Fork me on GitHub

Project Notes

#272 Saike 909D

Unboxing and initial review of the Saike 909D 3-in-1 hot air rework station.

Build

Notes

you know what it’s like when you go search for the cheapest hot-air station on the 11-11 sale; think well, I may as well get one of the better ones; and since the price not that much different I should go for the 3-in-1 instead of the 2-in-1, then have to sneak it home past your partner? … well, like that :smiley:

I’ve been wanting a hot-air gun for a while, and I found a good deal on a Saike 909D recently. It is actually a 3-in-1 unit, comprising:

  • hot-air gun
  • solder station
  • DC power supply

It can usually be found sold with a bundle of supplies and attachments.

The TL/DR review: very good value for the price. Happy!

Technical Specification

Parameter Specification
AC Supply 220V, 50Hz
Work environment 0 to 50°C
DC Power Supply  
Output Voltage 0-15V DC, <0.01 ±2mV
Output Power 15W max
Soldering Iron  
Output Power 50W
Temperature range 200-480°C
Temperature stability ±2°C
Tip-ground voltage <2mV
Tip-ground resistance <2Ω
Heat Gun  
Air flow type Brushless fan
Air flow 120l/min (max)
Output power 700W
Temperature range 100-450°C
Temperature stability ±1°C

Hot-air Gun

This is the main feature I bought the unit for .. and it works perfectly. I grabbed a few faulty boards and was unmounting surface mount components within seconds. The warm-up is very fast.

The only problem I encountered was with one of the nozzle attachments. Poor quality construction - one of the adjustment lugs just fell off in my fingers:

Saike909D_nozzles

The other nozzles are fine. Maybe I can get the seller to provide a replacement, but if not then no great loss.

Power Supply

The built-in supply is very convenient to have on the bench built-in to the unit. It comes with full set of probes and power connectors (including USB socket).

It can supply 0-15V at up to 1A:

  • digital voltage display at 0.1V precision
  • analog ammeter, 1A full scale. Of course not much use for mA circuits, but fine to highlight a large power drain.
  • has an isolated floating ground. There is ~0mA leakage when grounded to earth.

It can also operate as a crude voltmeter.

A quick test:

Saike909D_psu

Warning: Power OFf Flyback

One thing I’ve noted is a flyback surge when the main power is switched off.

The surge appears on the PSU outputs regardless of whether the PSU is turned on or off.

The actual spike is variable .. somewhere between -15V and +15V.

Here’s an example of the voltage on the PSU output when the master switch is turned off (with the PSU itself turned off):

Saike909D_psu_power_off

Solder Station

I already have a “favourite iron”, so the solder station is kind of an unnecessary bonus.

In my first test at 300°C I was having a hard time getting the solder to flow. I thought it was either taking a very long time to warm up, or it was just unable to deliver sufficient power.

After a bit of research - finding posts like this - I suspect it is just not calibrated correctly.

I’ll ask the seller before cracking the box to see if I can figure it out..

Credits and References

About LEAP#272 Tools
Project Source on GitHub Project Gallery Return to the LEAP Catalog

This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LEAP GitHub repository.

LEAP is just my personal collection of projects, usually involving an Arduino or other microprocessor in one way or another. Some are full-blown projects, while many are trivial breadboard experiments, intended to learn and explore something interesting (IMHO!).

The projects are usually inspired by things found wild on the net, or ideas from the sources such as:

Feel free to borrow liberally, and if you spot any issues do let me know. See the individual projects for credits where due. There are even now a few projects contributed by others - send your own over in a pull request if you would also like to add to this collection.