PCBWay 3D Printing and Fabrication: www.pcbway.com/rapid-prototyping/ GVM H3 Soldering Station: s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_De8MMM5 Pico Technology 5000 Series Scope: www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/5000/flexible-resolution-oscilloscope Support the Channel with Patreon: www.patreon.com/sdgelectronics
More than happy with my Aixun T320 that I purchased off the back of your previous review. I have done 0402 resistors & 0603 LED's with the stock tips and put some big heat out with genuine JBC tips soldering ALPS pot brackets. Very very pleased with my purchase.
Nice looking and a good range of handpiece. But really dissapointing power output. Do you think you might have a faulty one? Might be worth having a word with the manufacturer. Thanks for putting in the effort and sharing with us, Steve.
@@davadoff it looks more like a software bug unless they have got themselves confused with the different transformers turns ratio for the different regions. I suspect the unit is confused with the maximum wattage for the iron connected. Sadly the picture displayed on the display to show which iron is connected probably had more effort put into it then what the reason for showing the picture is in the first place. Given the calibration was erroneous it looks like the end user was going to be the software engineers free testers. it would be better to open source the software, the nerds would sort out the issues in no time, and would unhide what's going on around the setpoint as it would be very difficult indeed to hold the tip temp to within 10 C, even with a proper pid controller. If you see the temp snap to the setpoint as we did you know they couldn't show what was happening. We forget it wasn't that long ago when we had on off control or the 18 watt heater just maxed out and we made the world with these irons. That said given its got a proper transformer, and it uses cartridges from the RR of soldering irons, and they could release the held watts I would be tempted to buy the unit, and may even consider connecting an industrial 3 term pid controller to the unit to see what the outcome was. In fact, it would make a good YT video ... SDG.
Can you tell if the station delivers full sine wave ‘humps’ into the cartridge (like JBC does)? Or does it chop it up like PWM? It only has one transformer winding to power the heater, right? I guess they chose C210 voltage for the transformer secondary to power C210 & C245, and limited the output when powering C115 cartridges. I’d worry that JBC C115 cartridges would fail in time if they are feeding C210 voltage into it, even at a rate of one in three sine wave ‘humps’. Could it not burn out the heater coil? It would be delivering way over-spec’d current in short bursts.
Won't fail as long as the power is kept under max. LEDs you can pulse higher than avg current, a heater coil is going to be even more tolerant than that.
@@jaro6985 perhaps it’s fine at 50Hz length pulses if average power is kept in spec. Wouldn’t it still shorten the life of the LED to pulse it? Also I think JBC cartridge heater coil is powered in series with the thermocouple… still no problem to pulse current through the thermocouple too? (without going to extreme examples like 1% duty cycle with HUGE current pulses)
@@davadoff If its kept within max current of the LED it would be fine, where a 1A continuous might overheat the LED but pulsed would not. In this case the limit is almost purely thermal. Good point about the thermocouple but I wouldnt be concerned as its coupled to the tip. The tip should never exceed a reasonable temp (400-500C). So the thermocouple should not melt.
It's not a alternative for the T3A i have. Weird is does not hit the 80w for the C245 tips and handle. The ground issue is not smth i have a problen with yet, and no new firmware has come out to fix it. Sadly don't think it can be resolved either..
I am in the same boat. I am also sticking with my T3A for now. Very happy to see quality tests like this to really know what we don't need to spend our money (and time) on. Actually, I have spent a lot more on genuine JBC soldering iron tips than the actual T3A unit, so IF a good T3A contender comes out I would be interested, mainly because of the temp overshoots. With the old firmware 1.27 it's not that bad thankfully. I don't really have a problem with the ground issue, perhaps only if I use two soldering irons to desolder stuff, but I just bought my third cheap T12 clone for $12 on sale so I just use those for that type of work.
There’s some decent ones available, the jabe ones are ok, there’s this other one comes in blue lid on case similar to jbc case for the tips but no brand on it, some cheap ones as cheap as £3 now but don’t know how good or bad they are
@@M.E63 I just bought some at 10$ a piece from Ali ( seem to be called wosniak), so not really cheap or expensive. The incl tips with the T3A seem okai to me too, but the tip sizes are annoying..
Good video Steve. I am looking for a decent iron. I have a Penicil but need something for long term. I am more of a beginner, but don't really want to end up getting the wrong Iron . Buy it once kind of idea. Main aim is for phone/console and pc mainboard repair . What would you recommend?
brilliant review as usual. I was waiting for the review of this exact station but i ended getting one and not waiting. One thing i noticed is that your firmware revision number is B as opposed to D on mine. So i can assume that maybe they fixed the problems you mentioned in later releases?
