soldering iron

81 Articles

Hacking A €15 8051-Based Portable Soldering Iron With Custom Firmware

March 7, 2023 by 16 Comments

With soldering irons being so incredibly useful, and coming on the heels of the success of a range of portable, all-in-one soldering irons from the likes of Waveshare and Pine64, it’s little wonder that you can get such devices for as little as 10 – 15 Euro from websites like AliExpress. Making for both a great impulse buy and reverse-engineering target, [Aaron Christophel] got his mittens on one and set to work on figuring out its secrets.

The results are covered in a brief video, as well as a Twitter thread, where this T12 soldering iron’s guts are splayed around and reprogrammed in all their glory. Despite the MCU on the PCB having had its markings removed, some prodding and poking around revealed it to be an STC8H3K62S2, an 8051-based MCU running at a blistering 11 MHz. As a supported PlaformIO target, reprogramming the MCU wasn’t too complicated after wiring up a USB-TTL serial adapter.

Completing this initial foray into these cheap T12 soldering irons is the GitHub repository, which contains the pin-outs, wiring diagrams and further information. Although [Aaron] indicates that he’ll likely not pursuing further development, the mixed responses by people to the overall quality of the firmware on the as-purchased T12 may inspire others to give it a shake.

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Printable Case For Pinecil And TS100 Soldering Irons (Mis)Uses A 608 Bearing

January 7, 2023 by 61 Comments

[PjotrStrog]’s rugged Pinecil / TS100 storage case is the perfect printable accessory to go with a hacker’s choice of either the Pine64 Pinecil, or the Miniware TS100 soldering irons. There are some thoughtful features beyond just storing the iron, too!

A standard 608 bearing makes for a handy heat-resistant stand.

Some of you may have spotted a 608 bearing in the image above, and might be wondering what it is for. In proud hacker tradition of using things for something other than their intended purpose, the bearing makes a heat-resistant stand to hold the iron while in use.

This design has a pretty deep history that illustrates the value of sharing one’s designs and allowing others to remix and refine ideas. [PjotrStrog]’s work makes use of the earlier and highly thoughtful TS100, Pinecil, TS80 & TS80p cases with options by [Termiman], which themselves are based on bearing-equipped TS100 case by [Olvin] that we covered back in 2020.

We loved the Pine64 Pinecil soldering iron, and this looks like a fantastic printable storage and carry option. There are a few pieces of hardware needed to put the rugged version together, but [PjotrStrog] also offers a less rugged design with fewer hardware needs, so check that out as well.

A Nitrogen Soldering Iron Review

April 14, 2022 by 30 Comments

If you’ve ever welded, you know that some welders blow a shield gas over the work for different reasons. For example, you often use a gas to displace oxygen from the area and avoid oxidation. You can also solder using a nitrogen shield. This allows higher temperatures and a reduction of flux required in the solder. Wave soldering often uses nitrogen, and JBC offers a soldering iron that can employ nitrogen shield gas. [SDG Electronics] puts that iron through its paces in the video below.

As you might expect, this isn’t a $50 soldering iron. The price for the iron is just under $1,000 and that doesn’t include the power supply or the nitrogen source. The nitrogen generator that converts compressed air into nitrogen is particularly expensive so [SDG] just used a cylinder of gas.

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A soldering iron applied to a stuck threadlocked screw in a titanium pen

Removing Threadlocked Screws With A Soldering Iron

October 4, 2021 by 27 Comments

We’ve all been there – that last stubborn screw, the one thing between you and some real progress on a repair or restoration. It’s stuck tight with thread-locking fluid, and using more torque threatens to strip the head. Frustration mounting, drilling that sucker out is starting to seem pretty tempting. But wait! [Daniel] offers a potential solution using nothing but a soldering iron.

This tool hack is pretty simple, but all the great ones tend to be straightforward. In the video, [Daniel] is faced with a titanium Torx screw that refuses to come loose due to threadlocker, an adhesive that is applied to screws and other fasteners to prevent them coming loose. Available in a variety of strengths, thread-locking fluid is great at keeping screws where they need to be, but too much (or the wrong kind) can seize a screw permanently.

Instead of drilling out the offending screw, [Daniel] reaches for his soldering iron. By applying a significant amount of heat to the screw head, the adhesive starts to give. After heating, working the screw back and forth breaks the threadlocker, thus freeing the screw. The whole process takes just a couple of minutes, and potentially saves the repairer from destroying a screw.

