 34 L/Minute*

*The output air flow may not sound very impressive compared to say a Quick 861DW with its claimed 120L/Minute capability but as Rolls Royce traditionally said about their vehicles BHP figures ..... "Enough" applies here  Whilst very high air flow might sound useful, do you really want to be blowing components off the PCB ? In my experience briefly using the JT6040, it does not need anything like its full 34L/Minute capability to get the job done efficiently and without collateral damage.

Well I think it time to start uploading pictures now, so here we go.........


Fraser

[Fraser]

Useful diagrams from the user manual......

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My units Pictures begin here........

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The Accessories  .......

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The following pictures show how the PCB protectors and IC lifters are deployed on a typical laptop PCB.

They are very versatile. The vacuum lift section is spring loaded and the vacuum supplied by the station upon request. There are loads of videos on Youtube showing the process in action of you want to see how well it works. The PCB protection shrouds can be used with or without the IC lifting function, as preferred and vacuum IC lifters can be used without the PCB protectors when there are no nearby components to protect.

Fraser

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So, to the question in the title ....is the JT6040 worth the money that was being asked for it back in 2007 ?

In my opinion, ....... NO 

For a professional piece of rework equipment I have the following negative comments about it.....

1. The unit is in an 'all plastic' casing with a plastic chassis supporting heavy components like the blower turbine unit

2. The wiring management in the unit is not well organised or implemented

3. The Blower Turbine unit looks nice on the outside in its custom shell but it uses the cheapest of Universal brushed motors of questionable build quality. That motor is modified to fit into a design that is severely flawed and involved the removal of the front bearing bracket and replacement with a plastic bracket that mates with a ball bearing race in the blowers compression chamber. The Pump is a Regenerative type and uses a plastic rotor that is press fitted into the ball race bearing before the motor shaft is pushed into its hollow central boss. It is an engineering disaster that does not belong in a professional piece of equipment. In my unit the rotor is slightly warped and was contacting the compression chambers walls  JBC should be ashamed of using such a poor quality part for such an important part of a hot air station. There is no excuse for this and I note that the later JT-2A appears to use the same Blower unit. More recent JBC hot air stations have moved to the 'Snail Shell' compressor design. Let us hope that they have got that one right at the design stage.

4. The control knobs on the front panel are plastic and feel 'cheap' as they operate on small diameter nylon shafts on cheap potentiometers  On pro kit, this is just poor.

5. The LCD display is small and there is no backlight 

6. The Power input cable is hardwired into the rear of the station. Why was a common IEC connector not used ? A daft decision and not what I would expect of a professional piece of kit.

7. The hot air wand does not incorporate a switch to activate the hot air. There is a front panel button that must be held in for hot air, or a foot pedal must be pressed... why no switch on the wand ? PACE have included such a switch on their units and i note that later JBC hot air stations incorporate such a switch. A daft oversight and loss of ergonomics.  Thankfully I can easily add such a station control switch by using the foot switch input of i should so desire.


So there we have it... the JBC Hot Air Station works well, does the job it was designed to do BUT there are some worrying flaws in its design that make me question the expertise/experience of the design team that were behind the JT6040 project at JBC. When it comes down to it, a SMT rework hot air station is JUST a pipe through which air is pumped and heated by an integral heating element... it is not rocket science. To make a good hot air station you need to manage air flow and temperature to meet the needs of PCB rework. It is in the choice of heater power, its regulation and air flow provision that the good stations may be separated from the less good, or darn right poor stations on offer. The JBC is capable of undertaking most SMT rework tasks but the flaws in its design are not what I would expect on professional rework kit.

To end on a positive note, Hot Air Wand diameter, provided nozzles, PCB protectors and IC auto lifters are all excellent and very useful. The Wand has a very nice feel to it and the diameter of the heater shaft is only 15.5 mm. That is a smaller diameter than all but my hot air pencils  This does, of course, mean that the common cheap hot air nozzles do not fit the wand. Such is no great issue however and not unusual amongst other professional hot air stations from PACE and Weller.

Am I happy with my purchase ? Definitely  I did not mind doing some work on the unit and the price I paid for this almost 'as new' unit complete with excellent accessories makes it a genuine bargain for me 

Fraser

[Fraser]

In case anyone is wondering how the vacuum port on the JT6040 is provisioned, it is connected to what is basically a 'fish tank' dual diaphragm air pump operating in a vacuum rather than pressure mode. The two diaphragms are moved using a combination of an iron cored solenoid and magnetic armatures. Nothing very sophisticated but then it does not need to be for the small vacuum required. That said, the vacuum pump in the JBC does not impress with its build quality and could easily have come from a cheap fish tank air pump !
The vacuum pump is switched on and off using a front panel button.

Fraser

[Fraser]

Just some more pictures of the clever IC autolifter operation.

Nice idea and it works well.

Fraser

[asis]

Hi,
Well, all this is implemented in the Pace ST325 / 350 with a better quality using Nozzle + VAN and a good zone soldering system using a thermal profile.

Nevertheless, there are many interesting solutions in the review.
Thank you for your good review and congratulations on your purchase.

