@gsuberland How does the OKi/Metcal MFR series price up in comparison?
I vaguely remember my 1110 only costing a few hundred, came with the handles, and the tips were about £20 a pop at most.
@azonenberg is that actually practical for generalist work?
the thing that attracted me to the FX-972 is the two 100W ports meaning I can run the standard or micro alongside the heavy duty handle and never have to fire up a second unit no matter what.
the FX-100 looks fancy and is actually cheaper than the FX-972 would be (since it's just one handle) but the "temperature set by the tip" thing seems like it might be a bit of a pain.
@gsuberland I have two FX-100s to satisfy my one complaint (no dual output), one micro and one standard handpiece.
I run everything at constant temp and have never had a problem. Of course I'm also primarily doing new designs with SAC305 and not working with ancient SnPb dinosaurs or exotic low melting point alloys or anything.
But being able to go from big chunky SMA connectors to 0402s and back on the same iron/tip is super nice.
@azonenberg two units would be nice but would definitely be waaaay over my price range, so yeah, would have to swap back and forth.
is the induction heating really so good that it can match a traditional ceramic heater at twice the power? I'm finding that my FX-888D's T18 tips struggle on bulkier stuff and they're 65W vs. the FX-100's 50W output (granted the T18 tips don't have the sensor in the tip so they're naturally prone to temperature sagging)
@gsuberland 400 for the normal iron, currently running a 350 on the micro which is a little underpowered sometimes but digikey was out of the 400 when I ordered it.
For most work the 350 has been fine because I'm typically using it for precision stuff like touching up a single QFN land that didn't have enough paste on it.
@azonenberg yeah I was wondering if the 350 might be a tad too low. I usually run around 375 on the T18 tips so it was a bit of a 50/50 guess. going higher makes sense though.
@azonenberg@ftg@gsuberland I used their hot-air station but aside from some little quality-of-life features like the friction-fit nozzles and remover-blade in the base, it didn't really seem any better or worse than anything else I'd used.
@azonenberg@ftg@gsuberland I currently have a JBC CD-S plus the bigger CD-B handpiece, have used Metcal MX, Hakko FX-951, FX-888. The JBC is my favorite of those with the Metcal closely behind, pretty big gap to FX-951, another big gap to FX-888. I'd expect the FX-100 to be similar to the Metcal, maybe a bit better. The JBC tips are resistance but the heater/sensor size and location is similar to an induction tip. The 13.56 MHz leakage is annoying with induction.
@ftg@azonenberg@gsuberland I use a JBC at work, but I'm perfectly fine with the >25 year old no-name station I use at home. Moving from a pencil tip to a chisel tip worked wonders for me. 360C for SAC305 solder works fine.
@hennichodernich@azonenberg@gsuberland
That is certainly an environment something where Metcal or Thermaltronics will win.
And also the reason why one can actually lock out the JBC temperature setting so that that cannot be done.
Add comment