It's a USB-C powered soldering iron and smart battery power hub. Super repairable, of course. Our goal is to make soldering so easy everyone can do it: https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub
We didn’t want to make just another iron, so we spent years sweating the details and crafting something that met our exacting standards. This is a high-performance iron: it can output 100W of heat, gets to soldering temperature in under 5 seconds, and automatically cools off when you set it down. The accelerometer detects when you pick it up and heats it back up. Keeping the iron at a lower temperature while you’re not soldering shouold prolong the life of the tip.
What’s the difference between this iron and other USB-C irons on the market? Here’s a quick list:
Higher power (our Smart Iron is 100W, competitors max out at 60W over USB-C, 88W over DC Supply)
Heat-resistant storage cap (you just have to try this out, it’s a real game changer in day-to-day use) Polished user experience
A warranty and a local company to talk to (I can’t find any contact information for Miniware)
Comfier / more natural grip
Shorter soldering tip length
No-tangle, heat-resistant cable
Locking ring on the cable, so it can’t snag and get disconnected (this happens to me all the time on other irons)
More intuitive settings, either on the Power Station or on the computer
We used Web Serial https://caniuse.com/web-serial for the interface, which is only supported in Chromium browsers. The biggest bummer with that is that no mobile browsers support it, yet. Hopefully that changes soon.
Hardware is hard! It's been a journey for us. Happy to answer any questions about how we made it.
Schematics and repair information are online here: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/FixHub_Portable_Soldering_Stat...
If your experience with soldering is one of those cheap flimsy $30 dollar things from Amazon paired with fat, chunky solder… yeah you will hate soldering and you’ll never get even remotely good results. You don’t need to spend $500 dollar or anything but something like what is in this post and a $40 roll of thin gauge solder (which will last the rest of your life) will make soldering actually fun and enjoyable.
…I should also mention a solid, heavy parts holder factors into this as well.
I dunno, I'm 56 and I'm about to finish the roll I bought as a teenager. (Albeit bought in pre-RoHS times.)
I do remember my first pound lasted about 15 years though...
Yeah. Old high lead content solder is way nicer to solder with than modern stuff.
For any other Navy nukes, I wanted to link to a good reference on what ETMS is (was?) but couldn’t readily find anything. If anyone has a reputable link to publicly available course material on their solder grading rubrics or the 7-step, I’d be interested.
"THROUGH-HOLE SOLDERING GENERAL REQUIREMENTS"
https://workmanship.nasa.gov/lib/insp/2%20books/links/sectio...
This one might be relevant too (but it's too long for me to read through right now to confirm):
"Military Standard - Standard requirements for soldered electrical and electronic assemblies (1989)"
https://electromet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Electromet...
edit: if you’re ^soldering *Nuke* stuff underway, it’s because things have hit the fan, and that’s the whole point of ETMS. Other rates also solder underway and might also use (did use) lead, and perhaps none of our inhalation was warranted.
Let’s couch it in real terms. You can try to attempt something poorly 20x because you can’t line things up and your hand isn’t steady and do a poor job with worse aesthetics and in 20x the time, risking damaging your part, or you can get it right the first time with ease and have it look great because everything was lined up and there was no real way that shaky hands might ruin it.
I speak from personal experience here. Spend a little bit and save time, money, and sanity and get a better result.
Then I quickly learned that I had adjusted the temperature calibration. I reverted what I had done but now I am not confident about the temperature its operating at, at all. Seems a terrible interface design.
I recalibrated by using the thermocouple on my multimeter.
That's not my biggest problem though - my biggest problem has just been keeping tips tinned properly. I've succeeded once, but it constantly feels like a struggle.
Also keeping the tip at moderate temperature range helps avoid oxidation - most manufacturers recommend to never exceed 400 C. JBC recommends to not exceed 370 C.
Hope this helps.
The alternative, for a hobbyist, would be something like this new iFixit iron, the Pinecil, Miniware TS80/TS100 or one of the variety of chinese irons from amazon and Aliexpress that take Hakko T12 tips (Quicko and similar).
On the high-end, professional side, it's JBC and Metcal. Expensive.
The handle is so light! Active tips! Heats up in 2 seconds. Goes to standby mode when you put away the handle to save the tips.
There's even a lighter compatible precision handle that you can buy.
Luke Gorrie posted a bunch of Twitter threads where he compare the sizes of soldering handles. Can't find it now but https://github.com/lukego/soldering might lead you to them.
Don't brush off what I'm saying before you try a direct-heat iron (Hakko sells them, Pace does, and JBC is the gold standard). They are usually expensive from the big names, but even a Pinecil direct-heat iron for $30$ would be many times better than non-direct-heat irons.
I don't even know when I last soldered and that's still tempting at a deep-seated nerd level.
You got me. Pinecil is en route. Thanks for the recommendation!
[1] https://hackaday.com/2024/09/12/review-ifixits-fixhub-may-be...
(It's also incredibly, incredibly useful for heat-set inserts, because you get to decide really precisely how long they will take to insert!)
When you zoom out, I think home soldering is about as effective as it can reasonably get without fumigating your house.
As you say, it's so much easier to get good solder joints (especially for the fine stuff like QFN/BGA) with lead blends and flux, that having a vent hood is likely required as well.
I've used only lead-free solder for a decade. Get the good stuff with some silver in it and it's not difficult.
At work I get to use a very very expensive Olympus binocular microscope. It is extraordinarily good, but at about 60k it costs more than a car.
They have great field of view (cm) at decent/variable magnification (20-100x) and response time is instant, whereas your phone/USB are going to have just enough delay to be annoying.
Looking at videos of people using microscopes, the quality seems to be on-par or worse than my phone.
Plus USB scope things are like $80 on AliExpress and work fine.
From what I can see, the Mantis microscopes are in the $3500+ range and the JBC stuff is similarly expensive.
