Hi welcome to a mini review and tear down of a $16 soldering station. Can you believe it? Yes. 16 bucks I Got this thing for from Hobby King here in Australia Yes postage was on top of that, but unbelievable. Is it any good for 16 bucks? Well I guess we'll find out.

It is a classic ripoff of the Heo. 936 goes under many different brands I'm sure that you can get on. eBay The Uh 936 has been continued for a long time now. Oh San's playing with my original Hoo 926 that I've had for what? Oh I don't know at least 25 years.

Something like that still going strong and well we'll take a look at it. Is this thing any good? May oh my may not be I don't know. Only one way to find out. You know what we say here on the E blog.

Don't turn it on. Take it apart right? San Look, you want to turn the camera off. Push that button up there. Okay San you want to open it up.

Let's have a look what we get inside our Heo 936 ripoff. What do we get? Look, look, it's a box. a box. He's excited.

He's excited. What do we get? Oh look, it's got that cheap Chinese smell hasn't it? Yeah, yeah. you bet. All right.

Look at that. Oh look, look, it even kinder. Sort of looks like a HK 936. It's got a knob.

Is that any good? No, No. Is that a thumbs up or a thumbs down? You think? What do you think? Down, down, thumbs down. Look, We have an iron. Oh there we go.

Oh, feels feels pretty crappy. quality, doesn't it? How does it compare with the 926? San It's a lot smaller, isn't it? That's small. Which one do you like? better? That one? That one, or this one. That one.

that one. You like the 926 better. All right. I think Daddy might too.

But anyway, let's check it out. It looks like a heo. doesn't quite smell like a heo, but hey. I'm sure it heats up.

Maybe. All right. San The most fun part? Pouring it in there. Go pour it on the sponge.

Whoow. Look at that. Is it wet? Yeah. damp enough.

a that's pretty good. Yeah. Beauty All right. Can you wave wave bye-bye wave wave bye-bye to everyone.

All right. thanks for helping dude. And the manufacturer is well, if I'm pronouncing it correctly. uh Gango yea yeeha.

just the good old boys never mean to no har Electronics Equipment Co- Limited. so there you go. It's probably sold under many different brands. Um, the Uh Oh Hoy brand or whatever it's called.

you can get these on eBay Although not nearly as cheap as this. Hobby King one. so it looks like this one is straight from the yeeha. Factory There it is.

Look at that. and if you compare it to the genuine Hoo 936, which has been discontinued for a long time, by the way, you can't buy it anymore. It's been replaced, as most people know, By the Fx8. Even that was discontinuing.

that's been replaced by the FX 8D now with the digital readout. But anyway, there is the fake one versus the genuine one. Clearly a complete ripoff in every way shape and form now. I suspect that this ESD safe claim here rather than have proper, uh, static dissipative Plastics in this thing.

I Reckon it's just complete marketing wank. One way to test that: I Got my Surface Voltmeter. Now the way: I'm going to test this very crude I'm just going to move it over the top like this: I've reset it. control.

Does the plastic? Yep, look, it goes up when I move it over the plastic like that. so there is a charge. There is a Surface charge on that plastic, but to be fair, that wasn't connected uh, through to Main's Earth The Main's core wasn't plugged in. it is now plugged in and it's switched on and there we go.

Yeah, our plastic is still building up a charge. Look at that. It's not huge, but hey, it's there so you know I Reckon it's just marketing wank on the front because well, that's what people want to see. Safe Hoo.

Uh, Fx8, the modern one do that. Well I haven't even got it plugged in. the Main's cord is disconnected. Trust me.

I could show you that. But let's reset that and move it over and nothing. There is no static, uh charge buildup on that plastic case whatsoever. but there is on the Ripoff unit.

now. My first impression of it is that well, yeah, you can feel that it's cheap. You can feel it's not a genuine 936. If you've used a 936 like I have in the past, the knob just feels pretty crappy.

Quality stuff like I Noticed that not sure if you can see that, but the alignment? look, the pot doesn't even line up with the hole there. The uh, calibration trim pot doesn't even line up. You could probably still get in there, but only barely. The connector looks like the cheapest quality possible.

But oh, apart from that, the case seems okay. the switch feels all right, but you can just sort of get the feel. You get the vibe that it's not a real heo. Even if it had the Heo badge on it and looked identical, you'd be able to sort of, you know, scratch and feel the difference.