There’s a new one out that claims to be 120w and it’s called Wemon t31, looks similar inside to that but looks smaller and it’s cheaper to be honest so don’t know how good or bad it is
That is a very misleading specification (85 W claimed vs less than 40 W delivered). It would be really interesting to see the waveform (oscilloscope) of the voltage sent to the cartridge to find out whether a full AC sinewave is supplied, at which voltage or if it is chopped up by PWM. Given that the maximum power supplied to the T245 is around 40 W, either the delivered AC voltage is far too low or it is being limited by a PWM at less than 50% duty cycle. It should be fairly easy to intercept the power pins on the handpiece connector.
What is the transformer secondary voltage? I wonder if they simply use C210 voltage on C245 cartridges to get compatibility with both. It would explain why T245 is so underpowered.
The anemic power output is disappointing. I would like to find a good JBC clone. This is not it. Thank you for saving us from wasting time and money on this junk.
Your station heats up the soldering iron very, very slowly! Mine heats it up in a few seconds! The 210 soldering iron heats up in a couple of seconds, and the 115 is even faster! And the power adjustment, judging by the station indicator, works much faster! There is something wrong with your station!
This is awful. The firmware is not anywhere near the state what it should be... 40w to a cartridge capable of 120w peak and 80w constant... Yeah... if they do not fix it, it's not better than my 40w weller from 1990's... Probably they're pushing the same voltage into all cartridges, the C245 has higher resistance than C210, so they need different voltages for same power.
This is what you get with Chinese imitation knockoffs the specifications are 100% never ever what they claim regardless of whatever electronic equipment. It is they are always off and to be honest the majority of town that was advertised more than what they give, but the equipment works and does the job the majority of the time it’s just a specification is there a little bit out on
The 80W specification is inaccurate because these most of these companies are built upon lies. It's quite unfortunate in this case as an 80w+ version of this station would be offering an excellent value proposition. If it worked as advertised, this station could be quite popular. As tested here, it's a huge miss that will disappoint buyers. The company should definitely be asked about this to give them some benefit of doubt, but I seriously doubt that this unit is faulty. They apparently didn't expect someone on youtube to actually measure the power output and that was a severe miscalculation. Even a novice programmer knows not to update the displayed temperature at whatever display rate is possible as the reading hovers around the setpoint. Whoever actually programmed this interface came up with the worst possible solution when they decided to simply revert to the set temperature after some period of wandering around it. Do better. I also wish that they'd show the active power limit for the connected tip and adjust the 100% point on the power gauge accordingly.
The poor man pays twice. Can't comprehend why would anyone buy Chinese crap with a 2 or 3 years life and no warranty, when in Europe you can get the JBC BT-2BQA 140w soldering station for 215€.
A poor man can go through a lot of cheap Chinese knock offs before they've spent a fraction of what an equivalent JBC costs. They're ridiculously expensive. They can easily set you back $600 for a decent brand new one. You would be lucky to score non-functioning one sold for repair on eBay for a few hundred bucks. The parts are super expensive.
PCBWay 3D Printing and Fabrication: www.pcbway.com/rapid-prototyping/
GVM H3 Soldering Station: s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_De8MMM5
Pico Technology 5000 Series Scope:
www.picotech.com/oscilloscope/5000/flexible-resolution-oscilloscope
Support the Channel with Patreon: www.patreon.com/sdgelectronics
More than happy with my Aixun T320 that I purchased off the back of your previous review. I have done 0402 resistors & 0603 LED's with the stock tips and put some big heat out with genuine JBC tips soldering ALPS pot brackets.
Very very pleased with my purchase.
Same whit 420
Do these have the sound grounding issues? The others had a lot of high voltage on the tip, and you could confuse the thermistor on certain pins
@@ameliabuns4058They all have the issue to some extent but most people don't work on grounded boards so it's fine for most
Always love your reviews and tutorials. Keep up the good work my friend.
Finally a UI with decent fonts despite the poor performance on the coin
Nice looking and a good range of handpiece. But really dissapointing power output. Do you think you might have a faulty one? Might be worth having a word with the manufacturer. Thanks for putting in the effort and sharing with us, Steve.
I'll do a bit of investigation and see if something is wrong with it
@@sdgelectronicscan you check transformer secondary winding voltage for the heater?
@@davadoff it looks more like a software bug unless they have got themselves confused with the different transformers turns ratio for the different regions. I suspect the unit is confused with the maximum wattage for the iron connected. Sadly the picture displayed on the display to show which iron is connected probably had more effort put into it then what the reason for showing the picture is in the first place.
