JCD 8898 Two in one SMD Soldering Iron & Heat Gun Rework Station

I wanted to get a station that had both soldering iron and hot air solder integrated to one compact device. I found product JCD 8898 2 in 1 750W Soldering Station Hot Air Heater LCD Digital Display Soldering Iron Welding Rework Station for Cell-phone BGA SMD PCB IC Repair available at low price.

Features:

Hot air heater and welding iron 2in1 rework soldering station.
Dual LCD digital displays to show precision temperature.
Extremely low noise and space saving design.
Intelligence self-detection function features safe personal operation.
Automatic cooling function for effectively prolonging the heater’s life and protecting the hot air heater.

Specification:

Hot Air Heater
Working Voltage: AC220-240V
Frequency: 50Hz/60Hz
Output Power: 750W
Temperature Range: 100°C~480°C
Temperature Stability:±2℃
Air Flow: 150L/min (max)

Soldering Iron
Working Voltage: AC220-240V OR AC100-130V
Output Power: 80W
Frequency: 50Hz/60Hz
Temperature Range: 180°C-500°C
Temperature Stability: ±1°C
Soldering Iron : ESD design
Heater Material : Ceramics

The brand is JCD, which sells a quite good selection of soldering and welding tools. Product I received matched what as described. This looks like an excellent soldering station when you need to do sometimes SMD soldering. The first impression was that this offers a very god value for the money. This is a compact soldering station for rework.

It looks like a very good item for the hobbyist who don’t want to spend too much money. Great to have at home, to do occasional jobs. The station is small in size compared to some competing products. It can be mounted (comes with wall mounted bracket) over work top in easy reach for solder or hot air.

The device has compact design. Cables are very soft and flexible, provide comfortable working. Material quality of product feels good. For the price it’s great. Extremely high value for money. Finally a worthy “bang for buck”. A professional might want a sturdier model but the price of those is much higher.

Tried both the soldering iron and hot air rework station. An excellent soldering and repair station (with adjustable temperatures) and also with very good value for money. The main unit is very lightweight, so it is best to fix the control unit to the wall or table.

The soldering iron feels good. It is light, small and heats quickly. The iron is hot very quickly (about 10-15 seconds). The included tip is good and sharp. The handle is small, light and does not heat too much. The solder worked well. Soldering iron has ceramic heater that seems to be powered from mains power (no isolation transformer like in some soldering stations).

The soldering iron has thermostat temperature control where you can set the temperature with + and – keys. The temperature control range is from 180 to 500 degrees Celsius. Temperature set for the iron appears to be quite accurate. A small downside is that the display doesn’t show current temperature during the heating but small spot as an indicator. The soldering iron does not have sleep settings so that it would cool it down if not used for some time.
One video reviews told how to do temperature calibration if you need: IF YOU hold both buttons on iron side you can calibrate temp. if you hold left button when switching on you can set c or f and another setting not sure off.

The stand for the soldering iron is also very lightweight, it moves on the table easily. The fact that the soldering iron stand that came in the package was pretty lame was not big issues to me, because I already had a free better one myself (and I recommend you also to get a better stand).

The hot air heater is an essential accessory for many electronics soldering works. The hot-air station works nicely. The handle was easy to hold. Tip that come with the iron is great and precise for the use for small electronics soldering task you normally to do with this kind of product (cell’s , boards,ect..)

Hot air heats between 100 to 450 ° C in a few seconds. It is very useful for soldering and replacing small surface components (SMD or SMD). The hot air blower comes with 3 nozzles which work for small boards. Besides boards the hit air blower works very well with heat shrink tube.

Hot air tool heats quickly, and has post-use airflow to insure cool down so heater element does not idle extremely hot (extends tool lifetime). The air turns on as you pick it up the hot air gun from the unit, and within seconds you get hot air as you want. When I place the hot air gun pack to the main unit, the hot air gun automatically cools it down and turns off the blower. Very nice feature. There is both temperature and air flow controls.

Both hot air gun and soldering iron metal parts are grounded to incoming mains ground. Very good overall quality. Very impressed by the quality at this price.

Here are some video reviews of this soldering iron:

JCD 8898 Two in one SMD Soldering Iron & Heat Gun Rework Station Review

JCD 8898 SOLDERING STATION DOWN THE SHED

There are few potentially negative things in this product that I found:

The soldering irons and hot air blower works on mains voltage. The mains voltage goes from the main unit through connectors. The soldering iron uses three pin connector and the hot air blower has more pins.
The connectors look like screw locking GX12 type aviation connectors. Many this type three pin connectors on market are rated 5A/125V, but some are higher (like 200V). I am not sure of the ratings in this.

Another issue is that the connectors are selected so that there is male connector on the base units, and female on the cable. So the connector can have dangerous mains voltage reachable of the soldering iron and/or hot air blower is disconnected. The unit has some rubber caps, but I think it is better to have the tools always connected and maybe even make some arrangement that somebody can’t by accident disconnect those connectors.

Other thing that could be better is that the metal case of the connectors does not seem to be connected to the mains ground but left floating. I think that grounded metal connector case would have been safer.

How to Solder QFN MLF chips Using Hot Air without Solder Paste and Stencils

The question asked where to get tips is a good question. There are tips from Banggood that you can order. One comment said on product comment “Works with Hakko tips. You never run out of tips. All shapes and sizes available.” The soldering pencil uses standard “900 Series” tips that are readily available. I have not verified this claim on Hakko tips compatibility.