When I saw the title, I thought the board you were soldering got fried or something. What you have described seem more like a durability issue of the cheap stuff rather than consequences. Actual consequences seem to be: you need to keep some extra tips in stock.
The Chinese cheap tips is less than $1USD each on eBay. Your experience of it wearing out in 6 month so figure a 3 month change-tip cycle. That is merely 33 cents of tip per month.
(I ignored the broken heater element since you made it sound like it was an accident during tip removal).
Assuming you are paying (a very low) 50 cents per KWH for electricity, a dollar of electricity only buys you 30 hours of electrical power for that 65W station. A dollar for 3 months of tip wear is hardly excessive. Had you saved a mere $20 because of the lower cost, that would be a 5 years supply of replacement tip.
I use a 937D Yihua branded (50W, no plus) for over a year now at $46 delivered. I use it about 8-10 hours per week on average. When the station was new, I was expecting issues and did had one problem with it: one of the two hand-soldered plastic plug sockets on the main board had bad joints causing the temperature adjustment to change on vibration. Since I fixed that, I have not encountered any other problems in the last year. 90% of the time I use the 1.2mm chisel. I keep an extra tip in stock but thus far (1 year) that tip is still "almost like new". Fingers crossed - hope my luck holds out.
Rick
But the soldering iron is where it starts to getting bad, i'm talking Really bad...
When I saw the title, I thought the board you were soldering got fried or something. What you have described seem more like a durability issue of the cheap stuff rather than consequences. Actual consequences seem to be: you need to keep some extra tips in stock.
The Chinese cheap tips is less than $1USD each on eBay. Your experience of it wearing out in 6 month so figure a 3 month change-tip cycle. That is merely 33 cents of tip per month.
(I ignored the broken heater element since you made it sound like it was an accident during tip removal).
Assuming you are paying (a very low) 50 cents per KWH for electricity, a dollar of electricity only buys you 30 hours of electrical power for that 65W station. A dollar for 3 months of tip wear is hardly excessive. Had you saved a mere $20 because of the lower cost, that would be a 5 years supply of replacement tip.
I use a 937D Yihua branded (50W, no plus) for over a year now at $46 delivered. I use it about 8-10 hours per week on average. When the station was new, I was expecting issues and did had one problem with it: one of the two hand-soldered plastic plug sockets on the main board had bad joints causing the temperature adjustment to change on vibration. Since I fixed that, I have not encountered any other problems in the last year. 90% of the time I use the 1.2mm chisel. I keep an extra tip in stock but thus far (1 year) that tip is still "almost like new". Fingers crossed - hope my luck holds out.
RickThe stock tip on mine had black oxide not only on the outside but on the inside where the heater was too.
The transformer inside is only about 30W but i think it's enough. Before i took off the tip i tried testing if the iron would sense the temperature drop if i put the tip in water ( 6-8mm in ) but nothing happened, i thought that the temperature sensing was made up, but it turned out that it had a pretty poor thermal connection inside.
As i said i've got a hakko heater and two chisel tips ordered.
As i said i've got a hakko heater and two chisel tips ordered.
Guess what happens with a genuine Hakko soldering station after twenty years?
It still works perfectly.
Guess what happens with a genuine Hakko soldering station after twenty years?
It still works perfectly.
The OP was talking about tips.
Guess what happens with a genuine Hakko soldering station after twenty years?
It still works perfectly.
The OP was talking about tips.
Read again. He was talking about the construction quality of the station, not just the tips.
And the real Hakko tips last a very long time when cared for properly. Not 20 years, but certainly on the order of years for a hobbyist or low volume use iron. My iron is still on the original heating element - knock on ESD mat....
I do understand the very real motivation to buy a knockoff soldering station back when Hakko was $300+USD, but now you can get a Hakko station for under $100. Why mess around with crap when quality is so affordable now?
Also, some of the issues the OP is having looks due to care - or lack thereof - of the iron. The worst thing one can do is to load up an iron with flux then leave it to cook all day. A good iron will come up to temp in literally a minute or two, so there's no reason to leave it on unless you're actively soldering.
