It’s like going from an Ultrafire 10$ light to a Convoy C8. A nice difference for not so much money.
While going from the one you have to a TS100 will be like going from that Ultrafire 10$ light to a Emisar D1S. A completely different level.
Both are great soldering irons though. The PX-988 is a very nice iron, and the TS100 is a step up from that, having better firmware, faster heat up time, better handling.
Get the TS-100 if your future budget allows it, along with a flat fat tip. Otherwise, just go with the PX-988.
I honestly get confused with that dot as well and kinda gave up keeping track of the pin numbers using it some time ago. Now I just look at the schematic to see which pin goes where and use the technical pin names for figuring out the connections.
The TS100 iron has been superceded by the TS80. This looks great for portability as it can run on a battery pack.
Another one that looks good is the KSGER STM32 T12. This uses the Hakko 951 style of tip (or T12 style), but in a cheaper format ($40-$60 instead of $230). I paid $77 for a kit with 8 tips. These Chinese version T12 tips are pretty cheap at $3 ea. Genuine Hakko T12 tips are about $23 ea.
Those slip on Banggood/Amazon tips are junk (IMO). The new Hakko 888 style tips (T18 style) I recently bought are working much better. They make soldering easier. Plus I’m using a thicker flux that I put on with a toothpick instead of an applicator pen and that upped the results another notch. I’m soldering so much better now. :partying_face:
Got my MT03 TA finally, very nice light and heat up faster than my old MT03 12000lm. But it can’t be completely turn off, it continue to output very dim light which is lower than moon mode. I didn’t measure how much current it consume with these very dim light.
I managed to completely switched it off without output any light one time when i tried to on off it multiple times, but it has a beating sounds when it’s completely off. This is first time i heard hearbeat of a flashlight. but i can’t make it happen anymore.
Still trying to figure it out, anyone encounter this?
I’ve heard some of the recent MT03 and MT09R lights having a bit of leakage like yours. Texas_Ace showed Haikelite exactly how to build these drivers and with what exact parts. Unfortunately, they seemed to have changed a few components just save a penny here or there or maybe they recieved some counterfeit components.
To find the source of the leakage does require a soldering iron and maybe a hot air station. The most likely component “leaking” current past are the 2 FETs. The little one can be unsoldred to check it, but the big one has to have hot air to check it.
You can request a new driver from Haikelite, but whether you get it or how long it takes is an unknown.
Thanks for your help JasonWW. I will contact Haikelite and report here what they can offer.
I turned off blue led while off thinking it could be leaked from that part of circuit, but it is not helping. And leave it off all night didn’t help too. The very dim light actually is not stable like moon mode, they flicker a bit but never turn off.
The flickering is very odd indeed, it says that for some reason a cap somewhere must be discharging / recharging and this is causing the flicker.
It is possible a fake LDO could cause this I suppose, but pretty unlikely. I am not really sure what could cause this behavior to be honest. It is a very simple setup to avoid issues like this and as far as I know all the 100 lights I built are still working fine with no issues. So I know it is not the base design but sadly that is about all I know.
Thanks for insight of the potential rootcause.
One thing I don’t understand when I managed to get it to be completely off one time, it had tick tick sound like every 0.8s, I hold the light close to my ear to confirm, the sound didn’t want to stop at all. I wonder could it be something is either leaking as sound energy or light energy.
I can’t make it completely off anymore, so far it happened one time only. I give it some try from time to time but not able to see it off completely anymore. I remember it was after i double clicked to turbo and then switched off, and it got completely off. Then i heard ticking sound, i hold mt03 near to my ear and confirmed it’s from the light.
I will try to pull the driver out after talking to Haikelite for solutions.
Those drain numbers are not crazy high in my opinion.
The 360uA to 460uA is a little bit high. It’s still no where near as high as the Thorfire S70S which has a 4,430uA drain (4.43 milliamps). Now that is pretty bad.
So all 3 xhp70.2 in your MT03 are glowing slightly and the drain is only 460uA? I would have guessed it would be much higher. Wierd.
Do you happen to have a hot air station or just a soldering iron?
but i can’t make it happen anymore.