[Fraser]

I also own a PACE TF200 and a pair of ST300 hot air stations as I am a fan of PACE kit 

Sadly all of those stations have either dead or missing heating elements  The heater from PACE is scary expensive, just like the JBC heater prices. I did not pay a lot of money for the PACE hot air stations and hoped to convert them to use a suitably high wattage Chinese heater or complete wand assembly. The PACE units are very nicely built but the cost if the heater is a little scary fir the hobbyist user. My JBC JT6040 purchase was far cheaper than the cost if a New PACE heater module. I looked at disassembling the PACE heater module but it is clearly not designed to be taken apart. Like with the JBC heater module, you buy the complete combination of heater, insulation, barrel and rear connector. This is where the Chinese designs are more hobbyist friendly in that you just insert a hew heating element into the original wand barrel and handle.

For information, the PACE heater for the ST300 is $634 + shipping and taxes 

https://paceworldwide.com/replacement-heater-st300-st325-st350-230v


The heater for the JBC JT6040 and JT-T2A is $212 + shipping and taxes. Less than PACE but still scary expensive for a hobbyist.

https://www.jbctools.com/0014107-heating-element-for-jt-t2a-product-1304.html


I bought the high power wand for an Aoyue hot air station that is around 600W so I may get around to converting the PACE units to using that wand. The TF200 offers lots of capabilities beyond those of the ST300.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I have another JT6040 on its way to me 

I bought it as a spares source in case of need. The unit is in cosmetically challenged condition but included a hot air wand that looks almost new and the JBC foot switch. It is throwing an Error 1 and 2 warning that indicates that

Err 1 - The temperature in the heater is not rising - potential heater open circuit

Err 2 - The temperature of the heater is rising too fast !

Work that one out if you can ! It could be an O/C heater and the control circuit monitoring is seeing a sharp rise in the drive to the heater, in an attempt to create a temperature rise, and causing a heater drive monitor trigger event ?  I am hoping the heater is actually OK and this is a control board fault. I will have see but there is no ‘blueish’ tinge to the metal barrel indicating an overheat event. Other units have been listed with these error codes so it may be a weakness in the temperature monitoring circuit design ? If the heater and its two thermocouples are OK, I got myself a spare wand  That alone would be worth more than double what I paid fir the spares unit  It could be that the owner of the JT6040 bought a new wand assembly to repair the station but the Err 1 & 2 persisted so the unit was scrapped. If so, I got very lucky but I am not counting on a good heater. Even if faulty, the wand assembly makes a good basis for experimentation in repairing the heater or replacing it. I have a new element from the smaller JBC hot air pencil that might be persuaded to fit ?

What I really want from the spares unit is the blower pump as I see that as the most likely cause of problems for me in the future. The warped fan rotor niggles me somewhat. The other spare parts will be nice to have. The vacuum pump is unlikely to fail but could be built into its own casing fir other uses. Have you seen how much JBC want fir the simple vacuum pump in its own case ? 

The casing of the spares unit looks a real mess but as I do not intend using it, no worries. I am more than happy to buy a rough unit cheaply rather than overpay for a smart example that is not going to see use, beyond spares. The weird error codes also interest me so it will be good to get to the bottom of that issue. I can start to reverse engineer the JT6040 using the spares unit and so not risk my main daily use JT6040 or need to have it out of service 

To find an ‘as new’ affordable JT6040 and an affordable rough spares donor in a period of a week is luck indeed  I should also state that the Israeli seller of the spares unit was a true Gentleman. He massively discounted the unit for me once I explained why I needed it and just a hobbyist. Even faulty JBC units can sell for serious money as the spare parts are so expensive from JBC.

Fraser

[Fraser]

I previously failed to mention another design flaw in the JT6040 which is so fundamental that I am wondering how this unit actually functions properly ‘as built’.

A hot air rework station with vacuum pickup commonly uses a blower or diaphragm pump to create positive air pressure at the wand and a negative air pressure vacuum diaphragm pump serving a vacuum pickup tool. The Blower needs adequate air supply to compress into its output port and the vacuum pump needs adequate exhaust venting to prevent pressurisation around the exhaust port. We can forget about the vacuum pumps needs here as it is such a small displacement and a diaphragm type that can only pull a small vacuum.

The Blower pump is a different matter. The JT6040 is specified as producing over 30 Litres of air per minute at its wand output. That may not sound a lot but that air has to come from somewhere and the JT6040 has no ventilation or air input ports in its casing..... What ? Surely it needs a nice air intake somewhere for free flow of air into the stations case to feed the needs of the pump. Well JBC designers clearly decided that the pump can scavenge air from the various non air tight joints in the casing around it. There are no holes designed into the case though ! Talk about an oversight. The designer of such a hot air station needs to determine the volume of air per minute that the blower pump needs to meet its specifications and then should provide air intakes in the casing that permit at least that volume of air to enter the case per minute unhindered. If air intake filtration is required (recommended) then the effect of the filtering on air flow should be countered by an increase in air intake cross sectional area. If such remainsinadequate, forced air induction using another pump to compensate for either inadequate intake cross sectional area or the effects of filtration. This adds to the noise emitted by the station so is often best avoided where feasible. I have no idea how the JT6040 meets its blower output specification through only air leakage around case joints but this is poor engineering.