And unfortunately, the hand piece doesn't Faire any better either. I mean you know it's got ESD safe stamped on there. Unfortunately, I don't have uh, the exact hoo one to compare it with. But yeah, the Ju Just the rubber doesn't feel quality, doesn't feel like it's going to last, and it comes with by the way, just a conical tip like that.

Absolutely useless. Uh, for most general purposes. As I've uh pointed out before. Um, if you're going to buy this, at least go and get a proper genuine Hoo tip which should fit which we'll try out later and I can take this apart.

And of course, it's not a genuine hoo doesn't have hoo stamped on there at all. This all feels really loose and rather rather dodgy. and uh, shame. I don't have a real direct competitor to compare it to, but you know, I it doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me, that's for sure.

The connector feels like the lowest, uh, quality possible, but hey, you know you expect it to be built down to a price at $16 for goodness sake. So yeah, I'm not going to be too hard on it. It's exactly what I expect I don't expect hoo quality. and if I actually compare it to my original Hoo 900 hand piece here and as I said uh, I've had this iron for like 25 plus years and it is still going strong.

This is still the original hand piece and the original ceramic element as well. I've changed the tip. you know quite a few times as you'd expect, but it's still original ceramic element and it just feels much better quality than this thing. It's hard to convey on camera, it really is.

But hey, as I said, I don't expect it. Eh, it's just. yeah, it's not as good and that's exactly what I expected. And the stand? well, it's all plastic.

It's got a little bit of metal on the bottom there so you can, uh, clean out the crud which accumulates on the bottom. but yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not that great at all, but hey, it does does have a nice, um, solid well in there, so it it collects, the water, doesn't drain out on your bench. Eh, it does the job what do you expect and we'll take it apart here.

and once again I Don't expect, uh, anything more than $16 Construction: I mean I mean $16 for goodness sake? So we're basically looking to make sure that a it's at least safe and uh, well, it at least works. That's pretty much all you want. Does it work? and is it safe? You know it's not going to be good quality and it's probably not going to last you 25 years like my original Hoo did. So yeah, I'm not going to be overly harsh in that respect because it is.

I Don't know of a cheaper soldering station. You can get cheaper soldering irons, but they're the just the crap irons which plug directly into the mains. I mean this is for all Tada all intents and purposes a Heo 936 or you should, at least which we'll test later be able to take the genuine Heo tips cuz it's all about the tips. Uh, really.

apart from as long as this in here is decent quality and I don't mind the look of that Transformer it looks pretty good and yes, you have to buy the specific voltage model. This is the Australian model and it did come with the proper plug with the uh, nicely approved uh uh insulation on the pins and everything. So if you're in the US market, you have to buy the US one. There is no TAPS in this.

Just like all of the Heo irons Transformers are specifically matched for the specific Mains voltage 240 volts 24 Vols AC out Exactly like the Heo one. It's got some sort of Uh certificate number compliance, but it actually looks like decent Bill quality. It looks like the laminations are tightly packed on there I didn't when I powered it on before without the iron attached. so I didn't hear any uh anything from it and it looks like what we have up here is a board for the switch.

There it is. Look at that o So yes, look, the solder hasn't flown on the other side of that. but hey, it is on that side and I'll it's it's not dangerous I'll I'll call that adequate. Um, certainly for the price I won't be uh, too critical on that.

Can I get that back in there? No. I'll get that back in there later Anyway, we have a PCB Mount fuse on there. Nothing fancy, but hey, at least it is fused. Bonus Now I don't particularly like just the soldered Earth tag like that should be crimped properly although it is going directly to the Transformer straight from the Main's input.

Hey, so that's at least they've done that right. But yeah, the soldering is not the best method for that. So yeah, I don't think that's adequate. Whether or not it's unsafe or you, you're relying on that solder joint joint.

Crimp is much better, and in fact, it may not. I'm not even sure about the technicalities of that being legal, actually soldering the Uh tab directly on there. If anyone actually knows the wiring standards for equipment internal off by heart in Australia at least. Uh, let us know.

But yeah, that should be crimped, but it is connected better than nothing. They claim the Main's cable 75 Square mm in is it? Well, there you go. It's not the worst I've seen I'm not actually going to measure it, but I'll call it adequate I don't think it. it is actually 75 Square mm though, but it stand to be corrected.

Now check out the PCB and yes, it does look as bad as you would expect for your $16 I'll I'll get the macro lens out and show you the closeup around here, but it's pretty crusty. We've got some increased Um current uh capability on the tracers there with the tined copper I believe that's the same inside the heo. I'll show a proper sidebyside photo at the moment I Found one on the internet? Um, that actually Compares a genuine one and the genuine hoo and the fake one. and well, you can see that it is.

uh, it. I'm pretty sure it is different circuitry. We'll have a look at the schematics at the moment, but oh yeah, it looks pretty poor. Let me tell you.