Given the calibration was erroneous it looks like the end user was going to be the software engineers free testers. it would be better to open source the software, the nerds would sort out the issues in no time, and would unhide what's going on around the setpoint as it would be very difficult indeed to hold the tip temp to within 10 C, even with a proper pid controller. If you see the temp snap to the setpoint as we did you know they couldn't show what was happening. We forget it wasn't that long ago when we had on off control or the 18 watt heater just maxed out and we made the world with these irons.
That said given its got a proper transformer, and it uses cartridges from the RR of soldering irons, and they could release the held watts I would be tempted to buy the unit, and may even consider connecting an industrial 3 term pid controller to the unit to see what the outcome was. In fact, it would make a good YT video ... SDG.
Hello
This is old Version GVM H3 with software bug .
My version working fine
How to identify which version is new?
Can you tell if the station delivers full sine wave ‘humps’ into the cartridge (like JBC does)? Or does it chop it up like PWM?
It only has one transformer winding to power the heater, right? I guess they chose C210 voltage for the transformer secondary to power C210 & C245, and limited the output when powering C115 cartridges.
I’d worry that JBC C115 cartridges would fail in time if they are feeding C210 voltage into it, even at a rate of one in three sine wave ‘humps’. Could it not burn out the heater coil? It would be delivering way over-spec’d current in short bursts.
I'll do a bit of digging and also check mine isn't faulty and report back
@@sdgelectronicscheers! 👍
Won't fail as long as the power is kept under max. LEDs you can pulse higher than avg current, a heater coil is going to be even more tolerant than that.
@@jaro6985 perhaps it’s fine at 50Hz length pulses if average power is kept in spec.
Wouldn’t it still shorten the life of the LED to pulse it?
Also I think JBC cartridge heater coil is powered in series with the thermocouple… still no problem to pulse current through the thermocouple too? (without going to extreme examples like 1% duty cycle with HUGE current pulses)
@@davadoff If its kept within max current of the LED it would be fine, where a 1A continuous might overheat the LED but pulsed would not. In this case the limit is almost purely thermal. Good point about the thermocouple but I wouldnt be concerned as its coupled to the tip. The tip should never exceed a reasonable temp (400-500C). So the thermocouple should not melt.
It's not a alternative for the T3A i have. Weird is does not hit the 80w for the C245 tips and handle. The ground issue is not smth i have a problen with yet, and no new firmware has come out to fix it. Sadly don't think it can be resolved either..
I am in the same boat. I am also sticking with my T3A for now. Very happy to see quality tests like this to really know what we don't need to spend our money (and time) on. Actually, I have spent a lot more on genuine JBC soldering iron tips than the actual T3A unit, so IF a good T3A contender comes out I would be interested, mainly because of the temp overshoots. With the old firmware 1.27 it's not that bad thankfully. I don't really have a problem with the ground issue, perhaps only if I use two soldering irons to desolder stuff, but I just bought my third cheap T12 clone for $12 on sale so I just use those for that type of work.
Won't be getting one of those then.
Thanks for taking the time to review.
Faulty perhaps?
Can you also test different chinesium tips and find the best contender for the original jbc tips. Preferable C245 first..😊
There’s some decent ones available, the jabe ones are ok, there’s this other one comes in blue lid on case similar to jbc case for the tips but no brand on it, some cheap ones as cheap as £3 now but don’t know how good or bad they are
Maybe just get T12 system or miniware if you’re looking for cheaper system.
@@M.E63 I just bought some at 10$ a piece from Ali ( seem to be called wosniak), so not really cheap or expensive. The incl tips with the T3A seem okai to me too, but the tip sizes are annoying..
@@Hemshemsems there is some that you can get quit a few tip selection but they cost around £9-10
@@M.E63 Got the tip sizes i wanted i hope. Converted they were 7.80 pounds
Thanks for your test. What did you suggest for t115 alternative original jbc?
I have jbc for c210 and love it
I have an GVM T210 and works fine... have you ever try this model? It would be great to see a review of a GVM T210 from you
Good video Steve. I am looking for a decent iron. I have a Penicil but need something for long term. I am more of a beginner, but don't really want to end up getting the wrong Iron . Buy it once kind of idea. Main aim is for phone/console and pc mainboard repair . What would you recommend?
Good test, thanks!
brilliant review as usual. I was waiting for the review of this exact station but i ended getting one and not waiting. One thing i noticed is that your firmware revision number is B as opposed to D on mine. So i can assume that maybe they fixed the problems you mentioned in later releases?
Did you measure the power also being 40W max?
are the y 250 volt for ausralia
240-250 will do the job not a big problem
Which one is better?
Gvm or a fine 902 or jc t320
?
