Rattle Noise on 862D Solder Station

I’m really quite happy with the 862D+ soldering station, it heats quickly, user-controllable temperature, and overall good design. Except for my unit rattles.

Oddly, only when it is under no load (when both soldering and hot air disabled). At first, I thought this was a fan inside that wasn’t well tightened. But to my amazement, when I opened the unit, it had no fan and is quite empty.

The rattle is coming from a loose metal housing that sits over the transformer. To fix this, take a hot glue gun and fill the gap between the housing and the ferrite core. The transformer shouldn’t get hot enough to melt the glue but even if it does, it won’t be conductive and it will just pool at the base of the transformer as a worst case scenario.

Then reassemble and enjoy no more rattling when you leave the main power on for this unit.