🔴 #574 KSGER T12 Hardware Issue - Will The Real HW 2.1S Please Stand Up

Is your battery going flat on your KSGER T12 Soldering Station?

Voltlog did a video on it, and I thought I would look a bit deeper into it on my unit, BUT it turns out my HW 2.1S version is not actually the same as his HW 2.1S version !

Voltlog has the KSGER in a plastic case version, I have the KSGER in a metal case version.

Subscribe and click the Bell Icon to get notifications so you don't miss out on my future videos.

Thumbs Up and Share the video with your friends so they get to see the videos too!

Affiliate links: (Bookmark and buy using them)

Donate so I can make more videos for you, see links below, cheers:

I upload new videos at the same time each morning (NZ Time) at least 3 times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at a minimum, if possible I will also do a Live Stream on a Sunday morning, so watch out for those too.

#TheDefpom
#IFixStuff
#Electronics
#Repair
#Defpom
#TestEquipment
#Review

[MaximC]

Wondering how KSGER's compares to Quicko's model. Searching for a comparison video, but can't seem to find it.

[voltlog]

Interesting that it shows the same hw version in the menu but in reality you have a completely different board. Anyway, upon further investigation on my unit at least that R10 resistor is there, in theory to prevent reverse leakage current to the backup battery through the diode used in OR configuration above. Except it's somehow placed in the wrong spot in the circuit so it just slowly drains the battery. Possibly a design error.

[geirendre]

According to Voltlog, his unit is equiped with a 5A fuse in the IEC connector on the back.
Seemes a bit extreme to me, wouldn't a 1A fuse be more suited?

Is it the same size on your unit?

[tomgeorge]

Hi, I got a unit that displayed the ERROR, my problem was a wrongly wired soldering iron handpiece.

[cmocmo]

My version is like your's with no capacitor on the blue board but different than yours in tbat my battery is wired and not permanently attached like yours. So my unit is in between yours and Voltlog's I guess....wish more how to videos existed on my version since I'm a newbie.

[michaelol]

A related youtube video by John Salt identifies a possible cause, he found that on his board the metal part of the switch (Rotary Encoder) being misaligned shored two traces thereby grounding one side of R10...
As not everyone reported battery issues, it's entirely possible this could be an issue....

[EdelSM]

i have the same board, but mine is from the mini (no psu) kit. i think they have two HW 2.1S versions, one tagged with "2018" (the one we have) and one without which voltlog have. mine also doesnt drain for several months already.

[electro]

Hi i have a unit with similar control board. Problem is i cannot make any adjustment to the settings with the Rotary Encoder. The switch on encoder does work but i cannot change any values i have replaced the encoder with one from an Arduino module i think KY40 but same results any idea what might be wrong would be appreciated.

[geirendre]

So it's probably not easy to measure the standby current drawn from the battery when it's soldered on like that.
You would need to lift one leg to do the measurement.
Just to check if it has the same problem (just with another resistor)

[davidv]

I checked my KSGER soldering iron with hardware version 2.1S and it does not have the resistor across the battery. Mine has the all aluminun housing with the 6 mm machined front plate.

[kwastek]

I have the version with battery on wires. the problem I had was that the battery was shorted by one of its spot welded leads

[JanCiger]

@Defpom's Electronics & Repair - I Fix Stuff

Do you also have the terrible power supply with a heatsink insulated from the mains only by the soldermask on one side? That would be worth checking.



The battery issue is annoying but why a soldering iron needs an RTC is beyond me, so likely not a big issue if the battery is removed. The power supply on the other hand could be a nasty death trap.

[allanpennington]

I have read feedback from purchasers on the Banggood site saying the firmware is flashed to show HW 2.1 regardless of what is inside, since the v2.1 is a popular seller they are now faking the readout on the screen to sell older models.

[chefbink]

The other thing that seems odd is KSGER offers a programmer for their stations but they do not offer the firmware as a download. So I would think there could be hacks that could be done but it would be great if they could offer the base code.

[jfangio]

So much for Chinese configuration management

[giacomo.delazzari]

I'm having the impression that there are a lot of clones of these Ksger stations on Banggood. HW revisions look different from the Aliexpress Ksger Official Store ones, and the same goes for the FW that looks even more different on some models listed on Banggood (some have serif fonts instead of sans-serif, and use angle brackets instead of square brackets in the menus) and other stuff. Very annoying. IMHO yours is not a genuine Ksger one.

[What_I_Make]

Fairly typical of a cheap manufacturer, little engineering, Maybe copied the idea from a capacitor discharge circuit initially, Poor testing, design and build no testing means let the maker debug our gear and Poor quality control, wrong identification. What else, let the makers show us how. Wonder how many makers request a refund or exchange for the failure.