TIP

2 Articles

Bad Idea For Desoldering Actually Might Be Pretty Smart

January 6, 2021 by 48 Comments

This video on building a DIY desoldering iron says it all right up front: this is stupid and dangerous, and you shouldn’t do it. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, or that it doesn’t have potential to be turned into something else.

The story begins, as it often does these days, on the pages of Amazon as [AnotherMaker] shopped for a real desoldering setup. Despite a case of sticker shock, he took the plunge on a nice Hakko vacuum desolderer, but as is also often the case, it failed to arrive. Rather than accept defeat, [AnotherMaker] purchased a cheap-o soldering iron and a brass tee fitting for small-bore tubing that would chuck nicely into the spot where the stock tip once lived, giving him a way to both melt solder and move air.

Unfortunately, rather than applying a vacuum, he chose to blast 100 PSI compressed air through the tip, which certainly moves a lot of solder, perhaps at the cost of burns and eye injuries. The potential for accidental short circuits is pretty high too, but c’mon — it’s not like we all haven’t flicked or dropped a board to desolder something. Is this really much different?

As fraught with peril as this method may be, [AnotherMaker] is onto something here. Perhaps adding a 3D-printed venturi generator could turn that blast of air into a vacuum. Or maybe a vacuum pump for a manual pick-and-place would do the trick too.

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You Can Have My TIPs When You Pry Them From My Cold, Dead Hands

August 17, 2015 by 154 Comments

We’ve seen a growing number of posts and recommendations around the net regarding components, specifically transistors. “Don’t use old parts” they cry,  “Go with newer components.”  You can often find these recommendations on Arduino forums. This all came to a head with a page called “Do Not TIP,” which was linked in the Arduino subreddit.  This page belongs to [Tom Jennings], creator of Fidonet, and one of the early authors of what would become Phoenix BIOS. [Tom] and a few others have been calling for everyone to send their old parts to the landfill – not use them, nor gift them to new experimenters. Get them out of the food chain. No offense to [Tom], but we have to disagree. These parts are still perfectly usable for experienced designers, and have a lot to offer new hardware hackers.

TIP is the part number prefix for a series of power transistors created by Texas Instruments.  In fact, “TIP” stands for Texas Instruments Power. The series was originally released in 1969. Yes, that’s right, 1969. Why are we still using parts designed when man first walked on the moon? The same reason people are still using the 555 timer: they’re simple, they’re easily available, they’re robust, and most of all, they get the job done. The TIP series has been used in thousands of classes, tutorials both online and off, and millions of projects over the years. Much of that documentation is already out there on the internet. The TIP series is also out in the distribution channel – they’ve been used for 40 years. Any retail shop that stocks a few electronics parts will have at least one of the TIP series.

The TIP series aren’t always the best transistors for the job. However, for most hobbyist-designed circuits, we don’t need the best performance, nor the best price – we’re going to use the parts we have on hand. There is always room to improve once you get the basic circuit working.

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