XYTronic LF-1600 Soldering Station teardown - first impressions

[erolsansolo]

Hello EEVBlog,

First time poster here. I thought I would kick off with a teardown for you guys.

Ive been looking around to get a new soldering station for the past couple of weeks. Ive come by this brand which I didnt have any info on previously. Appearently they were pretty reputable brand till something went wrong down the line and they've lost their reputation partly.. (I may be wrong about this, but this is what Ive read on various web sources.)

Anyway, I know all about Wellers, Hakkos and other well regarded brands but I cannot get Hakko where I live, and Wellers are incredibly overpriced here relative to other places. Ive used the "good" of the semi crap clone stuff before which kind of stuck with me for 8-9 years, but it was time to make a change.

There seems to be very limited amount of reviews on this XYtronic brand soldering stations on the web. I chose a model, based on power output, tip availability and price. So I bit the bullet, and got this LF-1600 80W soldering station from XYTronic - made in Taiwan.


First impressions:

The main unit:
Well, its a compact unit with a very small footprint. Actually smaller than I first anticipated.
This is a transformer powered unit with an aluminum chassis with plastic top cover for LCD display. The readout is nice, bright and clear. The adjustment buttons are tact switches and they are very responsive. There is a regular on/off button on the front along with pen connection. The unit is hefty, it has a nice weight to it so its not gonna tumble down your workstation.

There is screws with locking washers all over it - top to bottom. Its solid. No cracking, no rattling.

Every component inside is screwed down securely. The transformer is bolted down from 2 sides with machine screws. The chassis, power jack, backside ESD wrist strap connection, transformer and pen tip cables are all grounded using crimped wires and machine screws. All grounding posts are marked with green paint. The grounding resistance from pen tip to power jack is around 0,45 Ohms.

The control board is held securely with 4 angled screws. PCB connections are securely held in place with good quality connection sockets, shrinked and crimped connection points. All wires are color coded. (Neutral, Line, Pos, Neg, Sensors)

The power cord supplied is hefty featuring at least 3x1.5mm wires with reasonably supple outer insulation.
The power jack on the unit is held on with hot glue as far as I can tell. Its secure with no play but still a proper screw thru jack would have been nicer. This is the only dodgy solution I came across on this product. Not critical but still.. eeehh.. *** correction: the power jack is push thru clip secured type, the hot glue is just redundancy. ***

The control board is nicely laid out single sided PCB with a nice layout. No stray electrolytic caps hanging around. All SMD parts are nicely soldered with perfect alignment, including the tact swithes on the otherside of the board. There is some slight evidence of hand soldering of some components, as there is a very slight amount of flux residue on the PCB but nonetheless, all solder points are clean and tight. The PCB looks much cleaner in person, as I upped the sharpness on the photos.


The Soldering Pen:

The pen is minimalist, with some nice thin construction. Its light and very maneuverable. The grip is of a high quality rubber anti-slip. The tip guard easily screws - unscrews. The heater is of ceramic type. The body of the iron is solid with no radial play. Its cable is supple enough, thin and long enough. 1,25 meters from main unit to the tip when extended. The tips I had ordered with the iron are of high quality. I cannot comment on their life span yet, but at least they are cheap, bears the imprint of XY brand and widely available.

The Holder:

The holder is heavy, solid and dense plastic construcion with 4 rubber standoffs. It doesnt slide around, period. The pen firmly sits in its place with no play. The tip guard is 3mm steel piano wire like material. solid enough. It can also be removed for easier cleaning of the holder. It comes with soldering metal shavings for tip cleaning, but no extra cleaning sponge. The metal shaving ball is not fluxed on arrival, so I recommend brushing some liquid flux on it prior to use.


Heating Time:

From cold start: 
20*C - 200*C around 9 seconds indicated.
20*C - 350*C around 23 seconds indicated.

1mm wide 60/40 solder will start melting around 18 seconds on the wide chisel tip.

Tip actual temp is 20*C-300*C is under 50 seconds. Its not a world record I know but satisfactory for my personal needs.
Tip actual temp at 350*C indicated is spot on when verified with Fluke 87-5 temp probe.


Well this is all I got at this point. Im sorry if I missed anything.
I will follow up here in time, if something goes wrong or anyone raises a question - I will try my best to pass on my humble opinions.

Thank you,

Erol.

[erolsansolo]

First pics

[erolsansolo]

second pics

[erolsansolo]

third pics

[erolsansolo]

last ones

[Seeker7]

Thanks for the tear down! Is this a 220v or 110v version, and where did you purchase it please?

[wraper]

What I see from your pictures, this is nothing special. Just better than most Hakko clone.

[wraper]

What is it that makes a Hakko so special?

That this is their original construction and only lazy one does not clone them.

It's a soldering iron what's to get clever about?