In fact, I think it's being a bit more generous on camera than what it actually looks in real life. Pretty crusty. There we go. look at the state-ofthe-art solder in there.

Yeah, that is pretty crusty. Let me tell you. Oh goodness. and uh, the main triac here.

Yeah. 600 volt triac? I Don't know. Is it like, is there a brand name on that? I Don't think so. That's just some generic part and uh, the screw is started to.

oh, it just looks pretty awful. Yeah, Whereas that's the difference in the genuine Hoo1, you would get a proper spec branded part. It' be a specific manufacturer. They would have tested it thoroughly and they wouldn't be substituting with whatever part they can get at the Shenzen market this week.

You know that's that's pretty much it. I Don't even want to know the brand of the cap, do we? What is that? nothing? M Rusty Look at the nut holding and washer holding that pot on the front panel and there's the top of the Bard and well, yeah, it's pretty darn ordinary. About as bad as you would expect for this price. It really is pretty darn awful.

And here is a photo I found on the net. so credit uh, goes to whoever. uh did this I'll try and find the name. but yeah, they compared uh, the original uh hoo with the fake one.

um, which this one is. It's just a variant of it I'm not sure if it's exactly the same variant, but uh yeah, you'll notice that the genuine Hoo has uh, basically two chips on it. It's got an LM 324 quad Op amp plus another eight pin dip uh package as well. whereas this one here only has the single 8 Pin dip package and that's it.

So clearly they're not duplicating the Heco circuitry exactly. They're skimping in some way shape for and there it is. That chip looks like it's secondhand. The pins are actually rusted on it.

It is pretty awful. It really is. I can see an St brand Mark there There we go. but it's an LM 358 so just a dual op amp there and that is just a awful.

It really is atrocious. Look at that. Looks like they just sucked it out of something and it's a secondhand chip they bought on the secondhand Market W and we'll check to see if the barrel is Main's Earth referenced. and yes, of course it is.

That's why they got their Green Earth wire going down to the main connector down there. just like a genuine Hoo one. So no problems there. except as I said for that internal Main's wiring in there I you're Reliant upon that solder joint directly on that Earth tab there or two solder joints on that Earth tab for your iron to be properly earthed and your Transformer shazzy to be earthed.

So yeah, really not acceptable if you're going to buy one of these. I'd recommend going inside and tidying that up and putting in a proper Earth connection on there with a proper crimp lug connection. and the other thing on these the uh, flexible nature of the lead. No, it's just crappy.

PVC doesn't to be seem to be anything special really. so there's only one thing left to do that's power it up and actually try it. Does it work? I've got two brand new genuine Heo tips here. These are: The Real McCoy big fat wedge on them I think they're 3.2 yeah, 3.2 mm.

uh, wedge on these. So I'm going to put identical tip on this Yeeha brand and my Hoo 926 so that we can at least get some comparisons. Now the 936 was supposed to be I believe. Better thermal capacity than the 926 so hey, if it can perform the same as the 926 H that's you.

That's pretty good. Now the Yeeha brand tip is very loose on there. very Loosey Goosey just slides in and out like it's nothing but the heo. tip is really quite tight and it won't go further than that that without significant force.

And I tried the Heo Fx8 tip: I've got on that iron exactly the the same thing and the inner sleeve actually comes out of that, but that's very common when these he bits get stuck. So yeah, I've got to sort of gently prize it down I think it's down. Anyway, there we go. I can get that on and uh yeah, so not the best compatibility with genuine Hoo tips.

And really I would only trust the genuine Heo tips on these tips are everything on your solder IR get the genuine ones. nothing worse than the cheap eBay ones. They're horrible. but H hey, if you don't do a lot of soldering, eh, they're going to do the job.

But jez you get what you pay for. Actually, it just occurred to me a good genuine hoo tip or two was going to cost more than this entire iron. it's not. Actually, no, don't use genuine Heo tips if you're going to get one of these $16 yeeha brand irons.

Ah, use the cheap tips. Okay, let's fire it up and see what happens here. Here we go: Whoa. The red lead comes on, it's heating.

Will it work? I.E Does it get hot? That's the hot end there. Come on, we expect to see some smoke cuz I believe this is a brand new, uh brand new Heo. Tip: I've got on there so it's taking its fat time I Probably should have timed this. Um, come on, come on there we go.

