Hot-Air Rework Station 110V to 230V

At first i thought everything was done but after a closer look on the PCB and the pump i noticed that the pump also was powered by mains voltage. 

I started to look for a replacement pump but either they was very expensive or from an unreliable source. So the only option left was to convert the existing pump.

The pump is an electromechanical diaphragm pump so i was hoping to be able to replace or rewire the electromagnet inside.

After opening up the pump i saw that it had two coils connected in parallell so i rewired them in series to get the correct voltage drop for 230V. 

The device is built for a mains frequency of 60 Hz and i will run it on 50 Hz. I guess this will limit the max airflow but i don't think that will be an issue.

The heating element runs on mains voltage so i had to find a replacement element. As mentioned before a different version of the AT850 is sold in Europe so it was possible to buy the heating element as a spare part from Farnell.

Old and new heating element side by side.

After opening up the handle it was simple to just replace the heating element.

The next step was to check if i could use the existing transformer or if i needed to buy a new one. 

The transformer had two primary windings rated for 115V connected in parallell, so all i had to do was to connected them in series to get a voltage drop of 230V instead of 115V.

The PCB had the possibility to do this by just moving a connector!

Since i knew that a similar unit was sold in Europe i was hoping that the they shared the same PCB. After opening up the rework station and taking out the PCB i could confirm this. The PCB can handle both 110V and 230(220)V. This could actually work out :)