Comments on: Soldering iron indicator mod

By: akmixdown

akmixdown — Tue, 22 May 2007 17:42:00 +0000

@5: the Weller WTCP series don't have a relay; it's the tip that is clicking, as the modder correctly describes.

@1: You don't have more than one soldering iron? :-)

@9: Yes, that is an awesome idea, I may just do that with mine!

oh, and Will -- "a funky diode capacitor circuit to create a pseudo-regulated dc voltage" ?? You mean a half-wave rectifier? :-)

By: Perry

Perry — Fri, 18 May 2007 20:19:50 +0000

A simplere solution is to simple wind a coil of wire around one of the secondary wires, then connect each end to and LED with a very low forward voltage bias. When current flows through the heater, the coil of wire acts as a current clamp and generates a voltage like a secondary transformer coil, which then lights the LED.

–Perry

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 18 May 2007 20:06:33 +0000

Nice mod. Luckily I have a Hakko which already has a heating indicator LED. Oh and these puppies can be found

By: Pedro

Pedro — Fri, 18 May 2007 14:24:13 +0000

OK, the soldering iron is off….. so I…. turn it on and just walk away!

By: jeff

jeff — Fri, 18 May 2007 07:13:21 +0000

opening the base unit can be done by removing the rubber feet and finding four screws. There is no need to pry the case open with a flatblade screw driver. I like the hack simple useful and informative :-) Another coloured LED on my bench blinking on and off impressing visitors :-)

By: fbz

fbz — Fri, 18 May 2007 03:42:47 +0000

ok now i want one that sends an email to my phone telling me “just turn it _OFF_ and _WALK AWAY_” when i have left it on and walked out the front door. how many tips have i killed by leaving my poor soldering iron on eleven?

By: Bones

Bones — Fri, 18 May 2007 03:18:49 +0000

At least with mine, the base station clicks, which tells me there's a relay in there. I have a feeling that would be a lot easier to take an on/off signal from.

But whatever works, and it's an interesting circuit.

-KJ

By: ...

... — Fri, 18 May 2007 02:56:52 +0000

Neat hack, I can vouch for those old magnetic switches being unreliabe as heck… My old station would kick out every once in an while; I decided to get a new one when it stoped turning the heater off, and pumping the full 50w into the element all of the time, giving the tip a healthy orange glow…

I picked up EC2002 off ebay for about $30 shipped (it had a loose contact in the connector, the last job for the old station was resoldering the connector).

By: Wolfmankurd

Wolfmankurd — Fri, 18 May 2007 02:35:49 +0000

lol cool, I’d like this but maybe a smaller version

By: steve

steve — Fri, 18 May 2007 01:26:21 +0000

another load of usless crap roll on xmass

By: Dax

Dax — Fri, 18 May 2007 01:02:22 +0000

Yeah but once you have taken your soldering iron apart to do the mod how do you solder the circuit together?…

lol, just kidding.