The chemistry behind thermoset adhesives makes for some great bedtime reading, however the main takeaway is that threadlock fluid, while somewhat resistant to heat, will eventually become brittle enough for the screw to come loose. Unlike most adhesives, which melt under high temperature (think glue sticks), thermoset materials tend to initially harden with the application of heat, before turning brittle and breaking. While high-temperature threadlocker derivatives exist, typical Loctite-branded threadlocker (and similar products) would not appear to be able to stand the heat of a typical soldering iron.

This soldering iron hack isn’t the first we’ve featured on Hackaday – check out this method on removing enamel from magnet wire. If you’re not too squeamish, also check out our thoughts on soldering iron cauterization.

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Packing Heat With A Homemade Portable Soldering Iron

August 17, 2021 by 4 Comments

Small portable soldering irons are all the rage so [electronoobs] decided to build one on his own. While the design isn’t quite as sleek as a commercial unit, considering it holds its own batteries, it looks pretty good.

Of course, the question is: does it work? You can see in the video below that it does, melting solder in about ten seconds. The weight is about 100 g, so it should be very comfortable to use.

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Soldering Iron Plus Camera Gimbal Helps Cancel Out Hacker’s Hand Tremors

June 4, 2021 by 39 Comments

Soldering requires steady hands, so when [Jonathan Gleich] sadly developed a condition called an essential tremor affecting his hands, soldering became much more difficult. But one day, while [Jonathan] was chatting with a friend, they were visited by the Good Ideas Fairy and in true hacker fashion, he ended up repurposing a handheld camera stabilizing gimbal to hold a soldering iron instead of a camera or smartphone. Now instead of the gimbal cancelling out hand movements to keep a camera steady, it instead helps keep a soldering iron steady.

While the inner workings of the cheap gimbal unit didn’t need modification, there were a couple of things that needed work before the project came together. The first was to set up a way to quickly and easily connect and disconnect the soldering iron from the gimbal. Thanks to a dovetail-like connector, the iron can be safely stored in its regular holster and only attached when needed.

The other modification is more subtle. The stabilizer motors expect to be managing something like a smartphone, but a soldering iron is both lighter and differently balanced. That meant that the system worked, but not as well as it needed to. After using some small lead weights to tweak the mass and center of gravity of the soldering iron — making it feel and move a bit more like an iPhone, as far as the gimbal was concerned — results were improved.

The soldering iron stabilizer works well enough for now, but we don’t doubt that [Jonathan] already has further tweaks in mind. This is a wonderful repurposing of a consumer device into an assistive aid, so watch it in action in the short video embedded below.

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Review: Sequre SQ-D60 Temperature Controlled Soldering Iron

April 27, 2021 by 38 Comments

Over the past few years a new class of soldering iron has arisen: a temperature controlled iron no longer tied to a bulky mains-powered base station, but using low-voltage DC power and with all electronics concealed in a svelte handle. First came the Miniware TS100, and then  many more, with slightly different feature sets and at varying price points. We’ve reviewed a few of them over the years, and today we have the most recent contender in the Sequre SQ-D60. It follows the formula closely, but costs only £20 (about $26). This price puts it in an attractive budget category, and its USB-C power option makes it forward-looking over models with barrel jacks. Description over, it’s time to plug it in and put it through its paces.

What’s In The Box?

That's a lot of extra bits for a budget iron!
That’s a lot of extra bits for a budget iron!

In the box, aside from the handle containing the electronics, were a surprisingly comprehensive array of parts and accessories. The handle itself is similarly-sized to its competitors, being only slightly longer than that of Pine64’s Pinecil. The tip supplied was unexpectedly a slanted chisel, so I may have managed to order incorrectly, though since it shares the same tip design as both the TS100 and the Pinecil I have plenty of alternative tips should I need one. Otherwise there was a little bag of hex screws along with a key and a driver for them, a little stand with a sponge, a set of Sequre stickers, a USB-C to barrel jack cable, and a barrel jack-to-XT60 connector for use with LiPo battery packs. These last two cables are a particularly useful addition.

At first sight the tip doesn’t seem to have any means of being fixed into its socket, but a closer inspection reveals that there is a hex screw hiding underneath a silicone finger sleeve that holds it securely when tightened. The handle has a simple enough interface, with just two buttons and a 3-digit, 7-segment display. Powering it up from a 45 W USB-PD power supply, and it heats up to 300 °C in around ten seconds after pressing one of the buttons. My usual soldering temperature is 360 °C, and it has an interface involving long presses of one of the buttons before they become up and down buttons to select the temperature. In prolonged use the handle doesn’t become noticeably warm, and aside from a slight new-electronics-getting-hot smell there was no immediate concern that it might release magic smoke. Continue reading “Review: Sequre SQ-D60 Temperature Controlled Soldering Iron” →