Then why everyone clones it, why not to make their own construction? And actually there is a lot of clever about. Just look at  JBC, ERSA, Metcal

[drakke]

And actually there is a lot of clever about. Just look at  JBC, ERSA, Metcal

Can you point some out please?

[dom0]

The high end soldering systems (i.e. JBC, Metcal, Hakko) use heaters embedded in the tip and tips with very low thermal capacity. Combined with a thermocouple directly at the tip leads to excellent thermal regulation and much faster heating.

It's light years ahead of any design using solid tips and a heater in the handle / shaft.

[drakke]

The high end soldering systems (i.e. JBC, Metcal, Hakko) use heaters embedded in the tip and tips ...

So the heater element is embedded in the $10 replaceable tip section?

[wraper]

The high end soldering systems (i.e. JBC, Metcal, Hakko) use heaters embedded in the tip and tips ...

So the heater element is embedded in the $10 replaceable tip section?

Cartriges cost more than $10.
Ersa does not use cartridge system on high end irons, however heaters and tips have pretty unique construction and very tight tolerance. There is almost no gap between tip and heater, just barely enough to put the tip on. Temperature sensor is visible on the end of the heater and tightly touches the tip just few millimeters away from the end of the tip where soldering occurs.
Metcal uses curie point induction heating at 13.56 MHz.

[erolsansolo]

I got this from a local (Istanbul -Turkey reseller) shop online for under 80 USD. Considering a similar Weller WD-1000 costs around 350 USD with similar heater technology, what I got is kind of a bargain. (for me atleast) This is the 230V version.

The tip seating tolerance is not as good as it should be, but heat transfer is not that bad on huge PCB traces with 10 awg cable desoldering at 320*C.

Also the tip seating tolerance can be improved with a high temp paste. (which Im planning to try).

This LF-1600 unit uses the same tip geometry as some of the Hakko and Weller models as far as I can tell. So technology is the same with them.

[wraper]

This LF-1600 unit uses the same tip geometry as some of the Hakko and Weller models as far as I can tell. So technology is the same with them.

Weller does not make clones of Hakko.

[erolsansolo]

This LF-1600 unit uses the same tip geometry as some of the Hakko and Weller models as far as I can tell. So technology is the same with them.

Weller does not make clones of Hakko.

Im not saying Weller is a clone or LF-1600 is a clone of it or vice versa. just saying tips look similar and have similar dimensions and volumes. So they may be interchangable.

This LF-1600 unit also features user programmable electronic calibration right from the control panel menu. You can appearently offset indicated temp by +/- 99 degrees C if needed.

[wraper]

Im not saying Weller is a clone or LF-1600 is a clone of it or vice versa. just saying tips look similar and have similar dimensions and volumes. So they may be interchangable.

Neither similar, neither interchangeable. Weller is completely different.

[wraper]

What exactly is "tip seating tolerance"? Do you mean the tip is slightly loose when inserted cold? That is what the locking collar is for. Perhaps it expands when heated. If the iron works why fiddle with it? Applying high temp paste will get messy when you change tips for different applications.

One more difference between genuine Hakko and clones. Genuine Hakko Heater and tips have small gap between them. Knockoffs usually have huge gap which prevents good heat transfer from heater to the tip. Therefore while construction looks the same, Hakko performs better. Heater internal construction usually is completely different too, especially in cheapest knockoffs. Some clones use genuine Hakko heaters.

[erolsansolo]

The ceramic heater in LF-1600 is exactly like the Hakko's in the pictures. smooth shaft with a groove running along, and tip of the heater is the same as the Hakko's. The inside is as viewed against a bright light shows again the same as Hakko's. Not nichrome wire spun around, but segmented heating elements throughout at the skin of the ceramic element.

On further analysis, when the iron is cold, the soldering tip is kind of loose seating on the heating element, but when heated it makes a fairly snug fit with the heating element. So there is no need for further modifications.

I cant say if this is a clone or not. If it is, then its a perfect clone with no drawbacks which makes it virtually the same as the "original". There is a significant spare part support as well.

Buy, and use as is. For under 80 USD, its a fairly good quality steal imho.

[GreyWoolfe]

+1 for what wilfred said.  Have fun with your new soldering iron.  Use a good solder (my preference is 63/37) and flux and enjoy.

[mcinque]

I have two lf-1600 and I'm satisfied. Quick heating, decent power, decent construction, various tips (of course not Hakko's wide selection) compact size, 3% temperature difference between tip and the lcd and at an affordable price... onestly, I can't find that huge difference that some say with a basic Hakko FX-888 station...

[ypkdani]

Hello all,

for the owners of this station my suggestion is to flash this with the open firmware realized here https://bues.ch/cms/hacking/xytronic.html.

After the upgrade the performance are straordinary!!! You need only an avrdude compatible programmer like an usbasp programmer, on the lf-1600 pcb there is a compatible connector with this kind of programmer for a fast flashing.