Most hobbyists would cringe at the price of buying a Thermaltronics soldering iron and that's like 5x cheaper. However, I can at least conclusively demonstrate the vast difference between something like that and a Hakko right in front of a person.
This stuff is like the difference between a $100 guitar, a $500 guitar, and a $2000 guitar. The difference between the $100 and the $500 one is obvious to almost everybody. The differences between the $500 and $2000 one won't be obviously noticeable until you get a lot of experience.
I find the lag to be murder when trying to solder very small things. I can use a USB microscope in a pinch, but it makes me miserable.
I would expect that this setup would work pretty well for a bench microscope setup if the camera can output video and isn't too big to mount on a tabletop tripod. Rather a lot can be done with crop zoom if you can get the focal length and lighting right.
I stumped up for a set of dental loupes many moons ago and they were nice, but expensive. They're safety glasses to boot.
They're come down dramatically in price since then. https://www.practicon.com/Loupes-Magnifying-Eyewear
The fumes are flux fumes, not lead fumes. They're still bad to breathe but not specific to leaded solder.
In all seriousness, very little. I would personally want more than just a bathroom fan to do fume evacuation. Outside on a patio/balcony is my usual spot. I also have a 120mm computer fan that I hacked onto a gooseneck mount so I can blow the fumes away from my face.
The times I can't be outside, usually due to weather, I use a table right in front of an open window, and one of those dual fan window fans set to exhaust mode, and that sucks the fumes outside effectively.
I'd call that a reasonably good setup, and, as a bonus, the fumes don't hit me directly in the face, which soldering fumes have a tendency to do.
Also something to remember about ingestion is that, lead only forms salts in acidic environments, and, your stomach is quite acidic, which is why it's such a problem. Combine that with lead accumulating in your body and, well, it's best to avoid it, and it's simple enough to avoid it.
We had leaded (Ethyl) gasoline in cars which was banned 25 years ago and that had noticeable statistical effects on IQ an emotional regulation (violence) for more than a generation.
https://www.quora.com/Can-I-get-lead-poisoning-from-inhaling...
The primary means of exposure in a lab setting is through ingestion of particulate matter by getting it on your food or clothes -> mouth
Here's an environmental safety article from MIT. It mentions lead oxide fumes from soldering. What do I know other than the required lab safety training.
Based on standard soldering iron temperatures of 620°F-700°F and the melting point of lead (621°F), it is unlikely that lead fume will be generated during electronic soldering, unless the solder is heated to lead’s vaporization temperature of 3182°F.
"During the soldering process in the form of lead filler metals, lead oxide
fumes are formed and excessive exposure to lead oxide fumes can result in
lead poisoning."
Most of the fumes come from the flux boiling way, not the solder itself. (Mind you, I still wouldn't recommend breathing flux fumes. Those are bad in their own way. Adequate ventilation is important!)
Lead is unequivocally bad for you, but the amount that actually enters your system from soldering activities is miniscule.
It's good to minimize these substances in our daily life since they do add up over decades. The problem with leaded gas in cars is that there were just so many cars out there burning the stuff. Duration of exposure and amount of exposure both matter.
That said... do wash your hands after handling leaded solder, especially before eating.
(I used to have a summer job in high school assembling circuit boards for an electronics test company. I easily clocked a couple hundred hours soldering under a magnifying lamp with leaded solder. I'm sure the burns I gave myself from accidently touching the soldering iron itself did more damage than the lead. :P)
The difference is not the amount of cars, but that the temperature and pressure in car engines makes lead vaporise, so it can be breathed in.
A soldering iron doesn't reach those temperatures (vaporising the lead is the opposite of what you want when soldering).
That being said - leaded solder is easier to work with regardless of what iron you use. It's very easy to fix mistakes and even wicks up without a trace on most PCBs. I personally don't use it, but I think it's easy to see how people will blame their solder before their iron.
I guess it depends how much you are going to use it.
And patience. As tempting as it may be, don't think "if I double the temp, I won't be waiting for this big joint to start pulling in solder".
good flux, clean/sharp tip and proper patience can take you a very long way! (a steady hand and good rubbing alcohol will take you the rest of the way)
i still have it & i'm selling handwired keyboards at a very cheap price (made with it), trying to set a non-profit that sells fair priced handwired keyboards with Vial & aims to teach the basics of electronics for teens... i can't see myself supplying anything more expensive than cheap solders, nor i can see what joy i would get from an expensive solder tool
my wiring for reference -> https://happort.org/keyboard_example.png
In case anyone else was wondering.
I'd just like to note for anyone googling for one after reading this- the Harbor Freight "helping hands" holder and its ilk are the exact opposite of what you want, unless your goal is to have your target falling over endlessly.
A sharp knife is also quite a bit safer than a dull knife. By heating to operating temperature in 5 seconds and rapidly pouring heat into the material, you don't have to hold the hot iron as long. As soon as you're done, pop on the safety cap and instantly shield the hot metal.
Soldering isn't remotely mainstream, and part of that is the quality of tools. We set out to streamline the entire process to make soldering as accessible as possible.
Corollary: learn to sharpen. The best steel in the world isn't going to cut anything if it's dull.
For the record, I sharpen chisels almost daily and I hate sharpening kitchen knives. The carbides set at the right angle in the handle you pull down the length of the blade will keep your knives a lot sharper than a set of Japanese water stones you never use.
They'll take their knives to these services and pay $5 or $6 per knife, and it will get done to perfection in just a few minutes while they wait. You can use these same services, there is no membership card needed to get in the door.
When we were still in the Boston area, a lot of the hardware stores and farmers markets would have a knife sharpening service come one day a month.
I don’t have actual knowledge, just what I’ve been told by chefs.
Giving an expensive knife to a new cook that has never cooked before will not make them a Michelin chef, but their progress will be faster when they don't have the knife working against them.
