Mike and all, Thanks for the heads up, Mike. I'm wondering if anyone has ordered and received the Circuit Specialists soldering stations which looked like Hakko 936's ? If so could they give us a similar report on that unit?
At $35.00 it is indeed a tempting buy, but with Mike's post...? Thanks, Tom McCulloch, WB2QDG k2 1103 ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mike S) Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2004 10:53 pm Subject: [Elecraft] Soldering station > (this is a resend to the list, the first was bounced by QTH.net > because their postmaster has some brain-dead SMTP spam checking > misconfiguration which produces false positives (for the subject > line "Circuit Specialists 701 rework station:. Grrrrr.) > > About a week ago, Tom Hammond pointed out that Circuit Specialists > had some soldering stations which looked like Hakko 936's ( > http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/7307 ) for a > good price. I noticed that they had a through hole rework station > ( http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/7789 ) which > also looked very similar to a Hakko offering. There has been some > conjecture that these are the same as the Hakko units, but are > being sold by an OEM to Hakko for considerably less. > > Since my 20 year old Pace desoldering station recently died, I > thought I'd try out one of these, especially since the $200 price > was by far better than anything else available. This is about 20% > of what a similar Hakko unit runs. > > I receive my station today, and can report that these are very > obviously NOT the same as real Hakko products. They're Chinese > clones. As mentioned earlier, these are made by Aoyue ( > http://www.aoyue.com/english/index.htm ). From the looks of this > unit, I doubt Aoyue OEMs anything to Hakko - some things are > close, others are functional, but none are of the same quality. > > The desoldering handpiece is of decent quality. It appears that it > will take Hakko spares, including heaters and tips. It could > definitely use a better tip - this one is chrome (?) plated and > won't "tin." The soldering pencil has a rubber grip instead of the > heat insulating foam a real Hakko has, but is overall of decent > quality. Both use multipin "microphone" style circular connectors, > which is different than what Hakko uses. > > The station itself is workable, the electronics seem to do what > they're supposed to (they regulate tip temperature and have an LED > which lights when power is applied to the tip, so it blinks when > the tip is at the set temp). The controls (switches and pots) are > pretty cheap, I'll probably upgrade these. They silk screened > "Circuit Specialists" on the front, but didn't bother with a > Fahrenheit temperature scale. The manufacturer took time to grind > the markings off the ICs on the circuit board (they copied Hakko, > but don't want to be copied themselves, I guess), and no schematic > is provided in the manual. > > The biggest obvious difference is that it uses a completely > different vacuum pump than a real Hakko - meaning no ready source > of spare parts. The pump actually works better than that on my > old Pace. One strange thing though, is that the instruction manual > (in pretty good Engrish [ http://www.engrish.com/ ]) clearly shows > how to disassemble and clean a Hakko pump. The actual pump is > completely different than that illustrated in the manual. > > All things considered, it works well. Time will tell how this unit > holds up, but it seems to be a good deal. A couple of better > quality switches and pots, some real Hakko desoldering tips, and a > bit of time should take care of the minor issues. > > _______________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Post to: [email protected] > You must be a subscriber to post to the list. > Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm > Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com > _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
