Knockoff Hot air station?

Repair Tools
#1

Hi everyone,

as discussed with Severence in another thread, i have the feeling my hot air station is slowly dying. I still want to fix it, so i will give it a chance this weekend and attempt a repair on it, however, i prefer to also look for alternative in case of i am not succeeding in fixing it.
From what i saw, Quick 861DW and Atten SD-862D are the most popular and as of today, i haven’t been able to find the Atten (which is the cheaper of the 2) cheaper than 190€. However, while making my search, i stumbled to what looks to be some cheaper knockoff of those 2 stations, like Mechanic who does have a ripped of 861DW station, JDI as well. Sometimes they are cheaper, but sometimes even more expensive, so that wouldn’t be an option. WDYT ? Better stay away, or someone does have a good experience with one of them ? Or in the end, i stay away from those “automatic and digital” version, and i go with something more old fashion, like that :

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Hot Air station
#2

I’d avoid stations like the 857DW in this day and age which use the old 7-seg displays - as it implies a lack of any decent MCU which in turn implies it’s going to have a very simplistic (and possibly inaccurate) PID routine. I’m also not keen on this style of nozzle system

Think this is gonna be a buy once cry once situation tbh :slight_smile:

Can you post a few links to the Quick knockoffs by Mechanic etc so I can take a look?

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#3

Seems to be the best bang per buck… of course dyor and check reviews etc

Seems to have a nicer screen/UI vs the others, but if it’s using capacitive buttons then I wouldn’t be to keen on that… but you can assign profiles so won’t have to adjust often and it’s pretty cheap

#4

Sure i can, don’t pay attention to the price, just wanted to show you the knockoffs i found there :

Funny thing is that they even don’t change the reference, let’s knockoff until the end :rofl:

Something funny i don’t know if it is the same for you, but with shipping to Belgium, those unit are even in general (not all of them) more expensive than the original one, not because the base price, but the shipping cost, which are enormous. The cheapest one i found was just at the same price as the Atten, 185€ something, shipment included. That’s insane

#5

Oh yeah, Seems like the Mechanic ones are a bit overpriced for what they are but I’m sure they are fundamentally the same as any other of this style and house pretty much the same components internally… can’t say I’m to fond of the colour scheme though… I guess they’re going for the Hakko vibe, at least the LCD/UI seems to be better implemented

Imagine the other ones which look identical to the Quick are likely identical 1:1 units, wouldn’t surprise me if Quick themselves aren’t even the original manufacturer and a lot of companies likely slap their badge on the front

Yeah that can happen from time to time, though it’s not helped by how terrible Aliexpress search and sort functionality has became in recent times (I plan on making a dedicated post on this subject)

This one

Is coming in at about 130GBP including delivery my end plus whatevet VAT brings it to at checkout, so seems to be the cheapest for what is arguably a better model, There were a few more of this model in this price bracket with free shipping which may be a better option if the shipping costs are comparatively higher your end.

Not sure I’d opt for the Atten equivelent of the Quick stations over this BST station above as the only benefit I can see with the Atten is the button on the handle (if that’s even a positive to begin with) as it makes more sense to me to just turn on the hot air when I take it out of the cradle to begin with

#6

Yeah, I think that was in the range of the cheapest I found, even on Atten side. Strange that knockoffs are so close to the price of the “originals” if even as you lined out the originals are indeed what they pretend they are. Good news is that it might be unnecessary right now and I will be able to focus on a soldering station first as initially planned because I think I found the issue on my Aoyue. I looked everything, opened the diaphragm, inspect each tube, nothing. Then I started to blow air with my mouth, and noticed it was hard from diaphragm to the rest of the circuit. So I wanted to check the air flow at the exit of the visual indicator with the steel ball, there was the issue. Not much was coming out of that thing. Inspection a bit more, I noticed that until the steel ball was reaching the top, I was feeling the air flow increasing, then nothing , even less air flow once the ball reached the top. Looking closer, I think there must be some plastic seat so that the ball doesn’t block the tube exist completely, I see one at the bottom but nothing on top, at least from deduction. I bypassed this thing, and bingo, air flow is now working fine from 1 to 8 increasing all the way up to the maximum, and the noise has significantly decreased. I think the vibration and rattle was because the air flow was blocked somewhere and the pump was suffering to push the air out. Anyway, glad that i sorted that out, hope this explanation might help someone, I will stick with my hot air for another couple of months then :grimacing:

#7

Really cool you were able to resolve the airflow situation. I reckon with a modern PID implementation (and maybe MCU upgrade) this would still be a decent station… as I’ve said, I do have a soft spot for the physical airflow indicator which I always found more intuitive than any digital reaout :slight_smile:

#8

Sure, but in my case it was the issue :slight_smile: I think the plastic inside the tube got fragile each time hit by the steel ball. But when i see the specs of my hot air station compare to newer one, 23l/min vs 120l/min, i understand why i have hard time to get some components off when comparing to the guys in the youtube videos :rofl:

#9

I’ll have to open my one up at some point and see if it’s suffering the same issue

Interesting, that seems like a hige difference on paper, though it never felt like the difference was that huge… though it’s been a while since I used the Aoyue station s maybe I’d fee the difference straight away

Interestingly the 858D syle stations apparently put out 120L at max too… makes you wonder :thinking:

btw here is a video comparing the BST to the Quick

Not a 100% fair comparison as the board will be retaining some level of heat from after the Quick is used but it had moderate time to cool down and the BST was removing a larger IC, so approx 3 min for the Quick and about 2 mins for the BST … this is completely subjective, but comparing the sound between the two, the airflow sounds less impeded on the BST vs the Quick which is possibly why it’s more effiecient at getting the heat into the board

I’m going to order the BST station at some point to see for myself if it actually makes any difference :slight_smile:

#10

And this one seals the deal for me as a future upgrade, analogue controls! :smiley:

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#11

Awesome, this mod looks so nice, when the time for me to change my unit will come, i think i might go that route as well. So great integration, just insane that manufacturers doesn’t come themselves with such solutions.

#12

Yeah I agree, this should be stock standard on the machine

I like the mod board but it does seem rather wasteful to swap the entire PCB out… though it does also take care of a few annoyances on the stock board/FW

A possible simpler solution to add this functionality might be to use something alnog the lines of this

but this is making the assumption that they have dedicated high/low lines for regular buttons somewhere on the PCB (you’d think they would) otherwise the modification would get a little more complicated :open_mouth:

#13

Yes, that’s the reason why the mod is a bit more expensive than it looks. A bit a pitty to come to that extreme, but i guess the guy didn’t find a way to reverse engineer the original one or didn’t wanted to spend that time instead of designing it brand new ?

looks also nice, but that require indeed to know more about the current one i assume.

#14

Looks also like a knockoff from the Quick, but has the analog control from factory :

Found what is probably the cheapest knockoff including shipping cost, it comes for 140€ all included, i haven’t found cheaper for my place at least as of today :

#15

Found the mod for the Best available on Ebay, in case of :

#16

Not sure I’d have all that much trust in that one, looks cheap and tacky

Is it worth going with this brand given their track record? and the disgusting colours :wink: it’s only 30EUR difference between the two and you also lose the upgrade ability with the Mechanic

Seems cheaper on Tindle unless the delivery kills it at checkout?

#17

I know, but since it was 40€ difference, it is paying half the price of the KSGER or Aixun T3A if you see what i mean. But i am not in a hurry anymore since i repaired my Aoyue, so maybe i can still wait that’s true :slight_smile:
Haven’t checked the deliveries on Tindle, at least there are 2 options in case of :wink:

#18

Speaking of this station… still no reply from the company so doubt they ever will or ever incorporate this functionality if that helps your decision

In other news, the Quick brand of tip showed up, it seems well made, slightllly thinner than T12 on the longer section of the shaft and a touch wider at the end, element resistance is about half that of a T12 at approx 4 ohm so it’s sits somwhere in between the T12 and JBC 245 tips in terms of power (as a result you would require the CFW to use these Quick tips on T12 KSGER station) the end of the tip is comparable to the equivelent T12 style tip in shape and coating length which is a good thing (unlike the JBC tips which suck in this regard) but unfortunately the length of the contacts is ever so slightly different so these tips likely will not work by default in most T12 handles, fortunately it does seem like the handles could be easily modified so the contacts line up but the fit would still be a bit loose due to the slightly decreased diameter of the shafts.

#19

Yep, i also tried to contact them over Whatsapp, he replied, but always something else to the question :rofl:

Always up and downs obviously :wink:
I will order the KSGER next month i presume, and i will see how to get started. I guess there must be some tutorial what are the must to mod on the station, i will try to look over eevblog or so and move forward with it.

#20

Haha, if you start digging, it never ends, funny that one :rofl: