Teardown : ERSA I-CON1 pro soldering iron - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2014, 03:33:40 pm
content: I rarely visit this sub-forum, but this time have something to show. Hope it's good enough.Today I received ERSA I-CON soldering station, bought used for good price.And since i plan to do a lot of soldering forKX projectandwant to keep process enjoyable, so pulled a trigger to buy good soldering gear. When I was stupid student, one engineer was educating me andat that time I heard and even tried to use ERSA DIG2000 soldering. Years passed, but I still remembered that good experience.So from today I got own piece to play with. I enjoy working with decent equipment, even counting that it's noticeably more expensive.Motto buy less but better is what I try to followIt come with complete set, 150W i-Tool, base controller/station, power cord and iron holder (forgot it at lab, so not shown on photos).As usual, my D800 come handy taking hi-res photos, so all clickable and enjoyable.Front panel have big inverse graphical LCD, tool proprietary DIN-style connector, real power switch and encoder with combined button.Base unit rather bulky and heavy, have linear xfrmr inside, but looks nice.Rear have only IEC input plug with earth pin, as ICON features ESD protection (have ESD iron and grounded tip, measured resistance to mains earth pin ~1 ohm)Bottom have nothing interesting, disassembly just simple 4 screws, and removing plastic knob from encoder.Like Dave says, we are in like FlynnTransformer occupy most of space, rated 80W (3.3A 24V), so that's where goes that confusion of labeled 80W on Icon, but 150W soldering iron.All interface and control gear fitted on nicely done PCB, sitting on plastic holders. Nice connectors everywhere, heatsinks on output switch and local POL supply.Main brains are in ATMEL ATmega128-16AU 8-bit AVR, with some opamps and passives around. Current sensing is based on 50 mOhm resistor located nearby. There is also spacefor some unknown TQFP or QFN package nearby.LCD is fixed to board really good, white LED backlight mounted with 4 screws, and panel itself connected via flat ribbon cable. It's COG type screen, with controller right on glass.Bourns encoder with metal shaft.Seem like there is routing for second channel as well, as there is ICON2 model which allows using two tools.And yes, PCB is same, marking on etch have label ICON2.Any owners of ICON2 here, so we can reverse engineer it a little and upgrade ICON1 to ICON2 ?LCD is graphical, with okay contrast (can be adjusted), but that's not most important thing on soldering stations. Lots of them just have blinking LED and it's okay too.Font on LCD is somewhat ugly. They could do better job on GUI looking, but controls and navigation is easy and intuitive. No need to dig into manual to start using station at all!Thumbs up for usability.All the magic and efforts go to soldering iron, that's where difference between 20$ iron and 600$ one lies..Seem pretty usual, but take a close look on ruler. It's in centimeters, not inches.This size is pretty common for 15-20W irons, but here on ERSA we have 150W max and 80W nominal!Heater element is easy to replace, connected with connector. There should be some circuitry inside holder as well, there is motion sensor somewhere (detect movement to bring up operation from standby).I'm not going to disassemble it any further, sorry.Unlike some newbies think, soldering is all about thermal conductivity and capacity, not temperature set point. That's exactly the reason why big-ass soldering tip working much better than 0.8 cone tip.More surface - more power dumped into joint and more contact area to transfer heat. That's why on cheap iron you need to set 400C max temperature to be able soldering big power components onmultilayer PCB with via arrays around. Lack of surface contact and heater too far makes temperature of solder iron tip actually go below 200°C, which of course cannot solder anything.Keeping that power transfer is crucial. And that's why placing heater element as close to tip as possibleis vital. Otherwise heater will require to be running scorching hot to get those 260C on PCB joint.ERSA does homework pretty good, they state that temperature measurement taked from end of heater, which is encapsulated in metal shell, and is only 9mm away from tip end.Cheapies are way too far, here's comparsion of some generic iron:That's 20W vs normal gel pen vs ERSA I-tool 150W.And it connects to base unit via pesky proprietary connectorNow, power it on and check tip temperature:Default settings, +250°C set on station. Fluke Type-K thermal probe (one from F87V bundle) connected to Kei input. Ambient temperature +25°CThermocouple ball is in contact with solder tip, which have plenty of solder to improve contact area.As we can see, it's rather off, 54°C to be exact.So I went to menu in I-CON, and set calibration to +50°C, that's max it can go. (which suppose to offset temperature control for actual tip temp).After this operation - temperature on tip raised to +230°C, still somewhat 20C off, but it's 2.5 times better already.To make sure it's not my Keithley 2002 fault - I connected Fluke 87V, which measured same value.And set to 300C - get's us 266°CNow, let's do some real-world test. One of reasons why I bought ICON, is it's high power ability, which should make soldering heavy-copper PCBs with multiple layers easier.Here's video of some checks and 12-layer motherboard component soldering (couple power inductors, via-ed power pad soldering).Temperature was set to +300°C for soldering.Tips:So far I'm happy with this purchase...

