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As a re-tiered electrician. I can confirm the fuse should always be in the live conductor and not the neutral. And agree with @piotrokrutny477 stated below the metal plate could become live under fault conditions leaving it at 240volts.

17:31 Yuk, a cable tie, A proper cable clamp would be much better

Great job, cool way to use the tiny hot plate!

Your hot plate unit looks substantially more dodgy in all the little nooks and details than the one I got for hardly more money. The plug isn't centered in the moulding, whereas mine is perfectly centered! I cut my power lead short and replaced part of it with a copper one. The copper clad aluminium conductors in the original cable are fine and safe like they are, but I have a zero tolerance on copper clad wiring in my shop to eliminate the chance of confusion.

Use 4 black fan screws man and screw those ugly brown rubber abominations... They are designed only to grab tightly on sheet metal and not contain a fan guard inside themselves.

Another fun and interesting video. I wonder if the prolonged heating might affect the components in any way, versus regular soldering. I think PCBWay can make stencils for the paste which speeds things up.

Needs recap

Really enjoyed the video, thank you!

Everything from AliExpress is a safety hazard, and it will get worse with current situation in china with companies closing shop.

Definitely, I'm building my own bluescsi(s) inspired by your video. Thank you very much for this.

Hi Tony! Reflow soldering is only done with SMD stencil. Any PCB manufacturer will have an SMD stencil option, it must be used for solder paste, it makes sure that a precise solder paste quantity is used on each pad. You do not have to waste too much time for precise component positioning, the solder once melted will center them quite nicely. It takes some practice to perfect this method but once it is done, the results are quite spectacular. PS: Still, in my view, reflow soldering is no fun, at least for me anyway. I feel i have done nothing unless is solder each component by myself, and i love doing it all day long, especially for small SMD components 😅 I have done one such video, showing my way of soldering...

You can put a pcb in a bag with solvent/cleaner and then stick it in an ultrasonic full of water. You use less cleaner that way and the junk that comes off stays in the bag.

I saw northwest using the mini preheater too and instantly went looking for one 🙂I thought aliexpress had stopped selling them though as I couldn't find any but after seeing this just have found and ordered one. 👍

That low 5 volt rail screams poor capacitors to me, the way it changes with load and where on the circuit you measure it. Also, when you were trying to remove bridges from the your newly made BlueSCSI board try a soldering iron bit with some flat face on it, flat surface will create an area of higher surface tension for a solder blob to form on the bit and off the pcb.

Love this! I use a glass jar large enough for my components that limits the amount of cleaning solution used and contain debris in my ultrasonic. I very rarely need the entire tank and usually just have water in it.

xt30's are rated to 30 amps of dc current, at 500V. so while not technically mains rated, ~240 at what, an amp? maybe 2 at most? i can't imagine its that bad, aside from the obvious concern. questionable, but i've seen infinitely worse.

Very nice video Tony! I like your humor special at the first try with your solder paste. I needed to laugh some time with you :D The inside view of the heater was very good. Very good idea to check tschieniese-stuff before use

Sounds like an SE recapping is in order!

Talking of cheap, mains powered tools, I bought this 8508 hot air gun from Ali expecting it wouldn't be grounded and at least the tip is connected to ground!

lousy music

That supply module will be a switching supply, the chip is likely hiding under the mains side electrolytic cap The device that you thought was a mosfet is likely a triac

Ok, couldn’t help myself not making a second comment. If you do decide to get an ultrasonic cleaner sometime and are worried about things like the little solder balks accumulating in the cleaning solution, just get some paint filters online or any hardware or paint store or even coffee filters and a stainless funnel that they will fit in and occasionally pour the solution through a filter to remove any accumulated particles. If you really want to be picky, order some laboratory chemical filter papers instead which will generally be even finer.

Not to be too picky, but you should always use ring style terminals, not the U shaped ones, for safety grounds. It prevents the ground from coming completely disconnected if the screw loosens a bit. I believe it is even a requirement of safety certifying agencies like UL, CSA, etc. Not something g that would be easy to add after the fact, but it would also be nice if the top of the plate had at least been silk screened with a large “HOT” label. If they can manage to put their logo on it, you’d think the warning would be pretty easy. You could probably do it after the fact with a 3D printed stencil and some high temperature engine paint if you really wanted to. I’m working on some projects that will need assembly of SMD parts and am looking at hot air stations and hot plates. Don’t think I’ll get this one - plus need 120V).

don't get me wrong, but for my taste this channel is even better than the main one :)

That connector looks like an XT30 they're rated to 500vdc but I wouldn't want one on the end of a mains lead!

