Hakko FR-206 reconditioning and restoration - project log

[hatmoose]

Hi Team;

Thank you all for your sympathy and kind words regarding the robbery of my garage over here . Insurance have come through with (part of) a cheque for replacement.

Clearly the universe wants me to rebuild my electronics lab. Normally when the universe wants me to do something it wants me to do it in the most impractical, inefficient, time consuming, difficult and outright moronic way possible.

I've started in a modest way by ordering this https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/l1051148873
No doubt that it's properly broken, "A loud warning siren can be heard..."
List price from Hakko $US1,100
Buy price from shady japanese grey-market electronics recycler = $US208
Date of manufacture 2012

Luckily I've checked the manual and it looks very simple... Only one transformer, a series of PCB's with custom chips, a vaccum pump, a tiny air blower, and other weird stuff packed in there. Surely it cant be harder than a 4-slot neogeo...

 

[stj]

From Wednesday, April 6, 2022, Yahoo! JAPAN is no longer available in the EEA and the United Kingdom

MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!

 

[chacal231077]

From Wednesday, April 6, 2022, Yahoo! JAPAN is no longer available in the EEA and the United Kingdom

Went back 22 years WTF

I live in France and I started buying in Japan by internet in 2002, first order at the store
Japanpa
Frankly Japan abuses

 

[hatmoose]

Arrived today carefully packed in a single layer of bubble wrap and a plastic bag. But completley umdamaged as fas as I can see.

Cosmetically it looks good - almost brand new. For a 10 year old piece of industrial equipment...


Internally it looks minty, a light coating of dust by the inlets. But absolutely nothing compared to the filth I've seen restoring vintage hardware


Even the pipes from the desolder pump are looking clean


Either this thing was barely used, or it's been broken for years and been used as a doorstop

Next step is to find a 500w step-down transformer to tame our wild antipodean 230v power to a more refined 100v for Japanese gear. Because this is hakko it doesnt have a switch mode power supply - it has a surprisingly large transformer internal to the thing - at a later stage it might be possible to replace the
US/JPN part (B3676) with an NZ/UK one (B3677). But it would be goot to know if it actually works first.

 

[stj]

check if the transformer has multiple primary windings

interesting how the pump is gated by a pair of solenoid-valves.
i wonder if it runs the pump a second ahead of the valve to build vac before routing it to the handpiece?

btw, clean that fan!

 

[hatmoose]

Unbelievable - it works perfectly as far as I can tell. Passes all the tests, all the ports report OK.

The loud beeping was the alarm saying that there was no handle plugged in.

I'm probably going to have to rebuild the pump, but otherwise it looks as good as new.

I shall now bankrupt myself ordering the handles, Irons and spare parts + shipping from the USA

 

[hatmoose]

Kind of a lame one, mainly posting it so I don’t try this again.

I personally hate wet sponge tip cleaning, but clearly many others love it. The Hakko FR-200 iron holder comes with either a wet sponge or a brass shavings cup. The holder is some kind of cast alloy. It’s not heavy enough to be iron, but it’s painted too nicely to be aluminium.

This one had clearly been wet for a long time, the paint had started to lift off.


My not-particularly successful solution was to put it in the ultrasonic cleaner.




This left the corrosion untouched, lifted off all the paint from the corrosion, and left it looking in need of a sandblast and respray which is what I should have done in the first place.



So in the end I threw out the sponge, bought the Hakko brass shaving cup, and hid the whole dog breakfast. Good as new!

 

[stj]

that looks like die-cast zinc

 

[hatmoose]

that looks like die-cast zinc

Agree - interesting stuff Zinc, I learned a lot, thank you! If anyone ever needs to buy another one too you can buy this as an individual part here
https://hakkousa.com/b3249-cleaner-base.html

To answer your question, it looks like the transformer is wound for 100v, 110v and 120v on the primary. Which is a weirdly over engineered arrangement like everything else inside it.
There is a PCB attached to the front with solder points to bridge for the input voltage 100v (JPN) 110 (???) and 120v(USA)

So I've been gently cooking this by giving it 110v through a little step-down transformer

There are two power supply transformer options for the 206
B3676 = 100-120v
B3677 = 220-240v

Because this one is from Japan it has the B3676 and the solder bridge is set to 100v. I did briefly entertain the fantasy of swapping the transformer for B3677. But like everything in this part of the world B3677 is an enormous pain to get and very expensive.

So plan B is to get an external step-down transformer. which is much cheaper and more available.

Which brings me to my question - normally I'd use an Isolated step-down transformer. But in this case I'm not sure that I actually WANT full earth isolation. Am is risking ESD by using a fully isolated step-down transformer in this use case?

 

[stj]

no, because you still have an earth connection - i hope.
i know the japanese house wiring is a joke, but i expect comercial buildings to be "3wire"

btw, find out what the transformer part number is in the 888 or whatever the cheap iron is called.
there is a 3d print available to adapt a toroid transformer to fit the mounts in one

 

[hatmoose]

Hmmm, OK so the secondary windings on the transformer are
+48v for the pump and (im guessing) the 70w iron option
+5v for the PCB
+24v for the standard irons
-24v I have no idea what this does.