author: nanofrog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2014, 06:00:55 pm
content: Nice teardown & initial review.Works well enough, but I did expect a bit more based off of videos and reviews of the i-Con Nano.Don't see many of those here in the US, so how hard was it to find tips? Did you order from EU or directly from Kurtz-Ersa's office here in the US?

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2014, 06:13:19 pm
content: I bought off ebay, usedJust received it today.Main reason getting ICON1 was power, as I often solder power parts on well via stitched solid planes.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2014, 06:23:38 pm
content: Thanks for sharing, I'm been eyeing at a used I-CON1 at local market here too.You should apply liquid flux at the pcb 1st before touching with the tip, the solder will flow much better than the one you've demonstrated in your video, just a thought.

author: nanofrog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2014, 06:33:33 pm
content: Quote from: TiN on March 19, 2014, 06:13:19 pmI get the need for sufficient heat when on large planes (much easier than digging out a pre-heater or hot plate).Seems the i-Con2 has a faster heat up time, so I assume it was pushing more than 80W (only tool out of the stand, though it also had tweezers connected & in it's stand) as IIRC it's able to do. Weller's 2 port stations have this ability as well if only one tool is active.What about tip availability here in the US though? And where did you order them from?I ask, as I looked into Ersa out of curiosity (never seen one in person) due to the recent threads, and the only place listed on Kurtz-Ersa's site for the US, was their US office. No independent distributors here. So I don't know if it's better to order directly or from somewhere in Europe (not sure on MOQ's for consumables if purchased directly). Could be useful for others in the US, as they do turn up from time to time.+1 on adding a little flux to improve wetting (tip looked on the crusty side; bit of tinning compound should work wonders).

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 01:10:48 am
content: I'm not in US, but should be no problem to buy tips from ERSA distro.

author: nanofrog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 02:15:28 am
content: Quote from: TiN on March 20, 2014, 01:10:48 amSaw a US plug as well as the transformer label, so assumed you're in US/CAN or territory that uses the same power standards.

author: ablacon64
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 04:08:21 am
content: Excelent teardown. Thank you!Is there a way to decrease that offset temperature? I mean, such an expensive unit...BTW, I can't see any of the images in firefox (windows or linux), had to find a Windows machine too view the pics. They show up nicely on IE. Very strange, never seen that happen here in the forum. Anyone notice the same?

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 04:19:57 am
content: Fixed, it's was my fault.Path to photos had "\" in it, and my unix-based server did not like that, so gave 404.MSIE obviously don't care standards, so maybe parses URLs some other way before requesting from server, lolAs for offset - i think it depends on tips a lot. I'll try with other tips when I receive them.And will check with Fluke Ti32 thermcam, I think will be more interesting than Type K probe..P.S. I'm in Taiwan, which uses US plugs and 110V, and this ERSA was bought USED secondhand, not brand new from official shop.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 04:26:29 am
content: Same here at showing the photos earlier, its fixed now.Regarding image hosting, please consider to attach them directly in your post and embedded into this thread.Linking to external host will increase the chance of making them gone like other old great posts.Just a suggestion.