Pick any Michelin-rated restaurant at random and visit the kitchen. You'll find plenty of $50 knives in use. It doesn't take a lot of money to build a good-enough-for-world-class-cooking knife. Once you get beyond a certain price point, it's mostly about personal preferences and "situations that apply to me but may or may not apply to you".
I'll just point out that your standard workhorse Global 8" is easily available for $80ish. Probably even cheaper in Japan with the exchange rates.
A better cook knows that if her knives are dull, she won’t perform as well.
The only thing a better knife does is save you prep time. Being a good cook is about understanding how different materials cook, when different foods are "done", how flavors work together, and how to improvise when things go outside the plan/recipe or adapt to novel situations.
Cutting technique is only important if you're a professional chef with actual time constraints and can't afford to spend an extra 30 seconds cutting an onion.
That being said, I still prefer diamond stones (sharpening wise)
Tomatoes, meat, fish, I use my $4 serrated knife. Everything else is fine. With proper technique it's basically impossible to cut yourself even with a very dull knife.
It is like photographers with $5,000 worth of equipment in their camera bags telling you that equipment doesn’t matter. I mean, there is a reason why they spend all that money right? Of course a good photographer will be able to get good results with a cheap camera, but only in situations where that cheap camera can actually capture the scene. For example, if it is not sensitive enough to capture enough light at night time, you are not getting night time shots, period, no matter how good you are. (this very much used to be a thing 10 years ago)
If you employ programmers, you will buy fast workstations because it will make them MUCH more productive. A slow computer will interrupt your work by making you wait.
I think it is in fact the exact opposite, the better you are at something, the more likely it is that you become limited by your equipment. I will probably not be able to cook better if I get very expensive knives. But I would speculate that an actual professional cook or butcher will be able to work better with sharp knives that keep their edges well.
it's not that you can't overcome adversity and do the thing anyhow, but you're certainly not making it easy. In all cases, using the proper tool allows you to remove the extra difficulty factor and focus on that task at hand.
But also, cutting a tomato with a sharp knife is way, way easier than with a dull knife. Same with soldering. Ignores the rest of the parts of being a chef, but you get the comparison.
A knife that won't hold it's edge will mean you are explicitly going to perform worse as a chef - you will get ragged cuts, you will be more at risk for injuring yourself, etc.
A slow laptop will mean you learn more slowly - doubly so if you are working with compiled languages or anything where you spend significant processing time before determining the outcome of whatever you're working on. The quicker you can get feedback on your work, be it from compilation errors, manual review of the output, your tests running, etc., the more you get to iterate and the more you get to learn.
A cheap soldering iron explicitly can make soldering more difficult and result in worse outcomes, particularly for a beginner.
Be it cooking, soldering, photographing, programming, whatever, there is frequently a point where going from a cheaper tool to a more expensive one will make the life of a beginner easier and let them produce better outcomes. As you get more skilled you can learn how to more quickly and easily sharpen knives, or produce fewer bugs in your code, or how to better handle aperture vs. ISO or whatever. But in those cases there will still often be productivity/efficiency gains from using nicer tools
You’re getting awfully literal, though.
- comfier grip
- shorter tip length and presumably a more solid feel (the pinecil's mechanical interface to the tip is pretty loose-feeling)
- higher power over usb-c (actually can't think of a time I've needed more than 60W for hobby stuff, but I can imagine use cases like large ground planes)
- storage cap (this is a major improvement for working in a temporary, tight space)
All of these would be worth the price increase over pinecil, but unfortunately I think the lack of on-iron temperature settings is a dealbreaker. The pinecil in my toolbag is practically the size of a sharpie and works with my existing usb-c cables and batteries with no extra space taken up, and the killer feature (portability) is broken once you need a proprietary battery or a laptop to change temperature.
In our testing, we rarely need to change temperatures. I think our algorithm does a better job of responding to the power load and flowing heat into the material than other irons. Of course, if you're changing solder then you'll need to change the temperature setting.
We built the web interface with mobile in mind. We just need a mobile browser that supports web serial. Someone else posted a WebUSB polyfill, and I'm going to check that out tomorrow.
[0] https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...
And with a (simple) firmware change and the appropriate 28v EPR charger, it can do 140w.
And you cannot fix this with updates, no firmware can magically grow buck converter with beefy inductor inside the iron...
The chart is intended to show values for both kinds of tips that are usable on a Pinecil. V2 tips have a lower resistance, by design, and either style can be used with either handle.
Temperature is not indicated, although resistance can vary with temperature. But then: Temperature is never indicated for power of soldering irons. If you want to begin a trend of producing this data and filling this void, then by all means do so. Let me know how I can help.
And no, we absolutely do not need a buck converter to accomplish heating a resistive element in a circuit, nor to use PWM to modulate the average power dissipation of this circuit. (A buck converter can be used; sure! But E=IR and P=IE anyway.)
Given that resistance is mostly fixed you cannot reach the maximum rated power, unless your tip is precisely matched for any of these fixed steps. And PWM does not work with some power sources because of sensitive overcurrent protection.
Or what, exactly? What function does a buck converter serve in this application?
You'll have to spell it out for me, because right now using a buck converter in a portable USB-powered soldering iron sounds like a solution looking for a problem to solve.
Most of casual users of usb-c irons do not care about it, but if you ever used professional stuff, these usb toys appear to be deficient in comparison.
They are universal, after all -- at least downwardly.
And what may be some examples of a "pro" soldering iron that uses a buck converter (or transformer taps or whatever) to be flexible to a variety of input voltages?
I don't know how widespread support for that is though.
>The star of the show is, of course, the Smart Soldering Iron. It’s a 100 watt iron that comes up to operating temperature in under five seconds and can work with any suitably beefy USB-C Power Delivery source. The size and general proportions of the iron are very close to the Pinecil V2, though the grip is larger and considerably more comfortable to hold. The biggest difference between the two however is the absence of a display or configuration buttons. According to iFixit, most users don’t change their settings enough to justify putting the interface on the iron itself. That doesn’t mean you can’t tweak the iron’s settings when used in this stand-alone configuration, but we’ll get back to that in a minute.