There’s a new one out that claims to be 120w and it’s called Wemon t31, looks similar inside to that but looks smaller and it’s cheaper to be honest so don’t know how good or bad it is
Do not connect this device to USB when it is powered on! Mine was inside the "sleeping" cradle and started heating until it was red hot. No cutout.
That is a very misleading specification (85 W claimed vs less than 40 W delivered).
It would be really interesting to see the waveform (oscilloscope) of the voltage sent to the cartridge to find out whether a full AC sinewave is supplied, at which voltage or if it is chopped up by PWM.
Given that the maximum power supplied to the T245 is around 40 W, either the delivered AC voltage is far too low or it is being limited by a PWM at less than 50% duty cycle.
It should be fairly easy to intercept the power pins on the handpiece connector.
or 80w is only at start "worm up" and later only 40 but this is real scam :/ 40w you will get with T210 tips and they are much smaller
I think is the transformer who don't deliver enough power, from the pictures appear to be too little to give 80W, probably is a 40W power transformer
What is the transformer secondary voltage? I wonder if they simply use C210 voltage on C245 cartridges to get compatibility with both. It would explain why T245 is so underpowered.
It's a shame that for the sake of another week developing the firmware and maybe the hardware it could have been a much better product!
The anemic power output is disappointing. I would like to find a good JBC clone. This is not it.
Thank you for saving us from wasting time and money on this junk.
Why doesn't it heat up?
Please test with genuine JBC tip.
He did, it was still limited.
probably software issue
This do the same thing with a $5 regular Soldering Iron.
Your station heats up the soldering iron very, very slowly! Mine heats it up in a few seconds! The 210 soldering iron heats up in a couple of seconds, and the 115 is even faster! And the power adjustment, judging by the station indicator, works much faster! There is something wrong with your station!
Beautiful station... But useless. Bummer.
Funny😂
My GVM H3 working fine.
@@NANO-SERWIS.MAREK-DASZKE did you notice something different in you're station, compared to the one in the video?
Nice LCD but power disappointing.
This is awful. The firmware is not anywhere near the state what it should be... 40w to a cartridge capable of 120w peak and 80w constant...
Yeah... if they do not fix it, it's not better than my 40w weller from 1990's...
Probably they're pushing the same voltage into all cartridges, the C245 has higher resistance than C210, so they need different voltages for same power.
This is what you get with Chinese imitation knockoffs the specifications are 100% never ever what they claim regardless of whatever electronic equipment. It is they are always off and to be honest the majority of town that was advertised more than what they give, but the equipment works and does the job the majority of the time it’s just a specification is there a little bit out on
You get what you pay for, so for the price probably ok
Disappointing. The 220V heater is already on 240V and only produces 40W.
I thought the same thing. 10% lower voltage means 19% lower power? (0.9*0.9=0.81)
The 80W specification is inaccurate because these most of these companies are built upon lies. It's quite unfortunate in this case as an 80w+ version of this station would be offering an excellent value proposition. If it worked as advertised, this station could be quite popular. As tested here, it's a huge miss that will disappoint buyers.
The company should definitely be asked about this to give them some benefit of doubt, but I seriously doubt that this unit is faulty. They apparently didn't expect someone on youtube to actually measure the power output and that was a severe miscalculation.
Even a novice programmer knows not to update the displayed temperature at whatever display rate is possible as the reading hovers around the setpoint. Whoever actually programmed this interface came up with the worst possible solution when they decided to simply revert to the set temperature after some period of wandering around it. Do better.
I also wish that they'd show the active power limit for the connected tip and adjust the 100% point on the power gauge accordingly.
To nie pomyłka
To stara wersja stacji GVM H3.
Nowsza wersja działa dobrze 80W.
Testowana stacja ma BUG programowy.
@@NANO-SERWIS.MAREK-DASZKE ok thank you, you're amazing.
The poor man pays twice. Can't comprehend why would anyone buy Chinese crap with a 2 or 3 years life and no warranty, when in Europe you can get the JBC BT-2BQA 140w soldering station for 215€.
Where are you getting it for that price? Been looking but only finding it for 350
Just to be sure, looked in welectron store. The cheapest JBC is 299 euros and it is an analogue unit with no screen and knob temp regulator.
A poor man can go through a lot of cheap Chinese knock offs before they've spent a fraction of what an equivalent JBC costs. They're ridiculously expensive. They can easily set you back $600 for a decent brand new one. You would be lucky to score non-functioning one sold for repair on eBay for a few hundred bucks. The parts are super expensive.
stop the bullshit, the price is 575,00 €
Hors TVA
I would have thought that an electronics expert would be able to mend the station if it failed