Considering that they sell one of those, I’m going to assume they’ve heard of it. ;)
I love my Pinecil V2. It was cheaper than my 40W entry level Weller station and heats up way faster. I run it off my Anker USB power supply and also my Anker USB power bank. The power bank only outputs 30 or 40 watts though so I might upgrade that in the future. High wattage power banks are expensive though :/
Pinecil is 26$ and has a screen.
I use a pinecil and it’s great. Tips are cheap and a standard size, it takes usb-c power and has a good user interface.
Not really sure what ifixit is trying to accomplish with this overpriced iron.
Tying a rechargeable battery to a single function device seems off-brand for iFixit.
- edit, I am wrong. I didn’t RTFM. Humble pie is good sometimes.
It’s a multi-use battery.
The battery can be used to charge whatever you want. A phone, laptop, headphones, or anything else with USB. Also, the battery is user replaceable and the product repair diagrams are posted online.
IMHO, it looks like they’re practicing what they preach, and it’s all designed for longevity and right to repair.
I edited my original post. Thanks for bringing the pie!
So basically a copy of the battery pack T12 devices from China. Well done. You fixed an already fixed problem.
The Smart Soldering Iron will set you back $80, while the Soldering Station, which includes the soldering iron and the battery pack, costs $250.
Most interesting to me is that they put the display on the soldering station/battery pack thingy instead of the iron itself.
I bought my soldering station with air solderer and iron solderer for about 40$ from AliExpress, the ones with IR bottom heater cost around 90-100$
What’s the IR bottom heater for?
IR bottom heaters are usually not strong enough for reballing. They’re for boards that are hard to solder, because there’s a lot of copper or a heatsink for example.
The bottom heater preheats the whole board, not to soldering temperatures but enough to make soldering a lot easier.
Reball of chips on gpus and motherboards of PCs and gaming consoles
Ah. Other than fixing the old Xbox360 RROD , I’ve never needed to do any BGA work, just circuit soldering
Those Nvidia cards used in mining and AI need reballs regularly, also ps4 south bridge often falls off, also intel sockets sometimes need reball, also you can upgrade ram on your phone and Nintendo switch
Oh for sure. I’m not knocking those that can do it, just that my regular soldering skills are shit enough that I’d probably be hesitant to reball something more complicated even with the right gear :-)
What I want from a battery soldering iron is a field-replaceable 18650 in the handle, not Webserial.
Build a 18650 battery bank and plug in a pinecil or ts100. A solder iron with a 18650 would be heavy and uncomfortable for soldering.
I would accept a bit of an awkward balance for being self-contained.
If you need to not have a cable, the butane ones would be a better fit.
Having used a butane iron before, I don’t think it would. They don’t have the temperature control modern digital irons can, and they’re forbidden on flights.
Having used an expensive Metcal, I would like someone to develop that level of performance for less. I want the precise thermostat and high quality tips, but I don’t solder enough to justify the expense. I am happy to see iFixit driving innovation in this market though. Weller needs some real competition.
Love my Hakko. Paid a little over $100 for it several years ago. It costs 10x as much as the cheapest option but is 100x better.
I’ll give it a shot. Seems interesting to have something USB powered that can solder.
I’ve been using a Pinecil which is USB-C powered. It heats up in seconds and the temp can be adjusted easily. The big plus to me is how small it is. It’s so much easier to handle than a standard iron, and the tips are push-in and can be locked with a screw so they’re easy to swap.
Ah any reason why Firefox decided not to include WebSerial?
Maybe you don’t want to buy the Station, or you left it at home. In either event, you can simply plug the iron into your computer and configure it via WebSerial.
You’ll need a browser based on Chrome to pull this trick off, as Mozilla has decided (at least, for now) to not include the capability in Firefox. In testing, it worked perfectly on both my Linux desktop and Chromebook.
Unfortunately, plugging the iron into your phone won’t work, as the mobile version of Chrome does not currently support WebSerial. But given the vertical layout of the interface and the big touch-friendly buttons, I can only assume that iFixit is either banking on this changing soon or has a workaround in mind. Being able to plug the iron into your phone for a quick settings tweak would be incredibly handy, so hopefully it will happen one way or another.
The WebSerial interface not only gives you access to all the same settings as plugging the iron into the Power Station does, but it also serves as the mechanism for updating the firmware on the iron.
I always thought the “fix” to a traditional soldiering iron was a hot air pencil.
I wonder if you can run it off any USB C PD that will do 100w+ without buying the battery pack. I know my MBP USB C power supply does at least 100, if not more on MagSafe.
Why this instead of an industry-standard station like an entry level Weller? The Wellers got replacement parts, especially tips which are consumables. I have the pervious 50W model and it has worked well in any job that can be done with that power level.
In my experience with soldering, the quality of the tip is the most important part. Then the quality of the solder and flux. Then having a set of soldering tools like wick, pump, stripper, and most of all - a third hand. Then temp adjustability. I had a digital solder station before I had those tools and I did almost as shitty solder jobs as I did with the basic Weller soldering iron I had before it. Once I got the ability to keep the parts stable so I can hold the solder in one hand and the iron in the other, introduce the solder at the joint and melt it in-place with the iron, like the manuals say, the quality went way up. I could even do some functional SMD work using my phone’s macro cam as a microscope.
I think it’s as much about getting a soldering iron into every home the way that a hammer, multibit screwdriver seem to be. It’s potentially a huge market to tap into. When I was doing this particular shopping I bought a usb-c powered soldering iron with an open source OS.
Oh I’m not questioning their motivation. I’m wondering if it’s a good deal for prospective buyers, given the price, compared to known good tools.
I have one of these https://webcat.cornwelltools.com/JP213123-Cornwell®-Cordless-Soldering-Iron-p371692246 as well as a traditional wired soldering iron. While I like the cordless soldering iron’s portability and it’s fine for solder cups or solder splicing wire, it’s not adaptable enough for me to use on a PCB or for micro solder and if I’m honest I’d want a micro solder setup for that anyway. I’ve owned expensive soldering irons and cheap ones (my current corded model I believe is one of ifixit’s), the general problem is that I have too many random tips lying around that I don’t know which iron they go to. Some are junk (because the iron broke etc). Some probably could be used interchangeably.
At least with the cordless one the tips are replaceable, and pretty unique in appearance so I know exactly which iron they go to.
The problem with the cordless one is the heat it can generate and the fact that it’s not adjustable. The problem with the corded one is that I have to lug a 50’ extension cord up to every plane to use it, and often there’s not a safe place to put it down while it’s hot so I have to prep every solder cup, joint, splice etc and then plug it in and turn it on. I’ve got stands galore and none of them is the safest.
I’d be willing to try this out just for the sake of the added protections it provides.
This looks like a heavy rebrand of the Pine64’s Pinecil soldering iron.
Spam.
I just blocked OP, “Ghostal Media”, but I liken it more as essentially an adblock
Look at their post history. They arent a spammer by trade. The article posted does read like a paid review, though. And the other posters here have done similar while offering counterpoints.