Nice work.

Oh, if you think this cable of the heat-plate is kind of dodgy, wait for a video which I planned to do soon. The one I bought screams "I'll kill you" when you just look at it :) Though, I have to admit, it did the job which I needed it for. Anyhow, nice insights. Thanks!

Hi Tony, great job. I really like watching your videos. I repair various electronics myself, especially old motherboards, etc. In my opinion, you should reverse the polarity of the mains power cables. The Blue wire should be Neutral and the Brown wire should be Live. It will be safer if the phase passes through a fuse. If you have connected the phase as in the video, and a failure occurs, blowing the fuse will not cut off the phase from the device. The phase may still be on the hot-plate. Best wishes

Thank you. A great job!

that soldering thing looks like magic, tbh :)

Title of this video is wrong. It really should be: "How high Tony will jump?" :D Great video Tony, as always. ;)

I think first attempt to flash the firmware worked. A factory fresh Pico goes straight to firmware update mode without pressing the button. The five flashes came from the BlueSCSI firmware indicating that it couldn't access the SD card.

Hi Tony, you do have fun don't you 🤣 I admire your determination, well done. Bob

I swear, solder paste with a hot-plate and hot air just looks like magic and cheating rolled into one :D

I got a hot plate similar to that, its much smaller and uses USB C though. Ive had it a while but not tried it yet.

solder paste is easier to use if you get a solder stencil when ordering PCBs.

Very nice video! A few years ago, I converted a used toaster oven into a reflow oven. Also a really nice device to have.

19:08 reminds me of the xbox one x power supplies where the primary side cap is covering some IC's that get extremely hot and cook the cap. Let alone theres no ventilation even if you get the type of supply that doesn't have the IC's under the cap. The one I replaced the cap on didn't have the IC's under it. That hot plate is neat. Might pick one up if the price is right. Thanks Tony.

what you actually can do to lower internal temperature is to put one more fan to push air along the long side of the unit

I always go smiling when I see something like 8Tb = 7.28Tb it's just like to write on someting "1 dozen = 10 units" they're officially mixing bytes and gramms!

1st try, great!! Bravissimo!

I always enjoyed Rane packaging.; the “dolphin safe” logo is entertaining on their Audio delay product!

When I was a teenager I was heavily into sound engineering and spent quite a bit of time at my friend's recording studio. This would be my dream device at that time. I actually had a quite sophisticated DSP setup but using a Sound Blaster card with kX Project drivers (seriously, look them up, they were and still are totally bonkers) and that setup also included a mic processing chain for high quality swearing.

Nice one, Tony! I also got a small preheater recently and it made my life so much easier!

Move the powersupply out to be external in it own case, then your device will not have an internal heating device

Do you have a ground loop, maybe? Kill the grounding to the speakers, if you have active speakers, or the earth for the amp.

22:48 Maremmamaiala!

It's incredible, when I started with electronics it was almost all analog, guru magicians like Sir Clive Sinclair, Steve Jobs, etc. were beginning to create magic. I worked in radio, in fact as a hobby I was finishing making an RF generator that I had left abandoned. Not like any of the ones we had in the factory where I was working (I used an HP606B) but it's very stable, the most complicated thing is to make the attenuators well isolated and to know, for example, that there is an exact microvolt at the output. Nowadays everything is DSP, an RF generator can be made with DSP, a radio, and a frequency meter, including systems that operate at several gigahertz. I was wondering why Analog Devices was still around, and look at the datasheet for one of their AD or DA converters, it's amazing. In conclusion, I loved your RPM 88 (especially now that it has improved)

I quite often use an inductor instead of a resister in your noise filter for the fan. But with a resistor you have the added effect of reducing the supply voltage I suppose. I am afraid audio is not on my radar I am 66 have had chemotherapy which has affected my hearing and given me permanent Tinnitus.

Tony, my dearest maker! Please don't lubricate silicone items with silicone grease. The silicone grease will diffuse into the silicone rubber of the thing you're lubricating, with the result of at the very least swelling and at the worse end, complete destruction. It's the same issue as with petrol based greases and latex rubbers. Petroleum for silicone items, silicone grease for rubber items.