Blog/content/posts/2018-06-25-Saike-858D-Measurements.md

---
title: "Saike 858D Rework Station - Measurements"
date: 2018-06-25T13:20:00+02:00
author: eNBeWe
type: post
categories:
  - Allgemein
  - Bastelkram
tags:
  - 858D
  - DIY
  - Arduino
---

The next part in the series about reverse engineering the Saike 858D rework station ([Overview][1]) brings a few 
measurements, I did in my device. 
It presents me with the problem, that I am not sure anymore if I want to keep the transformer, 
currently used in the station.

<!--more-->

I soldered some wires to the connector of the transformer, allowing me to hook up my Oscilloscope to the transformer output.

## 10VAC Rail

![10V Rail Without Load](/posts/images/858D/10VAC_No_Load.png)

The first measurement is the 10V rail in idle state, without the heater or fan running. 
The "sine wave" is not really pretty but I don't really care, given the fact that it will be rectified anyway.
The peak output voltage is 16.6 volts, and the RMS output is 12 V instead of 10 V. 
This means the transformer produces a voltage a bit higher than rated.

![10V Rail With Fan Running](/posts/images/858D/10VAC_Fan_Running.png)

If the fan is running, the 10V rail degrades a bit more and slightly drops in voltage.
Again, given the fact that it is fed through a rectifier and then a voltage regulator, that is almost fine.

I don't really like that we use a voltage of about 12V as the input for the 7805 voltage regulator. We power the microcontroller, the display, the EEPROM and a bit of other stuff from the regulator so I would guess the current is not too high, probably in the few hundreds of mA.

## 30VAC Rail

![30V Rail Without Load](/posts/images/858D/30VAC_No_Load.png)

The second rail of the transformer should supply 30VAC. In reality it overshoots quite a bit and delivers 34VAC RMS, peaking at 47 volts. The diodes in the full-bridge rectifier have a 1 volt drop each, so the rectified voltage is probably somewhere close to 45 volts.

![30V Rail With Fan Running](/posts/images/858D/30VAC_Fan_Running.png)

With the fan running, the voltage drops a bit, peaking at 43 volts. This is the voltage, the control circuit for the fan has to regulate to not overload the fan.
The fan is labeled with a consumption of 0.35A, which means the transistor has to sink about 4 Watts (11 volts at 0.35A) of heat. As a result, with the fan running, the transistor almost instantly heated up to about 50°C.

## Fan output

![Fan voltage sweep](/posts/images/858D/Fan_Sweep.png)

Additionally, I measured the voltage at the output terminal of the fan.
At the minimal potentiometer position, the fan has a voltage of 11.4 volts applied to it.
At the maximal position, the voltage rises to 28.2 volts, more than 4 volts over the fan specification

## Conclusion

I am not really happy with the transformer in the device. The rating is dodgy at best, and lots of energy is wasted in heat in regulation circuits.

At the moment I tend towards replacing the transformer with a 24 volts switching power supply and a small buck converter for the 5 volts logic supply. The fan regulation could then be done through simple PWM.


 [1]: {{<relref "2018-06-20-Reverse-Engineer-a-Saike-858D.md">}}