I don't want this. I would rather push a button and wait for a light to turn on. Automatic off, fine, I guess, though I don't love it and would never want to rely on it. Automatic on, no way.
Awesome. Thank you!
How is that worse than it just being full temp the whole time?
And it's going to guess wrong a lot of the time. Automatically turning on and off both have unsafe failure modes that lead to it being on unexpectedly (it turns back on when I don't expect it to, and it doesn't turn off when I do expect it to) based on imperfect sensing hardware and software that can both stop working, and I'm not ok with unsafe failure modes in a device that will burn down my house.
This is also the reason that I disfavor battery-powered soldering irons in general, but at least being portable adds something you may need and can't otherwise achieve.
I've never had it guess wrong -- my hand isn't so steady that it will turn off while I'm using it. If it's on and on the table, it is still visibly ON so this is just extra safety if it's a little bit cooler.
Other times you just want the equivalent of a drill or toaster. Pull trigger, drill spins. Twist chuck or shift gearbox, it slips or changes speeds. Push toast down, it toasts, twist the dial if you want darker or lighter.
An on/off switch, a potentiometer or 7-segment and some buttons to set temp, and a nice, fast, powerful PID loop to control the temperature (with a 120V AC cable to make 100W all day not a problem) is all I want in a soldering iron. I have a combination soldering/hot air station that's almost 20 years old, it just always works.
I was initially skeptical about the cap vs. a traditional stand until I saw that it mounts to the side of the battery pack to double as a stand. I like that idea!
Also, is there documentation on the serial protocol used in case someone wanted to write a temperature control program that didn't rely on a webapp?
Yes, we really love the cap. It instantly safes the iron when you're done.
We'll post more documentation on the serial interface, it's pretty straightforward. A temperature control program would be no problem.
I suppose probably as a separate USB-C soldering iron. I was initially thinking of them as an attachment to the existing iron that would add an extra grip section, but now that I'm thinking about it a bit more that might be a bit too unwieldy. (And it would be helpful for hot tweezers to also have swappable tips for working with different components.)
> We'll post more documentation on the serial interface, it's pretty straightforward. A temperature control program would be no problem.
Thank you! I wish more companies would be this open about their products' interfaces.
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 heat fast and be instantly capped and tossed back in the tool bag without waiting for cool down. However, I don't want to carry the iFixit power bank in my small tool bag. Yet without it, I'd need to pull out a laptop to change temp. And I do need to change temp enough for that to be annoying. Especially when there USB irons which have temp readouts and controls on the device. While cheap, those irons generally don't get to temp in 5 secs, have a well-thought out heat resistant cap and aren't high-quality.
This is not correct, it pulses blue indicating the iron is heating, and when turned off, pulses purple while cooling.
https://www.ifixit.com/Document/CPMKU1yOZAYVXbpB/FixHub_Sold...
What he says matches their documentation as well:
>Blue LED: The iron is below 40° C / 100° F and is safe to touch.
>Purple LED: The iron is actively heating up or cooling down. Iron tip is not safe to touch.
>Orange LED: The iron has reached the user-set temperature and is ready for soldering. Iron tip is not safe to touch.
But there's the rub: there are a TON of USB-C irons that use integrated tips, and most are cheaper than this new iFixit iron, so you can get that class improvement for the same price as your Hakko station, so I'm curious if their improvements are a big enough step up from _those_ irons to justify the price.
Legit JBC tips are closer to $20-40, but those are just a different price tier and much more premium. You can also get knockoff/clone JBC tips for $10 pretty easily, and in my experience they work just fine.
Another benefit of the newer style irons is the tip can usually be hot-swapped (literally while it's still hot) without having to unscrew anything, you just need something insulating to pull the tip out with.
EU shop? 65 Euros... https://pine64eu.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-sol...
As plenty of folks have said, the FX-888D is an "older" design in the sense that the heating element and tip are separate components. But, that isn't to say that this layout is obsolete - it's still very common and Hakko (among others) still makes new irons using the same system.
Given that iFixit's design uses a TRS jack as a tip mount, you can safely assume there will never be a hook tip for this particular iron, and wide chisels are probably out of the question too. That makes this iron a non-starter for me, but it all depends on your use case.
What doesn't depend on your use case is the use of a USB port as a power source. Sure, it makes sense for consumer products where compatibility trumps all. But, its fragile contacts and lack of shear strength mean that this isn't just a soldering station that's easy to fix, it's a station that you're going to need to fix.
The way I see it, FixHub is a gadget, and an 888 is an appliance. FixHub has several design decisions that compromise its sole purpose: soldering stuff. Direct heating elements are great, don't get me wrong. But if you're soldering frequently enough that a direct heating element would meaningfully boost your productivity, then a high-end RF induction iron would serve you much better. I wouldn't accept such a compromised tip mount and cable at any price point, let alone ~$350.
$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 more than super basic work, needs the $342 combo.
I spent over 200$ on a glorified PCB holder and some probes (PCBite), which is in hindsight one of the most useful tools I own and still makes me happy every time I use it (even that alone is kinda worth it over time!).
I don't know your financial situation, but just consider: How much do you spend each month on meals/entertainment? Is $300 actually an inappropriate cost for a quality thing that you often need?
Note: Iron + station shows up as $250 to me, $350 is the set with some additional bits and bobs.
The comparison here is a Pinecil. I've been using a Pinecil for a couple of years now, I power it from a USB-PD power bank that's already in my backpack, and charges everything else I carry, and has more capacity and a lower price than this one, and the Pinecil without the power bank is much cheaper and more functional with its buttons and display than this iron alone; I don't need a PC (and I don't use Chrome anyway, though I do really like the WebSerial configuration).
I already own a Hakko soldering station, but I find I reach for the Pinecil 99% of the time due to convenience; only when I know I'll be doing a _lot_ of soldering in one go, and I'm going to do it at my desk, do I get the Hakko out.