It works. It got hot Yay! and I'm going to attempt to measure the temperature of the tip here I've got my fluke Therma couple I've got some solder on the uh tip so we're getting reasonably good thermal contact. You know it, it's not ideal. we just don't have a proper uh tip uh, thermometer here, but it's probably going to be good enough and you can see it flickering.

I've got it set for 250 uh Celsius there. So Factory calibration is what we're basically uh, checking. I'm sure that if I tweak the pot on the front, eh, I could get that temperature up there, but it's relatively stable at Uh 235 there now. I've got both of them set to 250 and because as we saw different circuitry inside these things, you'll notice the different uh look.

we sort of got some, you know, flickering of the hea in lead there, whereas the Heo has always been. the 936 I believe is exactly the same as this. It just gives that constant on off. You know, this thing is just like there's some oscillation there or something like that happening in the heating element.

It's not the same. exactly the same control circuitry as the Heo here. and hey, that's to be expected because it is different circuitry. They've minimized it and changed it in some respect.

Whether or not that's good or bad, eh I don't know. it's just different. And there you go. There's my Hoo 926, which I have not touched the calibration on since I Bought it like 25 years ago and there we go.

It's not too far off. 250. Yes, I've got it set to 250 on the dial Beauty And once again, just like the other one. Um, it's pretty stable.

Well, it's a temperature controlled soling station. It does what it claims. Now let's try a large thermal Mass item like this big heat sink. here.

we'll try and heat up the underside there on there at some various temperatures and see how it goes. and Compares with the Hoo 926. All right, let's start off with not that heat SN but a big ass gauge wire like this one. This is the other end of it solded into this board.

So I've got both irons set to say 300. Just pick an arbitrary uh temperature I'll apply some solder to the tip so that we could get good initial um, contact thermal contact to that pad and see how it goes. First up the Clone Okay, here we go: I've got it set to 300. This is the uh, this is the Clone 1 300 C Oh no, no, come on, let's feed some more in there.

Come on. you can do it. You can do it. No, it doesn't like 300 at all.

There's no way we're going to get no, there's not enough thermal capacity in that iron at 300. Not that I don't expect I haven't done a control with the Heo yet. Uh, let's try the Heo one. Okay, here we go.

The Hoo. Same tip, same temperature 300 C and I almost got the impression it's starting to take there it is it is. That could be because of the Uh calibration difference, but that is certainly starting to take there. We go.

Yep, yep, that's working the Heo 926 better at 300 at a factory set 300. There we go. that's that joint is completely wet. Now Now just to confirm that because I did the Yeea one first and well, that could have uh added heat to the Joint which then the hoo finished it off.

So I'll actually go back to the Yea at 300 C after having used the hoo and see if I can ever get it to app a lot of downward force on this by the way. and no I just no, it's oh yeah, there we go. There we go. Maybe maybe, but no, no, this thing just does not have the thermal capacity at 300.

Celsius can't do it and no doubt there'll be some curious to know. how does my high thermal capacity JBC ion here uh do and I've got it set lower to 270. Let's try it. This is a high thermal capacity iron with a big wedge tip.

Look at that even two it's showing it's showing it's dropped down to 265 on the Uh on on the display on the JBC but that has no problem even set to 270. C That's the difference between like the the Hoo 926 struggled at 300 but got there. but the JBC Just yeah, went straight through it at 270. No problem.

All right, we're back on the yeara one that's set to 350 Celsius By the way, of course I'm using Celsius sorry for all you Yanks Who can't think in Celsius but uh, that's all just under 700. It's like 680. Uh Fahrenheit by the way. And really, that is struggling.

So that's the yeara at 350? Oh yeah, we're getting there. We're getting there. We're getting there. Hold on to your hat folks.

Yep, it can do it at 350. I Mean you know it, it can be made to work I That's the problem with low thermal capacity ions is that? Well, you've got to turn up the temperature to compensate and a lot of people ask that Why? You know if the melting point of temper, melting point of solder is so low? Why does your temperature or a standard tip like on a Willer Why is it like you know, 380 like 700 F, like 360 or something like that to C Why It's thermal capacity. That's why doesn't have that temperature on the tip is going to drop. Now it's It's quite involved to actually get proper temperature measurements of a solder joint when it actually goes down.

