Yihua Soldering Iron Mods

[iamdarkyoshi]

I have one of those 853D soldering stations. No brand name at all on this one 

Pretty much a yihua-quality part, and the handpiece looks identical. but does everyone remember how dave talked about the tips fitting really loose and the thermal performance is not great on his really cheap soldering only station? I would imagine that is due to the air gap between the heater and tip. Has anyone tried putting a metal sleve over the element to try to make the gap smaller? Metal conducts heat quite a bit better than air... Would it be a smart idea or could it pose issues?

[MTNELECTRONICS]

Sure, it could help, provided it is sized and installed correctly---something that could prove to be difficult.  Remember that the heating element is fairly brittle, and that different materials expand at different rates.

Have you tried using the station with quality tips?  You may find that the thermal performance is sufficient for what you use it for.  There is a big difference in my experience between the cheap tips and Hakko / Plato tips, even with the Yihua-style stations.  Even if the fit is similar, it seems like the good tips just work better. 

I currently have three of the Yihua-style stations and used two of them daily for about a year and still use them occasionally.  I also have a Hakko FX-888D.  The tips do fit tighter on the Hakko iron and the thermal recovery is slightly better, but they aren't really worlds apart using the same tips. 

[iamdarkyoshi]

Sure, it could help, provided it is sized and installed correctly---something that could prove to be difficult.  Remember that the heating element is fairly brittle, and that different materials expand at different rates.

Have you tried using the station with quality tips?  You may find that the thermal performance is sufficient for what you use it for.  There is a big difference in my experience between the cheap tips and Hakko / Plato tips, even with the Yihua-style stations.  Even if the fit is similar, it seems like the good tips just work better. 

I currently have three of the Yihua-style stations and used two of them daily for about a year and still use them occasionally.  I also have a Hakko FX-888D.  The tips do fit tighter on the Hakko iron and the thermal recovery is slightly better, but they aren't really worlds apart using the same tips.

The issue is that I really do not want to buy a bunch of genuine tips because of cost... It came with like 13 tips of different flavors and so far, I have used every single one at least once...

[daybyter]

[iamdarkyoshi]

That is an interesting idea. Although my workbench would quickly become conductive and messy 

[Shock]

Got to use the right tip for the job, that video is using a fine point tip, pretty useless for high thermal transfer.

Check the diameter of your heater against these as a comparison:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/genuine-vs-fake-hakko-936-ceramic-heater-a1321/msg239388/#msg239388

I've got the cheapest of cheap Yihua 936 and the fine tip that came with it had some problems staying tinned. I needed more tips anyway so I brought a nice selection of genuine Hakko tips and they worked out great.

Btw, just because it looks like a Yihua doesn't mean your station is, believe it or not even Yihua is counterfeited in China. There are least a dozen different brands out there of the same looking products with different internals, based around the various Hakko models that had the 907 irons.

[daybyter]

Did you considering to put some silver solder on the tip? That might help.

[Shock]

Check out 12:33