I've found a 500w, 110v step down transformer locally for twenty bucks so I'll move that solder blob across on the input board and call the power problem solved

 

[hatmoose]

I learned a lot about Isolation transformers in the last day or so

There is a lot confusion when different things are called the same thing... All of these things are called "isolation transformers"
1) There are isolation transformers that are isolated on live, on neutral, on earth
2) There are isolation transformers that are isolated on the live and neutral only and pass earth to mains ground
3) There are isolation transformer that are isolated on live, neutral is tied to earth but earth is not passed to mains ground
4) There are isolation transformers that are isolated on live, neutral is tied to earth and earth is passed to mains ground

So what I've bought is a 500w fully isolated step-down transformer, it is isolated on live, and on neutral, and on earth (in fact earth is not even wired, there is an earth PIN, it just doesn't go anywhere).
Its wound 2:1 so it will step down from 230v to 110v, or plugged in the other way will step up from 115 to 230v

This would be a dream come true if I wanted to work safely on imported live chassis CRTs, or normal CRTs, or valve amps, or AC/DC radios. It's needlessly dangerous for general use. If any device anywhere in the chain has a metal chassis and develops a live-to-chassis fault the fuse won't see it because there is no ground reference. The RCD might save my life, but I wouldn't count on it. In this case both the transformer AND the FR206 have a metal chassis.


For my use case (mainly powering the FR-206) the transformer needs to be able to pass earth to mains ground
Three reasons for this
If anything develops a live-to-chassis fault the mains fuse will see it and (we hope) pop before I do
If I grab + and - on the isolated side the RCD will "see" this and is more likely to save my life
The tip of the iron will be correctly earthed to mains ground and will be ESD safe

So I'll probably do the simplest mod possible; replace the current 2-wire mains cable with an earthed 3-wire mains cable, earth the transformer chassis to the mains ground off that, wire the earth pins on the 110v sockets to the mains ground.
In the old days that still wouldn't be particularly safe, because L and N still aren't referenced to ground so the mains fuse won't "see" the fault and burn out. But now days with an RCD L and N don't need to be referenced to ground, the RCD can see the differential between L and N directly.

If I wanted to emulate how this is supposed to work in America I would also wire neutral to ground so that the 110v socket would pass safety tests. In USA this works because L1 and L2 are both 110v and the difference between the two is what carries the power, this is a vastly better design than what we have. In most British colonies we get raw unfiltered 230/240v. 110v will hurt real good, but 240v is fatal more often.

TL;DR - will wire all the earths up and connect to the transformer chassis, then tie that to mains ground.

 

[stj]

wire the earth,
the hakko needs it to prevent static, the transformer can use it to reduce interference and inductive current by turning it's casing into a shield.

but dont go thinking an rcd will save you from being careless - they cant see the secondary side of a transformer.
now you could fit a 110v rcd on the output if you really wanted to.

i dont know why a 500w device has such huge fuses on the outputs, it really needs one on the input side!

 

[hatmoose]

Finally got around to converting the station from 100v (JPN) to 110v (USA)
Super easy, there is a jumper on the I/o board for the transformer. I'm not actually sure what difference this will make, but the transformer outputs 110v, and the device wants 110v, so Raiden the lightning god will be appeased and hopefully not kick my ass next time I play MK3



For the transformer I was hoping that I could replace the wired cable entry on the transformer with a fused C13 socket with indicator light and switch. But alas the transformer is potted and the level of goop fills the inside too high for there to be room.

So instead I'll replace the existing wired plug - needed a new bushing for this which washttps://www.digikey.co.nz/en/products/detail/essentra-components/SRB-R-3/3815176

 

[hatmoose]

Finished this one off a while back and forgot to update.

Only other learning was that if your nylon bushing should fit but does not fit, hit it with the hairdryer for a minute or so - that will soften it up long enough to get everything in place.

 

[xodaraP]

If you need parts/spares for this there are a couple of good distributors in Australia that might be a better option than ordering from the USA

Oritech and Mektronics I’ve ordered from personally and both were very good to deal with

 

[djsheep]

Co-sign for Mektronics. Got my iron off them, good service and legit parts.

 

[hatmoose]

Thanks for the recommendations @djsheep and @xodaraP sadly your cousins on the West Island cannot be shipped to by Aussie Hakko partners, I'm guessing they have some kind of geo-locked resale agreement - there is an NZ Hakko partner with surprisingly good prices, but none of them have the parts I need - will have to buy from the USA.

By the time I add up everything I need and include (outrageous) shipping I'll have to sell some of my other projects to afford it.

Also needs a new fan - the stock fan in the 206 has CPS2 disease - it's ball bearing and will run for a million years and it sounds like a jet engine
Is 60x60x15 24v - something like this should do it...
https://www.digikey.co.nz/en/products/detail/cui-devices/CFM-6015BF-225-204-20/15765143

 

[xodaraP]

There’s a Sunon fan I’ve used in all of mine and a few other projects that works really well. The Pabst is also popular

 

[djsheep]

Can co-sign the Sunon Fan that @xodaraP recommends. Have them on all my cps-2.