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 04:48:29 am
content: Same can happen to forum database, etc.Sorry, I'm not hosting my content sources on storage space which I don't own. Yes, it's my own server as hostBut thanks for suggestion, might be good for somebody around.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 04:51:58 am
content: Quote from: TiN on March 20, 2014, 04:48:29 amYou're welcome, yeah, hopefully it will be useful, cause there are tons of amazing and precious posts that turned into another garbage just because the image hosts were gone or the owner decided not to host them anymore.Hope yours will last longer than this forum's life.

author: HighVoltage
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 09:16:59 am
content: I have two of these ERSA I-CON1 soldering stations and I am very happy with them.Two large benefits stick out: ultra small handle and fast heat-up time.I can only highly recommend these soldering stations.

author: ablacon64
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 12:22:54 pm
content: Thanks for fixing the images!You set the temperature to 300ºC (and it's actually 266) for soldering on that board. Are you using leaded solder?

author: jmaja
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2014, 07:48:39 am
content: Is the displayed temperature supposed to be the actual tip temperature you are measuring. On the video you didn't get even 300 C at 350 C with full correction added. How can it be that much off? Or is that supposed to be the inside temperature of the tip? Is that typical for all soldering stations?I just measured my brand new I-Con Nano. It showed about 340 on 360 C. I adjusted it +20C and it seems to work nicely now with lead free (Sn99Cu1) even with several vias to ground plane. What is the "correct" tip temparute for small smd part with lead free?

author: nanofrog
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2014, 04:02:38 pm
content: Quote from: jmaja on March 22, 2014, 07:48:39 amIt can vary, but 350C seems to be most common IME. Best to check the data sheets first, as some devices are more sensitive than others and include some notes on soldering.

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2014, 12:13:58 pm
content: I usually use 270-290C for most of work and 320-350 for power plane soldering.Most focus is to have good thermal contact, rather than absolute temperature.Played around with thermacam today.Icon set to 240C with +50c offset:Tip get around 285-ish, so obviously thermocouple from previous measurements was taking too much heat away, and wasn't giving accurate temps.Will test later with Type T really thin (AWG36) thermocouple later.Now +240C without offset:Now set to +315C and solder 1206 resistor on 8-layer FR4 board.Same temperature, solder SOT-223 on same board (LDO on power planes)Same temperature setpoint, soldering power plane with via array on same board.Can see how heater ramps to compensate power drain.PCB board photo which used for test, hi-res photo.It's 14-phase buck DC/DC which takes +12Vin and outputs 0.8-2V 400A.

author: jmaja
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2014, 01:57:48 pm
content: Quote from: TiN on March 25, 2014, 12:13:58 pmLead free? With +50 C offset?How accurate are these IR measurements? Do you know the absorption coefficient of the tip or is it automatically compensated? Usally shiny metals are quite far from 1, but I don't know about liquid ones.

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 25, 2014, 02:22:33 pm
content: Either one, no offset, as I used other soldering before.Still did not use ERSA for anything yet, just got it last week.I made tip not shiny with some flux

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2014, 01:48:19 pm
content: Tips arrived today.Just in time to do some soldering tomorrow for my LTZ1000 voltage reference boards.

author: eKretz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2014, 02:43:22 am
content: I've got the same setup. My setup checked within 5°C with a type K thermocouple and a good ball of solder for heat transfer. I think maybe you need a new heating element - that handle looks pretty well used, I'm guessing your heater or temp sensor is pretty well shot. My iron also comes to full temp from off in about 8-9 seconds. Absolutely love this iron - I'm currently developing a desoldering tip for it.

author: TiN
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2014, 04:31:29 am
content: QuoteSame.I think it's okay, those temp measurements should be off, because Fluke thermocouple is big and sucking heat away.Thermal images proves that as well. And it solders well, had no issues soldering SMDs with +240°C.

author: eKretz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 08, 2014, 05:56:59 am
content: Well, like I said, I used a thermocouple also and the temp was within about 5 degrees C on the 2mm chisel. I'm pretty sure that your difference is a bit excessive, but that it's just due to an old heater or temp sensor maybe. Even if the thermocouple had pulled the temp down, the heater should have kicked up to compensate. I think I'm running a 7 degree C offset on my 1.6mm chisel tip, but my heater is brand new. It really doesn't matter if it's working and you're happy with it though.