111–120 of 415 posts
100W via TRS 3.5mm connector? I checked and I didn't even find a power rating for these connectors, but that seems excessive.
https://www.weller-tools.com/us/en/industrial-soldering/prod...
Pros:
1. "Portable, sorta"
2. Reasonably high-power
3. Has an accelerometer (as does everything else in its class)
4. "Repairable"
Cons:
1. No Hall effect sensor to detect when iron is placed in holder
2. A walled single-source garden of soldering tips that doesn't even exist yet instead of using commodity COTS parts
3. The fucking temperature control is fucking paywalled behind a proprietary USB power bank. What in the fuck? (And no, it is not possible to create an argument that will persuade me to think that this is an improvement. (Yes, I know that it can be programmed; this changes nothing.))
4. Expensive.
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I'll just stick with my Pinecil iron. It gets all of these things right. If it breaks (I haven't broken a soldering iron yet in over three decades of trying), I'll fix it or buy another one.
I mean: For the $250 this iFixit product costs (including the paywalled temperature control), I will be able to buy several lifetimes of worth of Pinecil irons.
What I'd really like somebody to do is just stick a field-replaceable 18650 or 21700 battery in the handle. If you want to get fancy, add a dial for temperature control. Webserial and such makes for a cool tech demo, but I just want portable soldering with standard field-replaceable batteries.
I normally power mine off either a power bank with PD, or a LiPo battery that I also use for drones.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where are you seeing a TRS connector? Looks like it's USB-C everywhere to me...
We use a TRS connector between the tip and the iron. And yes, it's a lot of amps! It's amazing how versatile a well designed analog connector can be.
So you can plug an unused tip into your Walkman's headphone jack for safekeeping...
After a quick look at the specs: Plus * 5 secs to temp. * Heat resistant, vented cap. * User can change auto idle and sleep times. Minus * Need iFixit power station or computer to change temp and other settings. * No temp indicator on the iron. No mention if the LED indicates it's reached set temp. I'd love to keep a small, lightweight, high-quality portable iron in my tool bag ready for quick repairs. It needs to he…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For tools that you use regularly, it is sometimes worth it to take a step back, put the cost into an absolute perspective and then just get the thing if you know that it's well-made and you use it regularly, instead of getting a cheapish, price-optimized knockoff instead (my experience). I spent over 200$ on a glorified PCB holder and some probes (PCBite), which is in hindsight one of the most useful tools I own and…
Why buy this for $250 when you get the same thing from a pinecil v2 and use it with any 20v 100w PD USB-c power pack? I'm not seeing any differentiating features.
And most of what you are going to overpay (?) for this is going to ifixit, which is also a plus. It's like buying merch from a band you like.
The 100w and heat resistant storage caps are nice, but that battery pack pricing and the lack of on-device controls makes this not an option for me. $110 cad for the soldering iron is semi-reasonable, if a bit high compared to their competitors. $342 for the iron + battery means that's a $230 battery pack, which is absolutely insane. Requiring the battery pack to be able to easily change controls means anyone doing m…
For tools that you use regularly, it is sometimes worth it to take a step back, put the cost into an absolute perspective and then just get the thing if you know that it's well-made and you use it regularly, instead of getting a cheapish, price-optimized knockoff instead (my experience). I spent over 200$ on a glorified PCB holder and some probes (PCBite), which is in hindsight one of the most useful tools I own and…
I agree that changing temperature is generally not done super often but I would have loved to see a ring adjustment for temperature.
Overall, compared to the competition, I am not sure how much people would be willing to pay the much higher cost just for promise of quality and high heating capacity which is not as big of a edge that iFixit seems to think in my opinion.
But I applaud the effort of trying to make something new and different in a crowded and competitive space.
The 100w and heat resistant storage caps are nice, but that battery pack pricing and the lack of on-device controls makes this not an option for me. $110 cad for the soldering iron is semi-reasonable, if a bit high compared to their competitors. $342 for the iron + battery means that's a $230 battery pack, which is absolutely insane. Requiring the battery pack to be able to easily change controls means anyone doing m…
For tools that you use regularly, it is sometimes worth it to take a step back, put the cost into an absolute perspective and then just get the thing if you know that it's well-made and you use it regularly, instead of getting a cheapish, price-optimized knockoff instead (my experience). I spent over 200$ on a glorified PCB holder and some probes (PCBite), which is in hindsight one of the most useful tools I own and…
I was wondering if it requires a 100W PD supply, but according to the manual everything with at least 20W should work.