This looks like a nice iron, and I'm all for supporting repairability (and iFixit in general), if someone will use it as their main station, and assuming this can perform, it seems like an excellent option.
For everyone else, a Pinecil and that powerbank you already have is an excellent option at a trivially low price.
EDIT: Fixed some typos
The ts100 and variants of it have been around for a long time, can be adjusted on device and powered by regular usb pd power banks.
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.
I'm thinking of the heating liquid pad, which gave me a bit of a laugh and didn't work, the plastic spudgers that were too soft to be durable, the precut adhesive strips that almost seemed insultingly ineffective. The actual handles and screwdriver bits were great though, so mixed feelings, I just hate waste.
I see this is a potential "better quality" portable option for a professional (than something like a Pinecil and a TS100), that might want to carry it around or use it when not at a desk, but the quality and performance remains to be seen (though I do trust iFixit).
At £240 in the UK, it's about 2.5x the cost of the Pinecil + Powerbank (which I already had). If I didn't have a Hakko soldering station and wanted something portable but capable to use fairly regularly, this seems like a good option.
For everyone else, if you already own a PD powerbank, the ~£25-30 (~£50 with a bunch of tips) for a Pinecil is _much_ more palatable.
IMO 340€ for the whole set with the wirecutters and tweezers and such is still an ok deal, even though it is slightly expensive, because the accessories are probably good quality also, and there are few things as frustrating as bad wirecutters ;).
If you just buy the iron, you have access to all the settings in our web console: https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub/console
The iron persists settings when you unplug it. You can change the sleep timer and timeout, set target temperatures, calibrate the accelerometer, and more.
The Power Station is nice to have, but you don't lose any functionality without it.
FWIW this is just my $0.02. I'm sure you'll still sell lots, but if that had an onboard display + buttons then I'd have ordered one right away for the other nice tweaks you've done.
Looked around, heard Joule was the "go to" these days, got one. Gave it the fuck away eventually after the 15th time the app lagged or wouldn't work or whatever.
I'm sick and tired of my tools (yes it's a cooking tool) having the audacity to require an app. I get there's a lot of possible functionality that an app provides, but the annova I replaced it with still has a functional interface so I don't have to fuck with it for the basics.
I don't even see what the workflow would be to use their web interface on this iron?
YMMV, but I think you can get a lot of mileage with a setup like that. Thinking about it, even my 'stationary' old Weller is used as an ON/OFF affair 98% of the time.
So how are you supposed to actually use that? I don't think there are any computers out there which can provide 100W out of their USB ports.
Am I supposed to unplug the iron from its power supply, plug it into a computer, change the temperature, unplug it, plug the power supply back in, wait for it to heat up, and finally continue soldering? That's awkward enough that even a crappy proprietary smartphone app would've been better!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XF5489G
Make sure it can support 100W (that one only goes to 85W).
Plug one end into your PC, one into a wall charger, and one into your soldering iron.
If you want to solder such a thing yourself, there's USB-C PD data/power splitters sold in various places (it needs to be smarter than just connecting pins, since it needs to intercept the power negotiation), but I haven't yet found a part that is advertised to handle 100W.
The hub has a bunch of female ports, and one male USB C port.
The male USB port is the only one that provides USB PD charging output, and it is also the only port that can be used with a USB host machine.
This means that it cannot be used to change settings on the iFixit iron with a computer and give give the iron enough power to heat up. It's not an improvement at all over a regular computer that also cannot do both of these things concurrently.
It looks like a lovely hub to keep on a desk for plugging in a laptop, but it is broadly limited to doing exactly that.
It's a convenience but I'm happy using CoolTerm on my Mac or launching Chrome if I need some WebSerial feature like in-browser flashing of my Meshtastic nodes.
Why no boost button (unless I missed it)? That's the one on-iron UI feature I'd be missing - very useful for GND planes. I'm guessing its not a matter of rated power, but just the thermal resistance from the physical size of the tip which restricts heat entering into a heavily-heatsinked joint. Helpful to increase the iron temperature momentarily for such cases. Then again, I can't see heat transfer - happy to be told I'm wrong.
Is this your own tip design or is it the same as the TS80? Can't speak to the TS80 but I've found the TS100 tip quality to be somewhat lacking (I've had tips plainly break off before).
I'm really happy with their quality, but you'll have to judge that for yourself.
We're handling the boosting automatically in software. When the iron detects that it's under load, it maxxes out the power to the tip. It's incredibly responsive.
You're right, where you want that is with high thermal mass objects like ground planes. The difficult part is getting enough of a thermal bridge onto the material to really let the iron rip. It can dump a lot of power into a joint.
No doubts then on the tip quality - I've seen the rest of your stuff (good).
The instant that the iron detects that it's under load, it pours power into the heating element. That makes it feel and perform like a much more powerful iron. We're dynamically responding to the power load and flowing heat into the material.
I guess we'll have to wait for an iFixit teardown to see how this new widget actually differs in internal construction.
Plus, not having the ability to quickly tune temperature settings on the iron itself seems like a step back as well.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong on these, as iFixit's screwdriver sets were one of those things I needed to use to understand the hype (and then promptly bought my own set), so maybe this is another case of subtle quality you have to see for yourself?
But that may not be for everyone: With the Power Station, changing the temperature is fast and easy with the dial, so you can pick a workflow that works best for you. (You can also change the temperature with the web interface.)
Anyway it's good to have an option that's cheaper than the big names but presumably built to a higher standard than an AliExpress special, and has an actual warranty and safety certifications.
We really see JBC as our competition here. Performance and responsiveness should be comparable or better, at a fraction of the price.
What kind of tips do you plan producing for the fixhub?
P.S.: all JBC stands (genuine and most of knock-offs) have really comfortable holder with detents to change cartridges on-handed on the fly. Do you plan any such features? I do not see any steps or hooks on a tip.
