Pinecil: Portable USB-C RISC-V soldering iron
pine64.com
pine64.com
Edit: Seems like this batch has a GPIO + JTag breakout board!
$25 for a high powered device that one holds in their hand and has a heating element would have me worried.
However when you get into a DC soldering irons you do start getting into complexity that isn't as cheap to do safely.
They are cheap but with the exception of a few product aren't that good of a value for money for what you get.
Their soldering stations are rather anemic and getting bits is rather hard (they also have a very limited line of bits to begin with).
Their gas powered portable soldering irons are quite good they don't overheat, have decent control and are well built but their electric ones are simply a miss these days.
TL;DR: Software is eating the world.
First, it doesn't, but it can be easier or cheaper if you use one. You can build a closed-loop controller using only analog electronics, but it doesn't mean you should. Because silicon is so cheap, sometimes it's reasonable to use a $1 microcontroller and 20 lines of code, instead of 3 opamps, 5 resistors and 3 capacitors. I don't mean that software is always a good idea, but you get my point.
Next, if you want an LCD-based user interface (it doesn't mean you should, you can use an analog potentiometer, but having a display is the norm these days), you need a microcontroller anyway. You need a microcontroller to control the pixels on a screen or the numbers on a seven-segment display, and you also need software to implement functionality such as "press this button to change the temperature", or "save the current settings".
Also, these "novelty" soldering irons can power themselves via USB Type-C by using the USB Power Delivery protocol (it doesn't mean you should, but people are having fun doing it), which is a digital protocol, you definitely need a controller and software to do the handshake in order to get DC power. A single microcontroller can perform this task as well.
Now, does it really need a RISC-V microcontroller, instead of, say, a 8-bit 8051 chip? No. But the target audiences of this soldering iron are hardware tinkers, and previously they already ported things like Tetris and Game of Life to the soldering iron, so... Why not?
Unfortunately it looks like all the figures are 404 on the article, fortunately IA seems to have them https://web.archive.org/web/20201112004309/https://www.elect...
Edit: Bit of a funny aside; the editor who wrote the subtitle incorrectly identifies the P in PID as "Peripheral" even though the article correctly states it is "Proportional" in the fourth paragraph.
Switching between the modes isn’t fast enough and if you do try to pulse modulate it you more likely than not to kill your power supply as they weren’t designed for that.
on the other hand, just a guess, but I'd guess well under half of supplies (wall & battery) have PPS support. just last month I went out & bought the pro version of the battery back I had been using: same size, same capacity, more expensive but it had PPS, which I wanted to play with (as a hobbyist), and can supply more watts (honestly not that important to me atm).
[1] https://www.pengohome.com/Learn_Detail.asp?LiD=D15D68D2FEB0F...
This isn't suitable for this. In general you do not do any high frequency modulation in the power supply, this is not the component for that.
You put your capacitors and the switching required where it's needed more or less the supply can be constant.
There seem to be two main strategies. I'm not super well versed on the pro's & cons of each. A lot of soldering irons use a resistive heating element. Dump current in, get heat. Higher end soldering irons tend to use high frequency inductive heating. Hakko has a write up here[1].
Agreed that for a switching supply, PPS isn't going to help a lot. For a resistive soldering iron, a PPS capable USB power source would be very helpful. All that's needed is a control loop, to monitor temperature & adjust the asked for input voltage and/or current.
Honestly not sure what the Pinecil or the well known TS100 soldering iron are, resistive or RF inductive. It'd be great if they were RF inductive heating, & PPS wasn't helpful, as the much finer control would be great. I hadn't considered that they could be.
Legal aspects aside, it also isn't exactly a vote of confidence in the quality of the product. I mean, 30 days, really?
1: https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...
Some shops have down to 1 week of warranty, some (e.g. wholesale items) may state to accept no returns, etc.
No. While in the US people seem to be able to get away with anything as long as there is a disclaimer, EU law is strict - it's minimum 24 months per Art. 17 EU directive 1999/44/EC (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...), with an exception for second-hand goods (Art. 16 of said directive, with the decision on the exact duration being left to the member states).
B2B transactions, however, are pretty much unregulated wild west.
It lists “USB type C: PD and QC 3.0 12V-20V 3A”.
Would this work via a USB Type A port, with an A-to-C adapter/cable?
Type A ports on wall chargers can support QuickCharge - and yes, this will work with an A to C cable.
Having used the similarly spec'd TS100, you're better off getting yourself a 20V capable USB C brick for this.
It was already a problem ordering from Pine and this also exceeds the 22 Euros.
EDIT: The tip and the base are %100 the TS100, so I guess they took the TS100 and added the USB QC of the TS80.
Oh. And this will be my first RISC-V device too :)
https://www.google.com/search?q=ts100+lipo+cable&client=fire...
I'm still really excited about the Pinecil though! I don't solder a lot, so I'm looking forward to having a quick kit I can whip out instead of my whole toolbox of soldering tools with my ancient but trusty Weller.