An Australian blogger reviews a Chinese knockoff of a Hakko FX-888 Soldering Iron:
http://electronicsreviewsblog.info/hakko-fx-888-soldering-iron-review-teardown-chinese-version/ Unfortunately, if you were hoping for the exact same electronics as the standard Australian retail version, you'll be disappointed. As you can see from the photos below the main circuit board is quite different and much simpler than the original. Gone is the custom microcontroller and in its place is a much simpler analog design. The construction quality isn't bad... Turns out it actually performs pretty well and I really quite like it. I don't have a temperature measuring device, but I suspect the tip maintains a pretty constant temperature... Also embedded on the page is a video from EEVBlog that shows how to hack the real Hakko FX-888 to have a constantly lit up LED when it is powered on (the factory design has the LED briefly blink on occasionally; odd design choice for something that isn't battery powered). In the process they show the internals and provide a review of sorts. (This seems to be the iron recommended by the EEVBlog guy.) -Tom _______________________________________________ Hardwarehacking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/hardwarehacking