Tips we'll have at launch: Cone, Bevel 1.5, Wedge 1.5, Point, Bevel 2.6, Knife 2.5, Knife 1.4.
They'll be on sale in our store on October 15. https://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Soldering_and_Wiring
We will also be selling a complete line of replacement parts.
I'm working right now on our distribution partners, but we'll have a variety of local and online distributors who you can also buy the system through.
Rather than designing it to change tips on the fly, we set up the Power Station to handle two irons, with two USB ports and a mounting socket on both sides.
> we set up the Power Station to handle two irons
Having two handles is useful sometimes, but quick changing tips are a game-changer even for double jbc stations )
I want to like the miniware, pine, etc irons, but I'd really like being able to buy T15 tips from my local electronics supplier, who carries Hakko.
If the product isn't sucessful and/or ifixit stops producing tips for whatever reason, a perfectly good iron is effectively bricked.
Once you set the temperature, the iron remembers it and you can use any power source.
We've spent a lot of time talking to engineers and makers who solder all day, and it turns out that most people rarely change the temperature. Pick a temperature you like and leave it there.
Our heating algorithm detects and dynamically responds to load, so you don't need to turn the temperature up for larger thermal masses: it'll add as many joules as required to get it to temperature.
It's hard to argue because that's mostly what I do. But it feel really odd for a soldering iron not to have a temperature control right on it. Especially given competitor irons have screens and buttons. Going to a web interface seems insane in comparison to pressing some buttons.
The station has a hot air gun and a solder vacuum, so it's far more suitable for use on the bench due to those capabilities.
The Pinecil plugs into the Anker power bank that I carry with me everywhere anyhow, and runs basically forever on it. The UI took a day or so to get used to, but it's simple and straightforward enough for field use. I've even used it for bigger jobs on trucks and tractors in the past, and it didn't miss a beat.
https://www.weller-tools.com/us/en/industrial-soldering/prod...
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...
If this was available back when I got a Pinecil and PowerWheels Ryobi adapter [1], I would have been severely tempted to spend 400% more.
0. https://www.ifixit.com/products/fixhub-soldering-toolkit
1. https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil_Power_Supplies#Tool_Bat...
But the full station price is kind of outrageous. I got my Thermaltronics TMT-2000S for less, and that's a monster. But then again, I don't have to use their battery, I can use my $70 Ugreen one.
My one concern about the cap is: I worry that someone with bad depth perception will poke their hand with a hot iron when trying to cap it...
The Power Station has a 55 Watt Hour battery, which is where most of the cost comes from. It doubles as a battery bank for your phone or laptop, or any other USB-C devices in your life.
My battery bank is 72 Wh...
On the other hand, I've had battery banks abruptly stop working for no reason and I'd love a repairable one.
The instant it cools down, power is delivered.
And yes, if it seems like mobile browsers don't plan to add support then we'll have to look at wrapping it in a native app.
I'm hopeful that smartphones will start supporting higher power output from their USB-C ports. The iPhone does 4.5W right now, which is (barely) enough to melt solder, but not enough to do anything with.
If I were to guess - the issue is that many phone basebands appear (at least) as a serial device, and we all know from late 90s/early 00s dialer scams how bad that can go if some hardware manufacturer forgets to label the serial port in a way that can be detected as "never fucking ever expose this to apps"...
Unless you're somewhere out in the wilderness, finding an outlet to do any on the road repairs is pretty trivial and you don't need to lug around a large heavy box that does grid to USB-C DC conversion nor a powerbank.
On the other hand we already have a standard power thing, it's called an outlet. And in practice you need to charge/use things in parallel so you'd need to carry around like four of these.
The health issue with leaded solder is primarily ingestion. the lead particles get all over the place so wash your hands after and maybe change your clothes. And definitely don’t keep and food or water nearby, cus it’ll get on that and you’ll eat it!
Phone configuration: I agree, that would be nice. If we can find a way to do it from a web browser on a phone, that's our preference. Otherwise we'll take a look at a native wrapper.
after a few days trying to turn that into a daily driver however, i've had to go back to my weller desktop station, for one weird reason: i dont have anywhere to put the hot iron in between uses!
i dont know if it's just me, but my work cadence involves me using my soldering iron about 30-40 times over the course of an hour or so, for about 3-4 seconds each time. sometimes i'm soldering a row of headers, or just one or two joints, but then theres 3-4 minutes where i'm moving wires around or programming something quickly, and i dont want to wait for the tip to cool each time so i can set it somewhere and work on the board a bit, if I can just leave it in a safe place while hot, which my weller always had.
I got one of those bent sheet metal desktop 'holders', but the iron is so light compared to the cable, there's no way it's not falling off the table at some point.
Our cap is just a game changer there. You handle it more like a Sharpie than a soldering iron. Put the cap on and stick it back in your bag. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXR8kMVbgAEeRgd?format=jpg&name=...
I set the motion timer on mine to 5 seconds. It heats up so quickly when you pick it back up that there's no reason to bother with the power switch. By the time I have it back at the joint, it's at temperature ready to go.
I’m also worried about burning myself if I’m not paying attention when putting the cap on 20 or 30 times in succession.
Just pick one out out that you like and get it coming your way.
For portable use, I got some snap-on purpose-built "legs" made from steel wire from aliexpress the other day that let me put the Pinecil down safely on a flat surface. They work a treat.
(And for bench use, stick a magnet to the collar of the stand. Pinecil V2 has a Hall effect sensor built in (and one can be added to V1) that will detect when the iron is in the stand, so IronOS will enter a selectable lower-temperature sleep mode right away. It heats back up quick enough that it's unlikely to ever get in the way.)
I had one of these pencil soldering irons as I needed to solder something at a location. Once I powered it on, I was like oh snap, where do I put this thing now. Very much noped out and got the thing home where I could solder it properly with proper tools.
