41–50 of 415 posts
I always see these USB-C irons marketed a lot, but I've recently bought a travel iron that's the same form factor with adjustable temperature and all that jazz but just ends with an outlet plug for $16 and couldn't be happier with it tbh. Unless you're somewhere out in the wilderness, finding an outlet to do any on the road repairs is pretty trivial and you don't need to lug around a large heavy box that does grid to…
Never buy cheap tools. It looks like a cool gadget, but is it actually useful for soldering? Does it maintain correct temperatures? How long the tips last and can you buy them easily? Are there many variety of tips? etc. etc. If you are into soldering, do yourself a favour and buy something tried and trusted like Hakko FX-951 if you are on the budget. It will probably outlast you.
Tips we'll have at launch: Cone, Bevel 1.5, Wedge 1.5, Point, Bevel 2.6, Knife 2.5, Knife 1.4
What kills tips is oxidation. With our auto-sleep sensor, it drops below the temperature that will wear it out. When you pick it up, it's back at soldering temperature in a few seconds.
Give it a chance! You're right, it's not tried and tested, yet. But Tom at Hackaday is not an easy person to convince: he's been around the block and used every iron out there: "iFixit didn’t just raise the bar, they sent it into orbit."
> The accelerometer detects when you pick it up and heats it back up. I don't want this. I would rather push a button and wait for a light to turn on. Automatic off, fine, I guess, though I don't love it and would never want to rely on it. Automatic on, no way.
Looks much like the pinecil [0] (which I love btw if I have no acess to decent equipment) but with Webinterface ?!? Love the look though. [0] https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...
>The star of the show is, of course, the Smart Soldering Iron. It’s a 100 watt iron that comes up to operating temperature in under five seconds and can work with any suitably beefy USB-C Power Delivery source. The size and general proportions of the iron are very close to the Pinecil V2, though the grip is larger and considerably more comfortable to hold. The biggest difference between the two however is the absence of a display or configuration buttons. According to iFixit, most users don’t change their settings enough to justify putting the interface on the iron itself. That doesn’t mean you can’t tweak the iron’s settings when used in this stand-alone configuration, but we’ll get back to that in a minute.
Unfortunate that they didn't make it compatible with genuine Hakko or JBC tips like many of the no-name knock-off soldering stations are, but I suppose being based in the US they might be wary of violating the design patents of those companies. Anyway it's good to have an option that's cheaper than the big names but presumably built to a higher standard than an AliExpress special, and has an actual warranty and safet…
We'll have a range of tips. Hitting the high performance we wanted, with 100 Watt output in a small iron, required really optimizing the entire system. The heating element and temperature sensor are in the tip itself. We really see JBC as our competition here. Performance and responsiveness should be comparable or better, at a fraction of the price.
What kind of tips do you plan producing for the fixhub?
P.S.: all JBC stands (genuine and most of knock-offs) have really comfortable holder with detents to change cartridges on-handed on the fly. Do you plan any such features? I do not see any steps or hooks on a tip.
So is this iron competing mostly with other portable, USB c irons, or is there s case for it to also be someone's only, at home, soldering station iron?
We designed it as a soldering station that can replace the station on your workbench. The cap mounts to the battery pack.
https://www.ifixit.com/products/fixhub-power-series-portable...
You actually get a few more watts of power (104 W or so) if the hub is plugged into an AC charger (there's a third USB-C port on the rear).
> The accelerometer detects when you pick it up and heats it back up. I don't want this. I would rather push a button and wait for a light to turn on. Automatic off, fine, I guess, though I don't love it and would never want to rely on it. Automatic on, no way.
By default, the timer is set to 30 seconds. You can turn the whole feature off, and it'll never bother you again!
Awesome. Thank you!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, boost button was a huge step up when I got my TS100 and now I can't imagine ever buying a new iron without it. Plus, not having the ability to quickly tune temperature settings on the iron itself seems like a step back as well. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on these, as iFixit's screwdriver sets were one of those things I needed to use to understand the hype (and then promptly bought my own set), so maybe thi…
We spent a lot of time tuning it. We've found that temperature settings really aren't needed for most use cases as long as the heating algorithm is responsive enough. But that may not be for everyone: With the Power Station, changing the temperature is fast and easy with the dial, so you can pick a workflow that works best for you. (You can also change the temperature with the web interface.)