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A Soldering Iron for Christmas

scottiebabe

With a few words of encouragement from shabaz and baldengineer I snuck this bad girl into the Christmas tree!

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A USB-c powered portable soldering iron!

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Fully assembled it has a similar form factor to my weller wxmp

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With the temperature set at 300 degC it struggled a little to melt leaded solder on a copper clad board.

 

When I adjusted the temp to 330 degC the same temp I use on my weller wxmp, Id say its thermal performance felt similar (no scientific evidence).

 

The only obvious criticism I have thus far is the included silicone USB cable is a little on the short side. If the cable was 30 cm longer, I think it would be long enough. I am hopping to find a powerbank that will power this iron, at which point the USB cable length would not be an issue.

 

It also didn’t include a travel or storage pouch…

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But that is also okay, I think I am going to try and put together an electronics first aid kit (I have the soldering iron covered).

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  • Nice photos, it looks very thoughtfully designed! 

    I was doing some investigating regarding USB-C PD power supplies, and it seems that some UGREEN ones may support a wider range of possible outputs than Anker supplies. In particular, Anker ones do not support 12V, they skip that and offer 15V instead. For the soldering iron I purchased (it won't be delivered until mid-January perhaps), 12V may be better, otherwise it will negotiate a lower voltage (9V). I'll try to compare it with Anker and UGREEN supplies.

    Incidentally, it may be good for your kit to contain an earthing solution of some sort, e.g. an ESD strap, and a mains plug to provide the earth bonding point to the strap and to the iron although it may need a custom adapter cable of some sort. The photo below shows the USB cable with alligator clip that was supplied with a low-power (5V) soldering iron. Probably a nice niche business opportunity for someone to sell USB-C inline cables with an alligator clip or banana plug to help with this!

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    EDIT: Just noticed that it looks like your kit already includes an earth cable, which is great.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Thanks, though my images don't do it justice I would say the fit and finish is very similar to the manufactures own marking photos

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    Source: https://www.miniware.com.cn/product/ts80p-soldering-iron-main/

    I was lucky in that I purchased a kit and a know working USB power supply was included

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    There also appears to be a list of compatible power sources for the TS80P I assume it would be similar to yours:

    https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS/wiki/TS80-Power-Sources 

    If I understand the manual correctly, I believe my iron would turn the heater off if the input voltage was 15V

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    Mine did include an earth cable, though it doesn't mount in a convenient location. I think I could cut back the overmolding of one of the USB-C connector and solder directly to the shell. Or perhaps some sort of inline USB gadget.

  • in reply to scottiebabe

    Nice, from that photo it looks like the USB supply supports a good range of voltages. 

    Regarding earth cable, could it be intended for fitting in this screw-hole, or is that just holding the iron together?

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