X-Tronic 4000 (part 1)

Okay.. here is the review of the X-Tronic 4000 Hot Air Reflow Station... part 1...  If it had come in perfect shape it would be a 8/10.   It works exactly as expected/advertised.  I did not expect to have to fix the innards of my unit though.  As it is a 3/5 is generous...

First of all, here is a picture of the box as received by UPS.  It was in perfect shape, no damage whatsoever.

OK.. here is a picture of the lamp unpacked.  There is some damage on the lamp.

Damage:

Note the cracked "bezel" on the switch.

I don't care about the lamp.  It's smaller than expected but actually overall better quality than I expected.  But it's not as good as my old American Made ring lamp, so it'll likely go in a closet somewhere anyway.

Now, on the the hot air unit itself.  The cellophane bag with the soldering iron tips was "shattered" (Asian cellophane is brittle.. I saw that type of bag everywhere in South Korea!) and tips were loose in the box.  That probably caused scratches to the unit on the front and the bottom.

Note the scratches on the front panel near the soldering iron hookup.  You cannot see the ones on the bottom, but I wouldn't complain about those anyway!  It will get far worse with my use of the unit.. but generally I like to scratch up my tools myself after I start using them!  The tape over the shipping screws reveal the instrument's maker, too.. as do the soldering iron tips... (I'll post in part 2)...

Picture of everything as I was unpacking it.  One thing that isn't obvious is that on the nozzles, instead of getting four different ones, I got one "big" one, one "small" one and two of the "Second biggest ones".. the problem with this is the one I would probably use all the time would have been the "second smallest one".  I'm going to contact the seller and see if I can't get it sent to me.  **SIGH**

When inspecting the unit.. the little Chinese "warranty seal" on the back was already broken.  I also noticed that the four holes on the back of the unit had two nylon punch in seals on one side but not on the other!  I decided I better investigate.  I opened up the unit because it didn't look right and the seal was broken already anyway!

Here is what I discovered in my unit:

The control board on the back of the unit is mounted using "punch in" Nylon standoffs.  The ones of the right back side (right as seen from the front) of the unit were sheared off.  The part of the standoff that was sheared off was nowhere to be found in the box, meaning that either the factory in China packed it broken or it was repacked broken in Lincoln, NE by the e-bay seller. (I don't care which!)  I couldn't let this board float since the little "fish tank" type pump in the unit is on rubber mounts.. too much vibration would cause this board to short against the case.  I have to assume that since steel screws are not used.. nylon ones are.. unlike the board in the front of the unit... that it has to be isolated from the case at least with the 110V version).    Here is a short video clip of the problem with the unit.

Yah, at that point I was getting pretty frustrated... but it worked out OK after I cobbled together a fix (and improvement) out of hardware I bought for the Amplifier project.  

I think I'll get four nylon screws of the appropriate length and get rid of the "punch in" fit standoffs completely.

I did fire the thing up and both the iron and hot air gun work well.  Extremely well.. so it overall is working out OK.  I'm just disappointed I got the broken one (AGAIN).. it always happens to me.  My whole frickin' life seems to be fixing other peoples screw-ups.  Two out of two of my recent Chinese made purchases I had to rebuild a part of to get them to work as designed.  We *might* have a chance in the US after all if this is the typical QC over there!

I have a PC board that I got a couple of years ago at the CSVHF Society Conference cheap for the purpose (it was sold that way) of getting a bunch of SMA connectors off of it.  It was nearly impossible to do this before hot air.  It's easy now.  I will make a video tomorrow showing how easy it is to remove SMT IC's, chip parts and RF connectors with the hot air.  It's getting too late tonight.

But because of the scratches on the case, the loose iron tips and broken bag to store them in... the wrong nozzle in the set of four and the broken standoffs on the unit.. I can at best give it another C-...

Fixed.. it's a B...  Which I suppose isn't bad for $140 delivered.  But if those guys in Nebraska really expect to eventually get $230 for it.. no way, no how...One word for them:  Aoyue.