    

[Fraser]

The solution to the poor case ventilation is very simple. I will cut a hole in the plastic rear panel with a hole saw and fit a decorative grille. I will not fit a filter elemental this time as this is for hobby use rather than everyday commercial use.

Fraser

[asis]

Hi,

It was your ginger cat that brought good luck.
Handsome!

You now have tremendous potential for creativity.
Especially for upgrading TF200.
You can very easily make an IR out of it, or in a combination of IR / TF,  and / or use its controller for Bottom Heat.

The TF200 has everything you need for this, including a vacuum lift for remove components, and an RS232 port which probably does active.
You can try removing the 6010-0092-P1 230VAC heater from the cage and replacing nichrome.

In fact, you have nothing to lose.

I understand that ceramics are extremely fragile.
I suggest you, in part, open the end part of the heater, "pushing back" the protective grill, insert a washer there appropriate diameter and gently (!) squeeze out the heater with a plunger.
It may make sense to first heat the body of the heater or sprinkle with alcohol so as not to dry out.

Think about your tactics.

If everything works out, you will restore the TF200.
BTW, what is the state of the TF200. Is the air pump not the same as in ST325?

Good luck!

[Fraser]

Hi asis,

The TF200 certainly has potential but I already own a JOVY 7500 IR rework station and two "cheap and nasty" IR rework stations so returning it to duties as a hot air station seems most sensible for me. I believe the TF200 and ST300 series use the same turbine type blower. It differs to that used in the JBC hot air stations but I had even considered using one of the PACE blower units in the JBC if I had not been able to repair the JBC blower. The TF200 ans ST300 stations are fully operational except for the failed heaters.

Fraser

[Fraser]

The spares donor just just arrived 

That moment when you look down the barrel of the hot air wand and can see a pile of broken heating element wire floating around inside  . It is fair to assume that the heater is indeed the cause of the Fault 1 and Fault 2 indications

The question is..... did the heater ‘fall’ or was it ‘pushed’. That is to say, did it die of natural causes or did failed air flow/control circuit failure kill it ? I will need to determine that in order to label the spares donor accordingly.

Fraser

[Fraser]

The journey into the JBC JT6040 hot air station design continues with the latest spares donor unit.... read on to find out more 

Well the spares donor JT6040 had a few surprises for me today. It is clear that the unit predates my JT6040 and there are significant differences between the two versions.

1. The earlier version (spares donor unit) has an air intake in its rear panel ! I have to wonder why this was removed on my later model. The air intake is a little on the small side and is fitted with a filter so I have to wonder whether it can pass 34 L/min as potentially needed by the blower unit.

2. The blower unit in the earlier version appears superior to that used in my later unit. From initial inspection the older blower version is a twin axial fan design. I hesitate to call it a two stage compressor as this is no jet engine ! The design is smaller in diameter but longer, when compared to the later blower unit. On my newer unit I had noted modifications on the plastic chassis where the blower unit was attached. It is now clear why. The original blower mounts were the wrong height for the later blower so the blower mount risers were cut off and higher spacers were fitted to suit the later blowers mount positions. Why did JBC move from a decent looking turbine blower to a less than wonderful regenerative type blower unit ? I suspect the original turbine became unavailable to JBC so a replacement had to be found.

3. The power control PCB is different between the two versions. I will be looking into this as I may fit the better twin fan turbine unit in my later station 

The front panel PCB's look to be pretty much the same on both versions. The vacuum pump is the same unit in the two stations.


As previously stated, the heater in the spares donor station is definitely dead and has disintegrated. I will have to test the turbine blower to check that blower failure did not kill the heater. Having looked at the state of the stations top casing it is clear to me that it was used by people who did not afford it the respect it deserved ! The hot air wand heater barrel also has small dings in it that suggests abuse by banging it on a hard edge. Such is enough to damage the heater or, at the very least, shorten its life. The barrel cleaned up nicely though so may form the basis of a a future heater rebuild project.

Take a close look at the pictures I took of the stations top casing. There is the very obvious warping of the front edge due to heating from outside but look closer and you will see evidence of many IC's having been placed on the case top after desoldering..... their little 'footprints' are all over the top casing Such abuse makes me sad but is maybe expected from operators who are bored or just plain lazy. Not nice to see though. Such abuse is another reason why a plastic case on such a high end hot air station was a poor choice by JBC. A metal cased Weller or PACE Hot Air Station would shrug off such abuse with little, or no harm done.

So to the pictures of the earlier model of JT6040 station. I do not know (yet) when JBC moved from the black case to the metallic grey colour scheme of when the blowers were changed in the unit.

Am I happy with my parts donor purchase ? Heck yes. The earlier unit contains a superior blower and is very useful for parts/ The blown heater is a pity but not totally unexpected. The spare wand is useful and I may find a heater to fit in the wand or modify the wand to be a smaller diameter hot air pencil. I already have the hot air pencil element 

Fraser

[Fraser]

Pictures continued....

[Fraser]

Pictures continued....