Fake Hakko FG-100 soldering tip thermometer test. 

From experience with cheap 911-212 tip temperature sensor clones for 5$ in a bag at Ali, Ebay etc. I completely agree. They are utter rubbish.

Metcal is awesome, unless you are the one playing for it. Whenever I've used them for work, I've been in love, but I refuse to spend that much money on an iron. It seems to me that they hold a much more stable temperature as well. I've never done any proper testing, but there seems to be less hysteresis than other types of tips. Possibly the heating element is more closely coupled to the tip as well?

The price is a bit scary but I retire in 6 months so brought one before having money becomes a distant memory. It is the mac of the soldering world. Switch on, use, switch off. No messing about which is exactly what I want.

I use Metcal irons & tips at work, 8hrs a night and they are a joy to work with. Love them.

At least proper thermocouple give more precise and what is even more inportant - stable readings than 911-212 clone uglies.

Try Mike (mikeselectricstuff), he puts me right to sleep. He makes the most interesting videos, but I need several attempts to finish each one. Maybe I need your coffee. ;-)

You'll not want to watch any Rab C Nesbitt, then. [BBC TV comedy series.] Rab's a very, very, VERY Scottish gentleman who enjoys the occasional drink annnnnd gets a bit... aye. What? Incoherent, is it? Ah! Noooooo. Y'see, it's all about, about, about CLARITY of, of of express-s-s-ion. Hmm. Drunk, am I? DRUNK? No, sir! I ammmmmm SOBER, see? Aye. Nnnnnnnn. What? See you, you, you don't unnnnnnerstan the intric-intric-intricacies of the Scottish language, see? Mmm, me, I can er, eh? What! Nooooo. Gn, ghbffcxx.. bhgvfddc....

Hake Fakko

Hakkers...

That sounds painful. Just touch the iron to the back of your palm and see if it smells like chicken. Out of the various questionable detection methods, that one is definitely much better!

this is why we can't have nice things, like lead solder

Kinda like the electricians of old. Tested the voltage at the bus bars by licking their thumb and forefinger )

People used to adjust the voltage of X-ray tubes by feeling... if it felt too warm under the beam, they'd turn down the voltage: this resulted in cancers of the hand...

"If it smells like chicken, you're holding it wrong…"

eutectic solder is too expensive.

@@guayabito6946 Sn63Pb37 is eutectic enough.

Why? his camera has voice controlled focus ;)

1.21 Gigawatts??? Tom! How am I gonna generate that kind of power? It can't be done! Can it?

"original clones" :D

Ive got an ebay Hakko 191 clone which came with a pack of ten thermocouples. the first one was very inaccurate and I thought the unit itself was a dud but all the others have been fine. I think I only have one or two left so I'll order some more soon and see how they fare.

Why not, it's just a thermocouple. Just try to use the same materials (alumel and chormel) to join the wires to avoid inducing errors. Just twist them together and it should be ok.

I tend to go around 330 to 350 for lead based solder, but 380 will probably be fine.

It's the other pink.

Damn it! You stole my idea before I thought of it...

+David Ellis Happens to me allthe time. I invent something just to find out it already exists.

Literally unwatchable.

-sorry, apparently a joke went over my head-

i don't think it would work as they have quite a wide measuring area.

I think anything that allows current to flow between the dissimilar metal wires rather than through the junction is going to throw off the readings.

just use it with a dry iron tip?

Hakko stuff is very expensive. The cheaper clones usually do an acceptable job.

I guess that's half the job of that sleeve, the other half being about avoiding getting solder into the circuit.

Nuts n Proud I wondered the same! It'd save you buying thermocouple strips all the time and you can use it for many more applications.

I'm gonna send one to Clive. £5 from China. Gotta be a video in that.

It would be useless because the soldering iron tip is rather small and common infrared thermometers have a measuring spot a couple centimeters in diameter. You can use a thermal camera, and it will be reasonably accurate on the black oxidized part of the iron (not on the solder itself).

If you measure any shiny metal (molten or not) with an infrared thermometer/camera the result is completely useless (unless the meter is calibrated for the emissivity of that one metal and surface finish)

Metals look like mirrors on infrared, they're very hard to read temperatures from.

Never seen that screwdriver before!!

tommy walsh , who used to shill for dewalt on Ground Force tv show, is laughing because poundland pays him some money for his face, when he has to do nothing in return

But that's not the temperature you care about when trying to (de)solder stuff.

it is about how good the iron controls the temperature and i think it doesn't really matter whether you have a bit more metal around

Techtastisch 75 It matters greatly as it is the temperature at the tip that you are, in fact, interested in knowing. The heating element will always be hotter than the actual soldering tip and is not a temperature of any use in knowing, all that matters is what your tip temperature is maintained at. Plus, many heating elements have no void in which to insert a thermocouple or may actually be integrated, physically, into the tip (as a one pice heating element and tip). None of my temperature controlled soldering irons have anywhere that one could insert a thermocouple, for example (the only place with a void are the interchangeable tips themselves where they slide over a ceramic heating element that is secured to the handle assembly).

Ιᄃᄐ cʀɛɑм Define safe? Anyhow, the real problem with using such is that you will have absolutely no idea what temperature your components are actually reaching unless you strategically attach some K-type thermocouples to the board. Temperature decreases with distance from the heat gun's exhaust but also with respect to the elevation and emissivity of the various parts and components on the board (e.g. a tall black plastic relay housing will get much hotter than a small white ceramic chip capacitor that is barely above the PCB level.). That can lead to unexpected and sometimes significant temperature variations between components and sections of your board, leading you to cook some while just barely reaching (or not reaching) the critical temperature to liquefy solder on the components you were actually trying to target. You may actually find it easier to just reflow the board in an oven and then just knock it against something to quickly shake all the components off in one go if that is your end goal, at least then you can potentially control the maximum temperature any component can reach and reduce the likelihood of cooking otherwise good components. The critical melting temperature of many lead-free solders is around 220C, 428F, and for leaded solders around 180C, 356F, so you want everything to eventually reach that temperature plus another 20C/36F, or thereabouts, for just a brief period of time and taping a thermocouple to a heavy trace on your board (or drill a snug hole and insert your thermocouple along with some heatsink grease and tape leads down) with (high temp) Kapton tape (with silicone adhesive, not acrylic) is a good way to find out when the board traces have reached that point.

I suspect that many of them are actually the same cells under the wrapper. Would also be interesting to know how they compare in terms of £/Wh and how likely to leak they are. For comparison, IKEA cells are pretty good and only a few pennies more.

I think Hydraulic Press Channel should test poundland/Kodak and other cheap crappy batteries.

Just the price alone is a clue. Real Hakko stuff is expensive.

Because the soldering iron tip is rather small and common infrared thermometers have a measuring spot a couple centimeters in diameter. You can use a thermal camera, and it will be reasonably accurate on the black oxidized part of the iron (not on the solder itself).

Also, thermocouples tend to only measure the temperature difference between the probe and meter, so some kind of internal non-thermocouple sensor at the meter end is probably needed.

It's very well behaved.

Yes and even your comment if they had the chance.

Iain Banachowicz who knows your reply may have been cloned just now

Yes its the super power of chinese manufacture. Along with cheap manufacture.

They might clone me in general lol

Depends of if you are made of plastic or not.

Yup. Lowest this year was around 7C. And that's the temperature of my house... That's what happens when you spend most of your life working outdoors.

Move to Canada, you'll save tons on heating :) I'm usually comfortable at around 20C but I like wearing short sleeve all year long and my friends tend to think it's kind of cold at my place...

Most of my work is outdoors, so it doesn't feel cold to me.