So I won't try and do that today, of course. I don't really have the set up to do that, uh, properly and do it justice. but yeah, this yea, solder and iron ain't that great, but it does actually work H What the heck? I will actually attempt to get the temperature of this Junction down here with the Yea yeeha that's I'm in the molten part of it down there and look, yeah, it's barely. It's not even getting to 200.

Look at that. it's not even there. but the solder is melting there. you go at that joint because it's above the melting point of that I'm just using standard 6040 uh tin stuff here and it would have been 10 on there to begin with on this uh, particular board.

But there you go. it's barely at 200 with this iron set to 350. In fact, it's set to 700 C about 360 C Same thing with the JBC Here we go. I Got the JBC once again set for Uh 270.

Okay, whereas this yea was set for 360. so let me get in there and try and measure that. Yeah, I'm in exactly the same spot I'm not actually touching the iron tip I'm actually on the molten solder sort of like on the opposite side of it and that's getting to like 215 the solder down in the joint I'm really on the opposite side of that joint now and you can see that that JBC is heating that up much better on the joint itself, all over the joint on the opposite side even though it is set to 270 degrees C much lower than the Yea. That is the difference between a high thermal capacity iron and a low thermal capacity $16 iron.

Big difference. And let's try the heat sink here. and with my Hk96. by the way, my Hk96 set to 350 on the 926 and well, yeah, it can.

Uh, certainly heat that up no problem at all. I Mean it's not the solid heat I mean it is going through the heat sink, but it's like the tag attached to the heat sink so it's not like a big chunk of aluminium of course. Now let's try the Yea at once again at 350 and yep, it is. it is.

Flowing It is certainly flowing on the Yea doesn't feel quite as good as the Heo 926, but obviously this is a lower uh thermal. Mass Junction the heat sink. like the clip going to the hat. that heat sink than the big copper wire that we had solded in down here.

I Mean look, it can't I mean that's a just a massive that copper. It's just a massive amount of it down there. So even though we we're so trying to sold it to a heat look, can't do that copper. That copper just just oh, sinks all that heat away and just can't do it.

Can't do it. But there's usually nothing you can't fix by turning up the temperature. That's why the temperature on these things go goes so high. I've now got the Yea set to 400 Celius and look, there we go.

That is the correct temperature to set your uh, soldering station at. or this, yea one. anyway to do this joint. So that is the difference.

The Yea has to be set to 400 C to really flow that joint. uh, properly and quickly whereas something like the high-capacity JBC easily did it at 270 C on the dial. So really, that you know, big difference. But yeah, the yeara not as good as even the older Hoo 926.

And for those curious to see inside the classic Hoo 926 there it is. uh, no control board on the front panel. they've got the wiring and the switches is uh, and the lead going down to the PCB underneath there. and uh, Main's Transformer at the back And that's about all she wrote.

But you will note of course as I was talking about properly crimped Earth connector down to there, not just solded under the tab. How unreliable. That's what you want. Look at the nice little attention to detail on The Wire Twist there.

They've added that to that one and that one over there as well. instead of just wiring them separate willy-nilly they have actually gone into the trouble. twist them I like it. And for those curious to know that was the drive wave form there on the Heo 926, the element waveform.

and of course no difference on the Yea one where basically, uh, it's just that Tri is just switching on the Uh AC the 24 volt AC directly to the element. So it's exactly what you'd expect and well, overall, what can you say? It's a $16 soldering station. You get $16 worth of quality. Um, in fact, you probably get more quality than the 16 bucks.

I don't know how they make it for that and they can sell it retail for that. They don't make it for that they obviously sell it for Less Unbelievable. But yeah, and moan all you want. There's no way I'm giving a crap quality soldering station like this.

A thumbs up it is. It's got to be a thumbs down. I Don't care what you say, but hey, if you've only got if you're so cash strapped that you can only this sort of money for a soldering on, then fine, get one. You know it works.

It won't may not last you very long, but it's going to work. It's going to at least it's a proper temperature. Cons: controlled soldering Station Instead of those crap little fixed, sold fixed T ones you just plug into the PowerPoint They're just garbage. Don't touch them.

At least get one of these as an absolute bare minimum and it's probably going to suit beginners and stuff like that. but n I'm always a big fan of find a top quality brand named Sold that lasts you a long time. I think it's better value overall in the long run. even though this thing is one10 the price, you know you buy 10 of these for the cost of one uh, proper heo Fx8.

but what can you say I don't care I don't like cheap ass solder in irons. but if you do me yeah, whatever, go buy one I Don't care. just don't tell me about it. please.

Uh, catch you next time.