Guess what happens with a genuine Hakko soldering station after twenty years?
It still works perfectly.
The OP was talking about tips.
Read again. He was talking about the construction quality of the station, not just the tips.
...
...
Read again. He was talking about the construction quality of the station, not just the tips.
...
I do understand the very real motivation to buy a knockoff soldering station back when Hakko was $300+USD, but now you can get a Hakko station for under $100. Why mess around with crap when quality is so affordable now?
...
@Rick Law
Actually for me 50$ is about a year's worth of saving up.
I remember when i used to solder stuff with an old 65W automotive iron, i even did SMD, although it was a huge pain to do so, i got the station when my old iron made a freaking light show when dying out ( sparks everywhere )
I just got an old GRUNDIG TV to take apart but i can't desolder anything for now....argh, the pain!
To be honest I'm obsessed with desoldering and sorting parts, i don't know why but i love it.
Guess what happens with a genuine Hakko soldering station after twenty years?
It still works perfectly.
The Chinese cheap tips is less than $1USD each on eBay. Your experience of it wearing out in 6 month so figure a 3 month change-tip cycle. That is merely 33 cents of tip per month.
...Assuming you are paying (a very low) 50 cents per KWH for electricity, a dollar of electricity only buys you 30 hours of electrical power for that 65W station. A dollar for 3 months of tip wear is hardly excessive. Had you saved a mere $20 because of the lower cost, that would be a 5 years supply of replacement tip.
I always have a chuckle at people from rich Western countries that disparage budget-priced Chinese equipment and look down their nose at it, as if it was something they trod in.
Guess what happens with a genuine Hakko soldering station after twenty years?
It still works perfectly.
And how much did that Hakko cost?
It really gets old the amount of flak given to Chinese manufacturing - especially from Americans. They are building to a price - was that
And I can't stand the "Wun Hung Low" comments. I find them very racist.
I have a Stahl TCSS soldering station that quit working. After taking it apart I find it uses the zd919-2 circuit board which seems to be pretty common in a lot of soldering stations under several different names. The resistor, R20, which runs from terminal one on a BT136 triac to ground has burnt beyond recognition. I have searched for a schematic to find the value of this resistor without any luck. Does anyone out there know the value of this resistor? If you have a Stahl TCSS station could you open it up and check? The resistor is visible right at the top of the board by just removing the cover from your station. It is the large blue resistor. I am not sure but I think this same zd919-2 is used in the Weller wes51.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
Joe
My point was that Hakko makes an iron that's more than twice as good as its Chinese copies for less than twice as much, making it a solid long term investment.
A soldering station being more complex to manufacture will offer more scope to cut costs in materials used or construction quality for example. But that wouldn't of itself explain the price difference.
I have a Stahl TCSS soldering station that quit working. After taking it apart I find it uses the zd919-2 circuit board which seems to be pretty common in a lot of soldering stations under several different names. The resistor, R20, which runs from terminal one on a BT136 triac to ground has burnt beyond recognition. I have searched for a schematic to find the value of this resistor without any luck. Does anyone out there know the value of this resistor? If you have a Stahl TCSS station could you open it up and check? The resistor is visible right at the top of the board by just removing the cover from your station. It is the large blue resistor. I am not sure but I think this same zd919-2 is used in the Weller wes51.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
JoeAfter some poking around in Google, I found this gif. You may want to check some of the other values to see if this looks like the correct board. Resistor that you pointed out appears to be 0.33 ohm
http://elcoms.my.contact.bg/zd-919.gif
Cosmicray, thank you very much. Some components are identical, others are very close. This resistor goes to one end of the varistor that sets the temperature of the iron. Everything on the board is close enough that it is worth a try. I think the worst it could do is throw the calibration of the dial off but I can check this with a temp probe after I get it back together. This is not a digital display so the dial is not that accurate to begin with. Again, thanks for your help.
Joe