Inside a cheap Chinese Yihua soldering iron.

A thorough look at the assembly of the generic Chinese soldering irons often supplied with thermally controlled soldering stations. These are a very refined design with lots of neat features in the assembly. Whole soldering irons or their various components like heating elements and bits can be bought at staggeringly low prices online. It's a bit galling that for the cost of one pack of spare bits for my older style mains Antex iron I can buy 30 or more replacement bits in a wider range of styles for these generic irons. I guess they must be considered a disposable item in the Chinese electronics manufacturing industry It's worth noting that the soldering stations have a calibration facility on them to fine tune the thermocouples. If you inadvertently set the calibration to an extreme level and get distracted the iron can reach a red hot state! I've not tested the iron at this stage due to waiting for my preferred style of bit (3mm chisel) and the disconcerting smell of hot transformer and surprising case temperature on the base unit!