ZD-985 desoldering station Power supply failure

[CapLeaker]

sam_sam_sam
No I haven't tried this modification, but usually the PSU designs using that type of switcher in that package is garbage to me. But instead of using you MeanWell 24V power supply, I would hack in a 19V laptop PSU first and see how that works out. I am not sure why the low side MOSFET configured as a switch would blow feeding straight DC into it, because you see a lot of it in automotive doing the same thing and they don't blow that easily. So I am thinking the must be too much current drawn for that to happen. I think the next size up cap mod is fine, using 3330uF instead of 2200uF. 35V vs 25V wouldn't make any difference on the 18V rail, as long as you used quality caps. Some times using too low ESR caps may not be good either, but it should work here. What about the 5.1 ohm resistor?did you check it?

[sam_sam_sam]

sam_sam_sam What about the 5.1 ohm resistor?did you check it?

No I have not checked 5.1 ohm resistor yet I did manage to put back together the desoldering station that has the power saving mode feature and it seems to work okay but I think that there is something failing on the controller board because when it has been off for several hours and you turn it back on the temperature display flashing several different temperatures reading and then it settles down to the correct temperature reading it never uses to do this-this is something new

I have another controller that just like this one and I going to swap them around because this station has the hot air gun on the other side of soldering iron
which I do not use very often unless I am doing multiply layer board and I need the extra heat to unsolder a component

When you saying about using a laptop switching power supply any particular brand should I use it might be hard to find a 19 volt @ 12 amp laptop switching power supply I will look at EBay and see if I can find one and I will post the website link to it just let me know if you think it would work or not

If can not find anything wrong with the switching power supply that has the cycling power issue would you be willing to take a look at it and see if you can figure out what is wrong with it

I found this one do you think that it would have enough current capacity for the the soldering iron side of the station
do you think that it would have enough current capacity for the heater element and the vacuum pump plus the cooling

https://www.ebay.com/itm/25636685625...Bk9SR_bQ8aezYw

[sam_sam_sam]

Update

I figured out why the controller was flashing the temperature several times with different temperatures it turns out that the soldering is what the issue is because I put one on it that does not do this when powering it on with the soldering iron that does not have very many hours on it

My guess is that the temperature sensor wire might be touching the grounding wire on the iron

If I continue to use it might be with PWM controller on dc voltage and not worry about the temperature sensor wire and its issue I just have to order a couple of replacement soldering irons so I have some spare irons when one goes bad I do not have to wait for another one to get to me

I suspect that the desoldering gun might also be going bad as well but right now it only flashes once but I going to keep my eye on it so when it starts flashing more than once and it starts flashing different temperatures reading I am going to stop using this one as well

[CapLeaker]

sam_sam_sam
I do have a question... why in the heck your solder gear is worn out like that? Gee, my stuff also got tons of hours on it but do not have such problem. I wonder if you leave the iron hot all the time? My solder station I use the most is 12 years old and still on the same pen / heating element. Given it went through a few tips, but over all still working like a champ, display and all. My desoldering gun has seen replacement parts as the plastic catching cylinder for the solder, filters etc (also basically consumables) and also works fine as kind. So what gives?

[sam_sam_sam]

sam_sam_sam
I do have a question... why in the heck your solder gear is worn out like that? Gee, my stuff also got tons of hours on it but do not have such problem. I wonder if you leave the iron hot all the time? My solder station I use the most is 12 years old and still on the same pen / heating element. Given it went through a few tips, but over all still working like a champ, display and all. My desoldering gun has seen replacement parts as the plastic catching cylinder for the solder, filters etc (also basically consumables) and also works fine as kind. So what gives?

The issue with this brand manufacture is that the quality of their product are fair at best but to answer your question about why I think that they do not last longer is and the reason I went to a version that has the sleep function is that it saves the soldering iron element from going bad sooner also the same thing with desoldering gun

I have never seen this type of failure with the soldering iron and the desoldering gun where the temperature reading is flashing different temperature readings for the first 5 seconds after it boots up now I have seen it where the temperature sensor wire just burns into a break and it just shows ———- or its shows ERR and then one of two things happen either the heater element does not heat at all or it on full blast and burn the heater element out in either case it can be used again

Do you have this brand your self what model number do you have or do you use a different brand what is the model number of the one that you use

Of all of the soldering iron / desoldering guns I have had the following failures

One controller unknown cause of this issue where the temperature controller was not consistent another words it would wander all over the place but this was version one not version two or version three I have not seen this issue with these versions yet

One backlight went out completely and one display module also went bad it just kept getting diminishing letters and numbers across the hole screen but I made one good unit out of the two units