Why hellishly-complex USB-C with its effete tiny-pinned connectors instead of a plain old robust barrel jack? And requiring software instead of a simple analog feedback loop? Software which could fail and cause runaway heating is never a good idea.
Soldering irons have always been quite repairable, especially the simple ones:
https://320volt.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/yihua-hakko-9...
I guess that’s the inexorable trend in tech—add more and more shim layers between problems we’re not allowed or too lazy to fix.
https://fanttik.com/products/fanttik-t1-max-soldering-iron-k...
1: https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...
Honestly, I've never been that interested in the Pinecil. It's nice that it's small but you still need a big type C supply. I could give a rats ass that it has open firmware and runs a RISC-V. I only care if it can push a lot of heat accurately and if the tips are affordable and available. Anything else does little to sway me.
My solder station at work is an incredibly dumb Metcal that only has a power switch. Heat is controlled by the tips you use. When you pull it from the iron rest, it turns on instantly. Put it back and it turns off. The handle is just a plug for the tip, all the power electronics are in the base unit. It's got two plugs so you can run dual irons for microsoldering or if you just want a big chisel tip at the ready.
The amount of technology in a Metcal to make it work as well as it does, justifying its $1,000 sticker price back when I did that kind of stuff, makes it far from dumb! The rest of the market has caught up, but back when it was released, Metcals were highly sought after! It does this induction heating thing with the Curie point which makes for a very good soldering iron.
Definitely not beatable in value/price.
Is that the case, or did I misunderstand?
With 100 Watts of power and an ultra-fast response time, you can flow the joules that you actually need into the material at the temperature you set.
Give it a try! If you still feel like you need a temperature knob, we'll refund your purchase.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/ifixit-new-soldering-iron-power-s...
https://www.tomshardware.com/maker-stem/ifixit-fixhub-portab...
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242497/ifixit-fixhub-us...
Ifixit fails to produce good tools because all they've done in the last 5 years is coast on their bit sets. They're not people who actually work with these tools. If they were the LTT screwdriver wouldn't have needed to be built.
Hundreds of dollars for what is done for $50 is a clear example of attempting to turn ifixit into a brand that sells tools not a tool designer that sells effective solutions.
We're posting full service information and schematics here: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iFixit_Soldering
We'll be selling spare parts starting October 15.
They seem to have gotten so caught up in the "things should be repairable" that they've forgotten the true thing most people care about is, "I shouldn't have to replace my stuff". They are acting like parts salesmen, not consumer advocates.
$200(? looks like you get the iron when you buy the power supply) would be a fair price for the base if it allowed me to charge and use any 6 18650s(bonus points if it can accept a variety of cell sizes) as a power bank and had circuitry to do pass through as well as charging. It would also be nice if you could use it charge batteries to a specified amount, and use custom charge patterns. Considering this is iFixit, it should also have a way to use it as a DC power supply as well. $250 for a glorified power brick is pathetic.
We tried so many avenues to persuade them, from proposing 18650s with built-in safety circuitry to showing the safety system that we designed into the pack. No dice.
There are a variety of safety standards to blame, but the primary one is UL 1642. It needs to change. I'm planning to join the standards body to see if I can shift things.
Our pack is a set of six 18650s welded together with a standard connector. https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2024/09/10113528/iFixi...
We'll sell replacement battery packs. Or you can make your own.
A compact temperature control widget without batteries at all.
It accepts the appropriate USB PD power input in a standards-compliant way. It has a knob, and also a screen for status. It talks to the soldering iron and provides power to it. It does not have batteries or any special facilities for batteries *though if a user chooses to use it with an appropriate USB PD battery then they certainly can). This all seems possible, and adherence to USB PD specifications should tend to make it safe by default.
The rub, and this may not be possible at all, is that it must be substantially cheaper than soldering iron itself.
But because you've done the right thing and documented the protocol, then maybe someone else will implement this (as DIY or otherwise) and it won't be your problem at all. :)
Of course, a pack of 6x MJ1 is relatively trial to built (except it'd require some decent plastic body)- esp for 2s/3p, still not very useful aside running that particular iron/tool (and most likely end up charging it w/ the power supply...)
Worse, it seems like the manufacturers best suited to make the product I desire(anker and nitecore) are directly incentivized by obsolescence to not ever make it. The best thing I've found so far is the Nitecore LC10, but it was discontinued. :(
I sort of suspected that it might be the case of safety bodies getting in the way. I really hope you make progress with UL. I'm rooting for you. There should be a way of overcoming this problem.
Spring terminals would be sub optimal drawing 10A off them as they are made of steel - high resistance. Developing any oxidation would make matters worse. Personally I'd not want 18650/21700 not properly secured (aside the rare case of running a fan with a single cell).
I would rather batteries be field swapable than having a faster charge, which I try to avoid for the sake of their longevity anyway, personally.
Because the soldering iron in question dissipates 100W, and 100W is a substantial amount of power?
If a soldering iron is drawing 100W from a 2S pair of 18650 batteries, then:
The cells are supplying ~13.5A of current through their contacts.
To get below 5A, we'd need a six 18650s in a 6S configuration. Certainly doable (a relatively inexpensive [for a packaged battery] 24V Kobalt power tool battery has 6S 18650s), but beginning to be chonky.
I have not checked the schematics but I'd expect a PWM controlled resistive heater and Joule counting, i.e. constant power.
You're right, of course.
But I guess I'm assuming that 100W is an ideal figure based on fully-charged cells of ~3.7v instead of a constant 100W, since that's the normal (if somewhat carpetbagging-esque) way to describe things in marketing world. This assumption points to 6s as staying below 5a.
At 3V per cell and 100W output, it takes 7s to stay below 5A. (7S little weird, and even chonkier, but not that weird.)
This is just a luxury gewgaw
On one hand, you're competing with "you're in the middle of a field and there exist no power outlets nearby" optimized irons, and you're offering some nicer features like 100W usb-c, but I don't think this is a field where one cares very much about the quality of their iron. I've fixed drones with the shittiest of usb-c irons, and I've done it with a pinecil, and when you're hunched over in a field, it frankly does not matter.
