my quick assessment of a “cheap” Yaugong hot air/rework station i received recently.
Looking all over the interwebs, you will find many “older” vids about the very common858D hot air station
I’m not going to discount those vids, maybe i got lucky and went with a different brand that appears to have some safety updates and fixes to issues i saw in many of those review posts/vids.
It looks like the issue fuse being attached to the neutral side of the 110vac line on US versions is fixed by having an all in one plug/fuse module. and the power cord itself is removable. i guess the hot-snot (glue) is there to keep the tabs from pinching in and getting pushed into the unit. :-/
It appears the device has better grounding than older versions and it checks out. checked ground pin, to chassi to nozzle to the plug that is in the back. the wires are still soldered and not crimped. the transformer seems a bit small for its use so it looks like a “bare minimum” rated trans, nothing more.
The controller board may be flashable but i wouldn’t know, this is one of those “binned” chips with zero markings as to what it is. (this is a major pet peeve of mine.) im only to assume it might be an atmega clone chip, but im not going to know until i dig up the schematics. (LMGTFY.com)
Its a common generic rework station that can be had for around 50$US and is just rebranded by loads of companies. this version has some safety improvements but i would say if you do the occasional hot air work, this is fine. If you are going to be using more than a few hours a day for a long duration, look at something that has better quality/safety checks like Hakko, Quick, or Weller.
UPDATE: soooo… I pulled the heat wand apart, and the grounding to the actual metal end was … well… sad, i found a small tab of metal soldered to the hot end, and a wire twisted around it. not the most reliable connections. never going to get a UL stamp.