Two switching power supply failures where it would randomly power cycle with cooler weather unknown type of failure

Three vacuum pumps failures but those can be fixed to a certain extent to get more efficient and longer life out of them
In fact I have one right now that I have reconditioned it because it suction power is very low right now

But remember this is over 20 years of doing soldering projects almost every weekend when I have time to devote to it

The versions that do not have the sleep function on them the failure rate was a lot quicker than what it is now with the sleep function built into the system even though it has this function it turns down the temperature to 390*F until you move the handle then it goes back to 675*F for the soldering iron and 775*F for the desoldering gun I have found that these temperatures work the best for the way that I use my soldering equipment I have tried all kinds of different temperatures settings and I find that this works the best for me

Right now I have two dead soldering stations that do not have switching power supplies and one of them does not have a working vacuum pump because it is just plain worn out

The controller works fine on both of them plus I have several more controller modules for spare parts that have never been used at one time I had found an eBay seller that was selling them at a reasonable price so I bought several different models of them so if I had a controller failure I could just replace the controller and when I had time I would look at what was wrong with the controller and try to fix it later

One note I do not have any spare parts for the version that has the sleep function on it these were an upgrade version and the eBay seller did not have this version available

I have two of the same version that have the hot air gun on them and I had an issue with them when I first bought them and it was that it did not have a cool down mode on it but I remedy that issue right away before it could get one hour of running use I added a LED light and a on and off switch and when in the off position that is when it was in cool down it would light the LED the reason for doing it this way was because it has a optic sensor switch that controls the heater element so I did not want the controller to go bad because of no load on the output for the heater element plus it lets me know that it is in the cool down mode

This is my soldering project history of my equipment that I have bought and used for many years now

[CapLeaker]

sam_sam_sam
no I don’t have this brand talked about in here. I use an old Weller WD1 with the WP80 pen and an Aixun T3A as soldering irons, a Hakko desoldering gun and another old Weller hot air. Everything but the Aixun has over 10 years on the clock and never changed or repaired on them anything major.
I think part of the problem is folks not using a high enough wattage and then compensate with the temperature setting, burning everything to bits and shit, including the iron. I don’t touch an iron that has not at least 80W. My hot tweezers for SMD are 50W, but that is the only exception. Try using something higher wattage, run the temp lower and you shall have better results.

[stj]

open the soldering gun and inspect the wiring,
i had one with pinched wires in it that had obviously been assembled on a friday afternoon!

[sam_sam_sam]

open the soldering gun and inspect the wiring,
i had one with pinched wires in it that had obviously been assembled on a friday afternoon!

They got to stop wanting to go home early on Friday and do their quality work this is nonsense and we as consumers should put up with this nonsense I do not think so

But yes I would agree with you on this one and I will carefully take it a part to not to loose the spring for locking mechanism and see if this might be the case and if it is repairable or not

[sam_sam_sam]

sam_sam_sam
no I don't have this brand talked about in here. I use an old Weller WD1 with the WP80 pen and an Aixun T3A as soldering irons, a Hakko desoldering gun and another old Weller hot air. Everything but the Aixun has over 10 years on the clock and never changed or repaired on them anything major.
I think part of the problem is folks not using a high enough wattage and then compensate with the temperature setting, burning everything to bits and shit, including the iron. I don't touch an iron that has not at least 80W. My hot tweezers for SMD are 50W, but that is the only exception. Try using something higher wattage, run the temp lower and you shall have better results.

The soldering iron wattage is 60 and desoldering gun is I think if I remember right is 80 watts

I would agree with you but there basic desoldering gun start at a little bit above $100.00 and I can get them here in Florida when they have them in stock yes I know that there quality is fair at best but the price in this case wins only because at one time an eBay seller was selling parts for them

One of the reasons I have not purchased a Hakko desoldering gun is because there so many knockoffs that I do not want to pay for a knockoff version I would want a real version of it if it really has the quality that I have read that they supposedly have to justify the higher cost of there unit

[stj]

for the price, these zongdi units are very good - if you wait for a sale you can find them for $70
yes, you need or will want to replace the fan and maybe recap it partially.
but factor in how cheap they are and it's still a winner
and the entire handpiece with pipe & cable can be replaced for $30 or less!
it would cost me that just for a tip for my old weller unit

[CapLeaker]

Yeah pay once, cry once. I would loose my shit if I would have to always fix my own crap.

