Aoyue 888A Hot Air Rework Station Teardown and Safety Fix

[@Yann_Roberge]

Thank you for making this video. The people at Aoyue must've watched it because the safety problems you pointed out are not in my unit (manufactured 2021): - The fuse wiring is correct - Leads are shorter (not as short as they could've been, I still trimmed a dozen or so that looked close to shorting) - The iron connector is tight enough I haven't checked the splicing however.

[@FromDesertTown]

Thanks for documenting your safety fixes! I would not have thought to look for those issues. For what it's worth, the detached diode that you discovered came attached and soldered in mine.

[@GadgetReboot]

That’s the second time I heard the diode was attached for someone else. It makes me want to try to reverse engineer what it’s doing because it does look like mine was deliberately removed from circuit. I wonder if there is a board revision printed somewhere so at least I could confirm if other people with the diode in circuit have the same board. It’s definitely one of those unsolved mysteries that I’m going to inevitably have to investigate. Along with seeing if I can increase the airflow on the hot air because it does seem weaker than I would’ve thought based on other units in the past.

[@LutzSchafer]

@@GadgetReboot Yes, please do the reverse engineering :). I am sure there are a few things that could be improved. But we would also need the code for the Atmel... I noticed though that they took good care of creepage and routed out gaps in the PCB around the triac and associated components.

[@AnotherMaker]

Look at this guy. Expecting both cheap and safe. :)

[@GadgetReboot]

i’m surprised it lasted two years and counting so I guess it’s exceeded expectations.

[@AnotherMaker]

@@GadgetReboot I have basically the same one. The iron died. I bought a new replacement iron and later repaired the existing one. I still have a few more mods I want to make to mine, but I'm going to test it for the things that were wrong with yours.

[@LutzSchafer]

@@AnotherMaker You can get cheaply new heating elements and hot air tubes from SRA-Solder

[@JustLearning]

Thanks for the video. You know what you are doing. I am not so tech so I would not open the unit and if I did I would not know what to look for in there. I know there are more expensive units out there but $100 is not so cheap to me. But I know you get what you pay for in life. Thanks again for the video.

[@iliekplanez]

I think I've seen other people say they needed to open up the "venting" on the hot air gun because the mold was worn out and no air was getting in.

[@LutzSchafer]

Thank you so much for this contribution! I also bought the same unit and already put the fuse on the hot side. On my unit the PCB looked much better than yours. No re-work necessary. ZD1 was in place where I suppose it should be. There are some flaws in the circuit design or the programming of the Atmel. I also notice the logarithmic behavior of all the pots. I think they may have used old, overstock logarithmic audio pots which really sucks. Did you see any markings on the pots giving away what I suspect? I did some temperature measurements on the hot air gun and I am not sure what the display actually shows. There is a temperature gradient of around 50-100C from the end of the heater plate to the aperture of the nozzle. I think they must have accounted for this somewhat because if I set the temperature to say 300C - on the heater I measure 350. There is an offset adjustment that you can do in the setup, but this does not seem to work for higher temperatures and worse you loose the settings after turning the unit off and get an arbitrary positive offset of around 33C back. Other settings seem to stay persistent, although I didn't see an eeprom. Yeah, its build for a price but for my use seems okay so far... Thanks again for your inspiration!

[@Googaliemoogalie]

why is the neural fused? a mistake or different for different markets? (I think the UK has fused outlets)

[@GadgetReboot]

Fusing neutral must be a mistake because it doesn't provide any protection. If neutral is shorted to chassis, which is grounded, and neutral/ground are common in the breaker panel, there's no large current between those to blow a fuse, but if hot shorts to chassis ground, infinite current tries to flow and a fuse would blow. No fuse means chassis is live.

[@Googaliemoogalie]

@@GadgetReboot yea that's right, so it's just a mistake then. That's a worrying situation

[@Leo-pd8ww]

Does it have thermal protection that switches off the heating element of the hot air gun in case the fan fails?

[@michaelmitchell8218]

I got this make and never had a problem but I did buy mine 15 years ago. So has this company gone down hill ? I only just changed the heat element after 15 years of use. Very bad how this one on the video been made.

[@ohrom8159]

great video wouldn't have even thought to check any of that stuff, but i am getting an error on the solder iron and it seems to go cold, i thought i was doing something wrong but now i saw this video and maybe i should look inside at the connector as you said yours was not out all the way. hopefully that all it i, wish i had seen this before i bought it.

[@GadgetReboot]

yeah it sounds like there could be a connector loose because my iron connector definitely needed some help but ever since I did that initial internal inspection it’s been working no problem for two years and it’s my main iron. haven’t had to replace any heating elements or anything.

[@adegbayeoluwaseun2663]

Mine is blowing air but I think bit enough to remove the charging port to fix another one. What might be the cause?

[@GadgetReboot]

is it not blowing hot enough? A common failure could be the heating element. I had to replace that in a desoldering pump that suddenly went cold but it worked again when I bought another heating element

[@vgamesx1]

22:30 Well that's still better than what most units do, which is to have the mains always connected making them a bit of a fire hazard, so I actually like that design better, you could potentially ruin the heater but I'd take that over having to unplug mine in order to avoid potential fires.

[@GadgetReboot]

I do like that the power gets fully cut. If I used the unit often enough and still found it to be a hassle maybe I would come up with some sort of timer circuit to cut the power after five minutes of being turned off to give it time to cool down

[@stevendavid9430]

Hi my hot air gun overheats i checked triac 1 was shorted buts its for air pump. After reading up i changed lm358 n moc 3041 (as i read shorted phototriac causes full power) n its still over heats. I even bought new hot air gun bcos old one internal glass holder broke n its still over heat. Its a 852d+ Can u advice?

[@GEORGE-jf2vz]

ANYTHING you get from china that works off the mains you have to take it apart to make sure it is wired correctly. Even the power cord if it disconnects from the item. I have purchased replacement power cords that were wired wrong.

[@leptar]

Awesome video. I bought one a year ago. Mine was wired correctly, but one thing i didn't take notice was the solder joints until i reopened mine again. I got about 100-120hrs into mine no issues but my wife or kids bumped it and dropped the hot air gun breaking the glass tube. Still works but i think my next station will be one of a little more quality. imgur.com/a/KoyWhTW Couple of pictures of how mine looked compared to yours. Mine was fused hot and the diode on ZD1 is soldered in place. Figured i would share.

[@GadgetReboot]

That’s weird how your diode is in place and it makes me wonder if there’s other differences where mine does need to be taken out while yours actually needs to be there because of other changes on the board since mine did look like it was deliberately taken out. I’m basically afraid to leave this thing plugged in unattended even though I know it’s a hard power switch so I guess I will just have to become more comfortable with it over time. Also good to know it does hold up after time.

[@ReelSpider]

6 years later, this unit still sells for $125.00.

[@ReelSpider]

I didn't think the chips where coming off without flux, I'm gonna buy one...

[@yaminsiddiqui4690]

You are confused between hot and neutral..

[@yaminsiddiqui4690]

4:57 .. what you call neutral is actually live.. atleast in UK standard

[@GadgetReboot]

Nema 5-15 www.wikiwand.com/en/NEMA_connector