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 donāt 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 480Ā°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 450Ā°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 330Ā° or 360Ā°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 Iāll 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.
I get 3.99-4.0 on all tips and 3.86-3.88 on the element. None of my sleeves pull outā¦checked my brand new spare back up Hakko iron the heating element is the same diameter. Bought all this about 4 years agoā¦ Checked with another member and his is the same.
Thanks for the bit of good news with shipping, fingers crossed that the shipping forwarders work on weekendsā¦ā¦especially during a weekend before a holiday Monday, I know I would have been gone on the Friday before, Iām lazy like that
No one has tracking numbers nor has the website been updated for any orders (that will happen at the same time the tracking numbers are uploaded).
This is how all the past GT shipments have worked as well, they ship them but the tracking numbers then have to trickle back through a bunch of hands before lumintop has them and can send them out. It is quite common for the DHL shipments to be delivered before the tracking numbers are uploaded due to this.
Leo said he is trying to rush things to get the tracking numbers before the holiday but I am not holding my breath, it is simply out of his hands until the package forwarder sends him the numbers.
Has there been any indication on when the GB is going to end? I am going to make a purchase but my family is moving come November 1 so I have been holding off as long as possible so as to not take a chance of it being shipped to the wrong address depending on how long or quick it takes to ship. If I can hold off another two weeks maybe I figure that would be about a perfect guarantee to be able to ship it to the new address.
There has not been any word as of yet but I donāt expect much if any communication this coming week due to the China Holiday, so I think it is a safe bet to say it will be open for at least another week.
My guess is that when they catch up on orders and have a chance to think they will realize it is still open and tell me to close it. This has been the trend in the past. I try to give people a weeks notice of when it will end whenever possible.