The BLF GT70 "Giggle Monster" is here! 7,500lumens, 1,500m throw! Group buy Closed!

My OEM Hakko tips have an inserts as well, but they fit with minimal play. Maybe yours are fakes?

I don’t know, but it bothers me. I may replace my entire iron.

Yep… looks like a sleeve/liner in all of mine. Your packaging looks a bit different though…

There is a U.S. patent number on mine, and the warning is in English?

I’m still waiting for mine as well. Tracking still says “Wait for Shipping” I’d imagine they will ship soon. Hopefully next week.

The NW lights are being packed this week, I got a picture of that effort yesterday. I assume that the conversion kits are also being worked on but I know they are in a time crunch before China shuts down next week for a holiday. We will see what all makes it out before that happens.

Strange indeed, his might indeed be fakes.

Although I would recommend trying at least one of them out first. While the fitment is a big part of it, I wrapped my old china tips with copper foil to give them a snug fit and while the solder station did read that the temperature increased faster it only soldered slightly better. The insides of the tip are simply not very good.

Even with a looser fit with my hakko tip compared to the foil wrapped china tip, the Hakko tip is night and day better.

I wish I still had the rappers for mine so I can compare them with yours. I purchased extra tips from Home Depot. They all get up to temp. BTW, I have a fake Hakko FG100 and 191 temperature sensor. They both are within a couple of degrees of each other.

I found wrappers just like mine, so that is no issue.

The reason cheap tips will never heat up well is because copper foil will only tighten the gap between the heater and sleeve. The problem is the air gap between the inner sleeve and the tip. I did a video on it here.

Searching online I found that Hakko heating elements should be 4.86-4.88 in diameter. I also read that they should not have a snug fit so as to allow for expansion. I don’t know if that is true or not.

I decided to go ahead and try one of the tips on the very light that the cheap tip could not melt. The big 30mm copper dtp xhp70.2 mcpcb in the ODF30. Maxed at 480°C the cheap tip (largest size) just could not melt it. It heated the head instead.

With this new Amazon Hakko tip I set the temperature to 450°C and it had no problems liquefying it (using a medium sized tip on top of all that). I was able to wick away all the original solder and put some fresh lead-free in and then reassemble the light. I was also able to do some spring bypasses at either 330° or 360°C (I forget). So even though the fit between the tip and the element is not snug, it seems to be working a whole lot better than those cheap tips I had.

Next time I have it out I’ll switch to the biggest tip and do some solder blobs on my 26650 cells and see how it does. The old tips took a good 5 seconds to melt the blob, when it should be more like 2 seconds.

So for now, I’m satisfied. :+1:

I get 3.99-4.0 on all tips and 3.86-3.88 on the element. None of my sleeves pull out…checked my brand new spare back up Hakko iron the heating element is the same diameter. Bought all this about 4 years ago… Checked with another member and his is the same.

While I find the discussion about soldering tips interesting, could we move the off-topic discussion to it’s own thread?

Any word if they managed to ship out the NW orders before shutting down for the week?

This waiting has been brutal :disappointed:

Nothing yet, I might here from them this weekend, I might not. It is always iffy on the weekends getting in contact with them.

Thanks for staying on top on this and all that you have done for the us :slight_smile:

Ok, just got the final word before the holiday.

The good news is that almost all of the NW GT70’s were shipped out!

Leo stayed late and did a lot of the work getting these out the door all by himself to get as many as possible shipped before the holiday.

The delayed news is that the conversion kits were not able to be shipped before the holiday. They will ship out after they return.

So expect arrivals to start happening over the coming 1-2 weeks assuming they make it out of china before it completely shuts down.

Leo said he is going to try to get the tracking numbers sent out if he gets them before the holiday.

Thanks for the bit of good news with shipping, fingers crossed that the shipping forwarders work on weekends……especially during a weekend before a holiday Monday, I know I would have been gone on the Friday before, I’m lazy like that :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for the update. China national holiday starts oct 1 - oct 7… so we might see shipping notice in 2 days.

Thanks for the update TA. :+1:

And a big ’Thank You’ to Leo for going above & beyond!!!

No problem about the Conversion Kits either. It is what it is… we’ll get them soon enough. :wink:

Kudos to Leo!!! :beer: . :+1:

I will be very amazed if the “shipping forwarders” have the same dedication. :wink:

We shall see……

I’m with you flashycali, I’d be out of there! . :smiley: . :beer: . :+1:

:slight_smile: :beer: :star::slight_smile:

The bad news for me is that my NW GT70 hasn't shipped out yet, as of 9/29/18 @ 6:00AM PST. This is according to the Lumintop website.

And when will they (Lumintop) return from their holiday before they resume preparing shipments?