The magnetic "copper" wool was interesting, haven't seen that before ---- but had you applied the magnet to the supplied tips you would have found that they're all made of iron or steel and strongly magnetic from one end to the other, as are the majority of Asian or Chinese tips, whether purchased separately as a bulk-pack or supplied with an inexpensive soldering station. Quality tips, of course, should be made primarily of copper as the base metal, for best possible heat transfer, with nickel or chrome plating, and iron plating only at the pointy end becauae bare copper would be easily dissolved and pitted by molten solder and flux, or oxidized from heat and oxygen. I have a video on my channel comparing the magnetic attraction of cheap or counterfeit tips compared to the real thing. Performance of any inexpensive soldering station is invariably improved by using a name brand, high quality tip made of copper, and with a smaller hole/ tighter fit where it slides onto the heating element. By the way, a similar "Schneider" branded soldering station to this one is sold at Harbor Freight here in the US for only $45, without the gooseneck/ alligator-clip base and magnifier. It appears to be better built than the Kaiweets (the PCB is neat and clean), the inline fuse and switch are correctly wired, and it uses a 7 pin screw-on GX-16 type connector (only 5 pins are actually being used). The thick, stiff, meltable cord connecting the wand to the station is a drag but could be changed out for a thin flexible silicone cable, and you can easily reuse the screw-on connector because it's not molded onto the cable. I posted a review and teardown of it on my channel recently as well as a separate video and wiring diagram of the iron itself. Harbor Freight also sells a fancier "Schneider" digital soldering station for $120 that is marked ATTEN ST80 on the internal control board. I just bought one the other day but haven't had a chance to play with it yet; it can be configured for Fahrenheit or Celsius readout, has user-adjustable sleep/standby modes, and 3 presets for your preferred temperature settings. The soldering wand has a 5 pin molded-on DIN connector (boo hiss!) but at least the cable is thin, flexible and heat-resistant; the power inlet is the standard IEC socket eith a T 2-amp fuse. I'll post a review and tear down of it on my channel once I've had a chance to thoroughly interrogate it. Like the cheaper Harbor Freight soldering station, the supplied tips are made of highly-magnetic iron, and all three are conical. It seems that you can buy inexpensive, variant-version soldering stations with any strange brand name you like, but the tips are *always* conical, always iron, always the same! On the plus side, both of these have power transformers and correctky grounded tips and are therefore much safer electrically than the numerous "clone" T12 soldering stations that have a switching power supply and poor electrical isolation, and can leak 100V or more onto the PCB's that you're working on!
Good review of a scary product (a rebadged SKY TOPPOWER HD-937D). KAIWEETS looks for extra line products in the wrong factories maybe? Reviews on this side of the pond are not so gracious. I'm an early adopter of the PACE ADS200 with its own teething issues.
They have been pushing this to a quite a few TH-cam channels. All clones of Hakko 936 are junk mostly due to lousy heat transfer. Waste of money when you can get a T12 clone that actually works.
I agree that it's not got Hakko quality tips, but to be fair, I had not much trouble with during my soldering tests. Maybe that's because I crudely "calibrated" it towards running on the hot side... (still have not turned that dial down).
@@TheHWcave I used a similar one for quite a few years, "fixed" the thermal contact with shims and it still choked on anything with considerable ground plane, even small boards like in phones, that have many layers. For simple boards with small thermal mass components it will be fine, for anything else it is useless. As I previously stated: makes no sense when you can get a T12 clone for a bit more.
The magnetic "copper" wool was interesting, haven't seen that before ---- but had you applied the magnet to the supplied tips you would have found that they're all made of iron or steel and strongly magnetic from one end to the other, as are the majority of Asian or Chinese tips, whether purchased separately as a bulk-pack or supplied with an inexpensive soldering station. Quality tips, of course, should be made primarily of copper as the base metal, for best possible heat transfer, with nickel or chrome plating, and iron plating only at the pointy end becauae bare copper would be easily dissolved and pitted by molten solder and flux, or oxidized from heat and oxygen. I have a video on my channel comparing the magnetic attraction of cheap or counterfeit tips compared to the real thing. Performance of any inexpensive soldering station is invariably improved by using a name brand, high quality tip made of copper, and with a smaller hole/ tighter fit where it slides onto the heating element.
By the way, a similar "Schneider" branded soldering station to this one is sold at Harbor Freight here in the US for only $45, without the gooseneck/ alligator-clip base and magnifier. It appears to be better built than the Kaiweets (the PCB is neat and clean), the inline fuse and switch are correctly wired, and it uses a 7 pin screw-on GX-16 type connector (only 5 pins are actually being used). The thick, stiff, meltable cord connecting the wand to the station is a drag but could be changed out for a thin flexible silicone cable, and you can easily reuse the screw-on connector because it's not molded onto the cable. I posted a review and teardown of it on my channel recently as well as a separate video and wiring diagram of the iron itself.
Harbor Freight also sells a fancier "Schneider" digital soldering station for $120 that is marked ATTEN ST80 on the internal control board. I just bought one the other day but haven't had a chance to play with it yet; it can be configured for Fahrenheit or Celsius readout, has user-adjustable sleep/standby modes, and 3 presets for your preferred temperature settings. The soldering wand has a 5 pin molded-on DIN connector (boo hiss!) but at least the cable is thin, flexible and heat-resistant; the power inlet is the standard IEC socket eith a T 2-amp fuse. I'll post a review and tear down of it on my channel once I've had a chance to thoroughly interrogate it. Like the cheaper Harbor Freight soldering station, the supplied tips are made of highly-magnetic iron, and all three are conical. It seems that you can buy inexpensive, variant-version soldering stations with any strange brand name you like, but the tips are *always* conical, always iron, always the same! On the plus side, both of these have power transformers and correctky grounded tips and are therefore much safer electrically than the numerous "clone" T12 soldering stations that have a switching power supply and poor electrical isolation, and can leak 100V or more onto the PCB's that you're working on!
Good review of a scary product (a rebadged SKY TOPPOWER HD-937D). KAIWEETS looks for extra line products in the wrong factories maybe? Reviews on this side of the pond are not so gracious. I'm an early adopter of the PACE ADS200 with its own teething issues.
The sarcasm is strong in this one; I salute you! 👏👏🤣
They have been pushing this to a quite a few TH-cam channels. All clones of Hakko 936 are junk mostly due to lousy heat transfer. Waste of money when you can get a T12 clone that actually works.
I agree that it's not got Hakko quality tips, but to be fair, I had not much trouble with during my soldering tests. Maybe that's because I crudely "calibrated" it towards running on the hot side... (still have not turned that dial down).
@@TheHWcave I used a similar one for quite a few years, "fixed" the thermal contact with shims and it still choked on anything with considerable ground plane, even small boards like in phones, that have many layers. For simple boards with small thermal mass components it will be fine, for anything else it is useless. As I previously stated: makes no sense when you can get a T12 clone for a bit more.
@@Kevin-mp5of T12 clones are around $50 ...
'promo sm' 😔