Pimping the IR6500 with an Elstein RFS80 top heater

I have tried to solder the CPU of Philips QFU TV boards twice and failed, because the temperature distribution of the top heater was so bad that the chip sank in at one edge and got lifted up at the diagonally opposite edge. All the tedious reballing work in vain! My suspicion is that the top heater of the IR6500 is rubbish.

On eBay I found a seller who offers a Made in Germany Elstein RFS80 heater: https://www.ebay.de/itm/ELSTEIN-RFS80-400w-230v-IR-TOP-HEATER-WITH-REFLECTOR/330764961659

It also comes with a reflector, which will help to concentrate the heat even better.

So I set off to mount this thing into my station.

You can tell already from the way the heating wires are positioned that Elstein had put more thought into this. Everything is arranged around the center whereas in the original heater the energy is wasted in places where you never need it. Moreover, the surface is not even.

The new heater fits perfectly well into the original holder bracket. The one angled side with the screw holes needs to be bent to stand upright (right side on the image).

Next, I drilled four holes at the sides of the head and reused the original screws with no problem.

The silly fan, which is now even more useless than it already was, had to go. With the reflector and the mounting bracket there will not be much heat going into the head. Besides, the air has no place to escape at the bottom, anyway.

Done. Besides a slightly off center, everything turned out pretty good. With the new heater, centering needs to be more precise than with the old one because of its shape.

Unfortunately I broke the temperature sensor recently. As this one has the reverse polarity than the usual ones (they will yield negative temps), I had to order a bunch from China. So, no testing right now. I'll post a followup when the next reballing session takes place.