So, yeah... after seeing a few more hot air machines in the past few days, I feel I was too harsh on this thing, mostly for its crappy PCB clamp. Turns out that other cheap IR preheaters use a similar awful design. WTF! I didn't feel it was right to grind on the 5040 when its peers don't seem to offer anything better.
Here's a quick text review. Definitely hit me with any questions!
Overall: it's a fine machine given the price. If you want a preheater and hot air, it's probably the cheapest workable option. If you don't care about the preheater, just get separate hot air and soldering iron -- you'll end up with the same hot air gun and a Hakko iron for the same price and the same footprint.
More detail... I think it has the exact same heat gun as the cheapo hot air machine Dave reviewed in
http://www.eevblog.com/2011/04/25/eevblog-167-atten-858d-hot-air-rework-review/ . No complaints.
The soldering iron works fine. The digital temp seems poorly calibrated but, if you treat it like an analog readout ("hotter, hotter, just right") rather than "exactly 260degC", you'll be happy. Heats up quick, holds a consistent temperature, responds quickly to thermal load, tips are easy to swap.
The preheater works. It's a little hard to dial in, takes a while to warm up, and the clamp is awful, but it turns out that's true of all cheap IR preheaters. Plus this one is not very big and doesn't have an provision for an external thermocouple. Still, I'm reasonably happy with it -- it's already come in useful when desoldering a 26 pin header.
Interally, the 5040-XTS is clean. Good electrical insulation on all the high voltage wires, good thermal insulation between the preheater and the electronics, small, simple mainboard. I didn't take it completely apart but what I saw looked fine. (come to think of it, I don't remember seeing a separate power supply board... At some point I'll have to take out that mainboard out and give it a closer look)
OK, the not so good:
- The clamping thumbscrews on the preheater are dismal! They clamp by screwing against the paint on the lid. This bends the sheet metal and screws up the paint every time. And it doesn't even clamp very well -- the screws move when clamping. My lid is already all marked up and it's going to look awful in a month. Terrible, terrible idea.
- The two screws joining the rear of the preheater clamp to the case have plain nuts pinched against the bottom of the lid. Not captive nuts, not even lock washers. When they come loose (and with thermal cycling, they will come loose) they just drop into the case. Then you need to take the lid off (15ish screws?), fish them out, and pinch clamp back on. Definitely not a quick job. Why didn't X-Tronic just stamp some threads like they did for the two front screws on the clamp?? I have no idea.
- That big vertical bar in back for the hot air holder is a PITA to take off and put back on, and it gets in the way when storing it on a shelf. I don't find it very useful anyway so I figure I'll just leave mine off.
- They include ten soldering iron tips, but they're mostly sharp bevels and cones. No fat chisel tip, my favorite for through-hole and connectors. It's not a big deal but I won't replace my Xytronic until I can find one. (hm, I just looked at the pic of the 5040-XTS on Amazon and it definitely seems to show a fat chisel... maybe I got two of some other tip? I'll have to look tomorrow)
That's about it. It's got some warts but it gets the job done and the insides look nice, not dangerous (important for something that can draw 12+ amps when everything's switched on). I'm happy I bought it but, thanks to the IR preheater clamp sucking and marking up the case, I can't wholeheartedly recommend it.
I'll try to re-edit the video to be a little more fair but that won't happen for a week or two. Sorry! Until then, PM me your youtube username and I'll give you access to the overly long and negative review. That goes for anyone else who's read this far.
- Scott
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