Fixing a common issue with the Hakko clones.

Once the two panels are in the case they are clamped in place. But could still be susceptible to flexing.

Big Clive

I'l bear this in mind, wonder if it would be possible to add some extra pillars or a block of plastic at the bottom? Mine behaves at present, but he abuse level suggests it's a matter of time :) This reminds me of early 90's Amstrad laptops which were prone to doing this on their power connectors

Phil Collins

I would be tempted to glue in a couple of blocks of hard foam or plastic between the board and the faceplate to give make it a bit more sturdy. Still and yet, looks like a pretty good unit. May have to pick up one of those.

I wonder if this is the issue with my 998D station (iron + hot air gun). The iron often displays "E-4" when turning it on until you wiggle the iron cable a bit, and even then it's quite dodgy at heating up, leaving you with a cold iron if the wire isn't in exactly the right position. I've been assuming it was the cable that was broken, but this socket issue seems more plausible. Or it could be something loose in the handle itself, but I've had it open and it looks fine. I've also tried replacement handles and they haven't worked at all! I guess I need to take my station apart and have a look at things...

Andrew

If you can open the device fairly easily I would just plaster epoxy resin or similar around the socket and the PCB to make it one solid 'block'.

My step-father has the annoying habit of doing this to all his electronics. At the moment, he has a tablet I bought for him a number of months ago, and he's managed to break the pads for both the headphone jack, and the HDMI port. Unfortunately, these cheap consumer grade products really don't have much in the way of reenforcement to protect these components from wiggling around and snapping the pads, although the HDMI port lasted a lot longer and broke more than one cable. Is there something I can do to prevent further damage, or to prevent these pads from breaking on other products? I realize you suggested making the solder joint bigger in this video, however, that isn't possible with these tiny connections. Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.

Joelle Seguin

IMO you need at least three. A decent station like this one for bench work, a basic Radio Shack style one to throw in the toolbox for remote stuff, and a butane powered one for really remote stuff, working on things like trailer wiring, stuff up in the air and in tight spaces, etc).

John Ridley

I have lived in the US all my life, and IMO *C is the only way to go. I'm so irritated that we had the chance to switch back in the 70s, got halfway there, then turned back.

John Ridley

A good reason to always have a spare soldering iron.

I bought one of these irons for my Makerspace, and sadly it has developed this fault. Hopefully I can fix it using this video, thanks Clive.

My hakko fx-951 clone is fantastic, I only wish it would go into standby when I put it in the holder ! (Also a knob to adjust temperature instead of button would be great)

You said you liked to solider at 330 and I was thinking wow that seems really low! Then I remembered where you live... :)

Lostngone

It does look like the solid core wire does have some give in it. Enough to cater for movement given that the boards have plastic keepers to prevent too much movement? Pass. It still seemed to be bending when Clive was pushing the buttons.

Why are you using solid-core wire? In case of breaks because of movement, I'd actually very much prefer stranded wire; it stands up to way more mechanical stress than solid.

Sprite_tm