Hello, Element14 community!

It is about a month since the HyperShock Ask Me Anything event, as part of which the best question competition was running. One of my questions was marked as one of the best, and for this reason, last week, I received the reward consisting of a HyperShock branded beanie, stickers, and (non-HyperShock branded) Multicomp Pro Soldering station. I am still determining the question for which I received the reward, but I remember the questions I asked. One of the following questions was graded as one of the best. I prepared some questions before the session, and I added some at the session time after some related discussion. Most questions were answered, and some questions were probably asked by someone else.

• Is there any robot destruction competition allowing electrical attacks instead of mechanical ones? For example, signal jammers, high voltage shocks, crypto attacks on RF communication, and so on? Are you interested in fighting in this field also?
• Does BattleBots organizer provide the communication module and controller, or does all team design their radio controller? In the case of providing, what does the communication hardware look like? Is it barebone PCB inside the robot? Is it Raspberry Pi, Arduino, other publicly available hardware, or a fully proprietary device? What are the dimensions of the in-car communication device?
• Is the cost of the robot important when Multicomp sponsors you? :D :D
• Do you have any sensors integrated into the car? Can robots do some tasks autonomously, or is it purely manually controlled?
• What is the MCU used in the robot?
• Do you use consumer, industrial, or automotive-grade MCU?

Reward

As mentioned above, one part of the reward is HyperShock branded beanie and three stickers:

MP740686 Soldering Station

The second part of the review is a soldering station from Multicomp. TLDR review (pros and cons listing) is at the end.

The station I received is USA based, which was a slight issue for me because, in Europe, we use different power outlets with different voltage and AC frequencies (230V@50 Hz vs. 110V@60Hz). Some devices can withstand both voltages, and MP740686 manual mention that both are supported. Unluckily the label on the device mentioned only 110V allowed, so to make it work, I decided not to try 230V and instead ordered a voltage converter.

Except for the soldering station and iron, the package contains a robust stand with tip-cleaning brass included and grounding cable (which I never needed when soldering yet):

The soldering iron is equipped with a conical tip. Solder iron's body is pleasant to hold and is nicely isolated from the heat.

The bundled solder iron stand is filled with brass, but the cover is detachable, and the stand can be used with a sponge instead also:

Compared with my previous Chinese soldering pen, it has a more advanced user interface but is still very simple. It shows configured and actual temperature. The device has a beeper that beeps when pressing any button and regularly when the actual temperature differs by 20°C (in both directions) from the configured target temperature. It is possible to disable the alarm, and the device also offers an option to change the 20°C temperature difference of the alarm to a different value. It is helpful for me because I frequently solder at night when a beep sound wakes up my family. The user interface is straightforward, and since there are limited characters, it is tough to identify the meaning of some options without reading the manual. For example, the mentioned alarm is configurable in the menu under the bL option. The menu of the device is protected by a password, which is an annoying feature in this grade of the device. It is slightly confusing that there are two up/down buttons (at the sides, and buttons numbered 1 and 3 also have arrows). The device allows the user to set any temperature between 80 to 450°C and three frequently used temperatures can be easily set to buttons 1, 2, and 3 (this is a nice feature that my previous soldering iron did not have, and after one day of usage I consider it very useful).

From the thermal performance of the device, I am slightly disappointed. It is almost unusable at temperatures under 330 °C, but it is significantly affected by the conical tip, the only tip bundled with the device. Heat transfer is terrible, I think. Under 300°C, applying tin to the farthest 2mm of the provided conical tip is impossible. The soldering station is marked as 60W, and my previous one was 80W, but I still expected that at 330°C, It should be possible to solder, but it is challenging in the case of this unit. Since I am familiar with different than conical tips, It was tough to solder with it, and my first joints were very ugly. Still, after increasing the temperature to 400 °C, I could solder like I was with my previous solder iron. After the initial disappointment, I was thinking about letting this unit on the shelf, but I will give it a second try after acquiring a different tip which will most probably transfer heat much better.

Dimensions of the tip are not mentioned anywhere, but the document at the Farnell site lists compatible tips. Some of them come from the Multicomp Pro, and some of the listed are from the Tenma. According to the listing, it looks the tips are compatible MP740261 80W soldering station.

The device's price is around 120 USD, for which you get a regulated solder station with a friendly user interface and many accessories. It is too much because of thermal performance. For half the price, you can get in China more performant units. When buying, I recommend ordering non-conical tips also. The price is compensated over time because the device is robust and designed well. Most probably, it will work reliably longer than cheaper Chinese units.

Update 2023-07-20

Today I tested soldering station with new 1.2mm Chinsel tip Tenma 21-10142. With this tip soldering station work much better, thermal transfer is significantly better and soldering is much easier even slightly under 300°C. Foer general purpose soldering SMD and small THT parts I recommend 330°C. At 370 °C I was able to cover my testing 23 × 23 mm thermal pad with tin by dragging. This is impossible with Chinese “80W” solder pen. This Multicomp desktop unit (rated to 60W) handles it well with proper tip.

Summary