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Comment by tekstar | Hacker News Reader

Probably a dumb question to some but why does a soldering iron need more than temperature regulation?

The TS100 and the subsequent TS80 soldering irons were innovative for a few reasons. The heating element is in the tip rather than the body of the iron. This means it can reach a high temperature (e.g. 350C) using much less power than a traditional iron. This means that it can be powered with a USB power bank and makes it a great iron for using off the grid or in the field. This also means it's very lightweight which makes it easier to handle for delicate soldering work. Even if you're working at your desk, being able to power it with a portable power bank means you can more easily move the power cable so it does not get in the way (also I believe the TS80 comes with a silicone USB cable which is really flexible and easy to manipulate). Another nice feature is that it has an accelerometer which means it can automatically drop to a lower temperature when it's placed down making it a bit safer. Lastly, the firmware can be replaced and people have added features such as a temperature boost mode, power level monitoring and so on: https://github.com/Ralim/ts100

Normally, you can get these irons for $80-$90 so a $24.99 iron that uses the same tips and software would be an absolute bargain.

Makes it less likely to accidentally pick up by the hot bit something I’ve done several times when concentrating on what I’m working on and not on the insanely hot thing I just picked up.

> The TS100 and the subsequent TS80 soldering irons were innovative for a few reasons. The heating element is in the tip rather than the body of the iron.

That's not their innovation, since they copied JBC's cartridge design to do that.

Their innovation is that they're selling an incompatible Chinese copy of JBC's system that's self-contained in the soldering iron and powered by a laptop power brick or USB-C.

> Their innovation is that they're selling an incompatible Chinese copy of JBC's system that's self-contained in the soldering iron and powered by a laptop power brick or USB-C.

So did JBC create a soldering iron compatible with a Hakko power station? My understanding is pretty much all pro-level soldering irons are not compatible with each other.

> The heating element is in the tip rather than the body of the iron.

That was an innovation compared to old pen shaped irons, but our old beloved gun shaped solder irons were much better wrt heat transfer: the heating element wan't just inside the tip, it was the tip. that's why they could deliver insanely fast heating times like two or three seconds from turned off to maximum temperature. I still have a couple of them, and they literally spank my Weller styluses asses when soldering heavy stuff, but alas their shape and big tips aren't suitable for use on very small stuff, not to mention SMT devices.

> they literally spank my Weller styluses asses

The ass-end of the stylus is pretty obvious, but where's the appendage that the gun uses for spanking? Also, you may want to cut back on the psychedelics while soldering.

A lot of modern irons also have motion sensors built into the handle. Allowing it to cooldown or even turn off when it detects no activity, and automatically heat back up when it does. I can't be the only one who has left an iron on overnight by accident.

The TS100 custom firmware, https://github.com/Ralim/ts100 , also has features like detecting incoming voltage for use on lithium battery packs to prevent overdischarge. Pine64 even mentions they've sent a prototype to this developer.

As far as i understand it, its basically that. But you want the temperature to be controllable and oberservable. So the microcontroller is controlling the display, heating element and user input.

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