[stj]

i never had to fix mine,
i added a filter and replaced the fan and ceramic resistors as a casual upgrade

[sam_sam_sam]

for the price, these zongdi units are very good - if you wait for a sale you can find them for $70
yes, you need or will want to replace the fan and maybe recap it partially.
but factor in how cheap they are and it's still a winner
and the entire handpiece with pipe & cable can be replaced for $30 or less!
it would cost me that just for a tip for my old weller unit

This is the same reason I have bought these units from this manufacturer because yea they are not the best quality but for the price of them it in bad

[sam_sam_sam]

They got to stop wanting to go home early on Friday and do their quality work this is nonsense and we as consumers should put up with this nonsense I do not think so

But yes I would agree with you on this one and I will carefully take it a part to not to loose the spring for locking mechanism and see if this might be the case and if it is repairable or not

I took the soldering iron apart this morning and found that it might have been touching wire that it should not be touching but that is not the bigger issue is that the ceramic that is between the temperature sensor and the heating element just crumpling apart this means that the heating element will fail in a short amount of time or the temperature sensor will fail or both of them together

[sam_sam_sam]

I took the soldering iron apart this morning and found that it might have been touching wire that it should not be touching but that is not the bigger issue is that the ceramic that is between the temperature sensor and the heating element just crumpling apart this means that the heating element will fail in a short amount of time or the temperature sensor will fail or both of them together

Update

The desoldering gun does not matter weather or new or used it flashes once very quickly and it reads the temperature correctly I am not sure if this is normal or not because I only have one desoldering gun station that has the sleep function on it I have several of the soldering iron that I have to compare to at boot up

[sam_sam_sam]

Yeah pay once, cry once. I would loose my shit if I would have to always fix my own crap.

Normally I would agree with pay once and maybe cry once but on some things this does not seem possible when you do not want to spend much money on something that when you read customer reviews on what is supposed to high quality products and have a hard time finding a product that is not a knockoff and replacement parts are also more expensive than they need to be because of only the name and not necessarily better quality

I loose my mind and shit when you have to buy new equipment to just get something fixed because of known issue that has not been addressed by manufacturer and now the manufacturer might have decided to close up shop because now there email account seems to be not valid anymore this is in reference to my battery testing equipment I guess I will have to buy some more new equipment and just modify the ones that do not work correctly as intended what is more aggregating is that no one seems to know exactly what to do when these battery testing machines have this issue

[CapLeaker]

sam_sam_sam there is still one more option. Buy well branded things, but used. Some of my equipment is so expensive, I had no choice but buying used. I am sure you could find something. As for the battery testers, I am a bit at a loss why you have to have these exact measurements, unless you have an immense source of older battery packs, where you do not know what is what. For me I'd fix the bad cells, discharge the whole battery, then balance charge them with a hobby chacrger for battery packs and call it a day. Maybe I don't use my batteries that hard every day... I dunno...

[stj]

some used brandname stuff is shit
weller i mentioned, the heater/sensor fails a lot and is fucking expensive.

[sam_sam_sam]

sam_sam_sam there is still one more option. Buy well branded things, but used. Some of my equipment is so expensive, I had no choice but buying used. I am sure you could find something. As for the battery testers, I am a bit at a loss why you have to have these exact measurements, unless you have an immense source of older battery packs, where you do not know what is what. For me I'd fix the bad cells, discharge the whole
battery, then balance charge them with a hobby chacrger for battery packs and call it a day. Maybe I don't use my batteries that hard every day... I dunno...

It does make a difference on how you your battery pack to how you have to test them to get the best results from them and I might be a little bit more accurate about the way I go about it but I want to get as much power from the battery cells as I can and you would be right that I am hard on battery packs when I use to work at the metal shop where we cut to order customers orders and had to repair industrial equipment I used tools harder then than I do now but when I do a project with battery power tools I want to do the work and I do not have time to play around with battery packs that are not up to the task at hand

[CapLeaker]

It does make a difference on how you your battery pack to how you have to test them to get the best results from them and I might be a little bit more accurate about the way I go about it but I want to get as much power from the battery cells as I can and you would be right that I am hard on battery packs when I use to work at the metal shop where we cut to order customers orders and had to repair industrial equipment I used tools harder then than I do now but when I do a project with battery power tools I want to do the work and I do not have time to play around with battery packs that are not up to the task at hand

Did we get off topic a bit? I figured there has to be some reason for why you do things a certain way. I’ve got quite a few battery operated power tools with batteries various brands, but have to have yet a battery completely fail. The older battery packs aren’t as good as the new ones (18650 vs 21700 etc). Some older ones started to act weird when not being charged fully a few times in a row so the balance charge cannot kick in. But after discharging them and fully charging, they came out fine again. I think what really does them in is after a full charge, using them hard down (almost) the end and then do not recharge them that day, plus a hot environment.