On the other hand, it seems you're also trying to compete in at-a-workbench soldering, a class in which your price point is simply never going to work for what you offer. You're being outclassed by half as expensive stationary stations, even more so when you consider that they don't use proprietary tips. My 40€ AliExpress special station came with 3 tips, heats up in 2 seconds, and offers about the same experience as your several hundred dollars one, at the supposed cost of repairability (I haven't come across an iron that doesn't work ever. I suspect it would be a comparable fix.)
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 soldering iron is only US$80, but the battery is US$250.[1]
Not shipping yet, still in pre-order. Does iFixit have enough manufacturing capacity to satisfy demand? This should be on DigiKey.
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/products/fixhub-power-series-portable...
Preorders start today and will ship on October 15.
We designed it as a soldering station that can replace the station on your workbench. The cap mounts to the battery pack.
https://www.ifixit.com/products/fixhub-power-series-portable...
You actually get a few more watts of power (104 W or so) if the hub is plugged into an AC charger (there's a third USB-C port on the rear).
I love my iFixit screwdriver kits and I support their mission, but this thing is preposterous.
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.
I don't actually need 90W in the application I have in mind. I'd be more than happy with 60, and there are quite a few 18650 cells that can do 20A comfortably. Runtime at full power would be short of course, but I don't find I'm continuously heating work for very long in the field.
Here's a test of the VTC6. It does look like it's struggling a bit at 30A, but it's happy at 20. https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Sony%20US18650VTC...
I figure that might be workable for a few power cycles and a few big solder joints, but it would probably be a frustrating experience for anything more than quick fixes in the field.
I have a JBC iron capable of 130W. It never pulls 130W, even on extremely chunky power planes, besides when initially heating up (on startup). When trying to heat some super thick, I can watch the power meter max out at ~70W (and it pulses 70W, not continously). And this is on a thick tip, far chunkier than what I see from iFixit.
Installed IronOS on it and it got even better…!
Though I already own a pinecil, I don't think I'll switch especially with the additional tips I already got.
Will there be other tip shapes available?
Is the tip design patented (and enforced) or will you allow for 3rd party tips?
Tips we'll have at launch: Cone, Bevel 1.5, Wedge 1.5, Point, Bevel 2.6, Knife 2.5, Knife 1.4
We made some different electrical design decisions than they did. TS-80 tips aren't rated for the power that we're putting out, so being compatible with the TS-80 tips could be pretty sketchy.
I have two Quecoo soldering stations : https://www.quecoo.com/products/quecoo-t12-956-soldering-dig...
They're very cheap, they heat up just as quickly as any other induction iron. They are very repairable. They come with multiple tips, which are cheap to replace.
They don't contain expensive batteries or pointless USB-C WebSerial-based interfaces. You turn them on. They heat up. I've had mine for years, so they're reliable too.
iFixIt have a laudable mission generally, but this product will be an expensive failure.
Edit: never mind £240 is actually for the battery powered version
Or, mount two soldering irons with different tips. The wheel controls the temperature, and the blue action button toggles between which one you're controlling. Two soldering irons can be hot at once.
We really pushed the envelope on every aspect of the hardware to max out the joules we could push into the material. The trick is being really responsive to the load so that you don't overshoot the target temperature too much.
With the Power Station plugged into the wall and a full charge on the batteries, you can get about 104 Watts into the iron.
I was wondering if it requires a 100W PD supply, but according to the manual everything with at least 20W should work.
I have a very primitive old iron (and a gun, which I seldom have a use for).
etc. etc.
If you are into soldering, do yourself a favour and buy something tried and trusted like Hakko FX-951 if you are on the budget. It will probably outlast you.
Tips we'll have at launch: Cone, Bevel 1.5, Wedge 1.5, Point, Bevel 2.6, Knife 2.5, Knife 1.4
What kills tips is oxidation. With our auto-sleep sensor, it drops below the temperature that will wear it out. When you pick it up, it's back at soldering temperature in a few seconds.
Give it a chance! You're right, it's not tried and tested, yet. But Tom at Hackaday is not an easy person to convince: he's been around the block and used every iron out there: "iFixit didn’t just raise the bar, they sent it into orbit."
I could also suggest a Barrel 0.8 tip, that wraps around pin that one wants to solder.
Also, can you safely put 100W through a headphone jack? The ones I can find on Digikey that list a power rating seem to max out at 75W but most are well below that. Headphone jacks aren't exactly meant for high power, there is only a small amount of contact between the terminals since there's very little power required for line audio. Obviously big speakers require more power but those use things like XLR, RCA, and wire posts that provide way more contact.
Adding to this, I don't want to use their Chrome-only web app to configure it. Is this thing actually a serial device or is it something that only Chrome can talk to? If the former, just make it an Electron app if you want to be lazy. Can I still run the web app locally if iFixit decides to stop hosting it?
iFixit acts like they are all for open hardware and then go make something that uses proprietary tips and a (likely) closed source web app. I'm glad I could repair it if necessary but seems like a step back from a cheap solder station from Amazon that has a control panel and takes Hakko tips.
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.
---
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.
All of the settings, including the temperature setting, are available in the web interface for free. The settings persist permanently on the iron so you can use it with any USB-C PD power source that you've already got. We worked hard to make sure that the iron works well standalone from the power station. https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub/console
Here I am soldering in the field with my fancy microprocessor-controlled portable soldering iron. I've been using it with 63/37 and doing SMD work, but in front of me now I've got a big wire on a 1/4" TS plug to work on that was put together with lead-free solder and I simply need a higher temperature in order for anything to melt.
I never expected an audio tech in the US to use lead-free solder for anything, ever, but here I am anyway.
So now, I've got choices.
Do I find a computer to plug my soldering iron into so I can reprogram it?
Do I use the $170 temperature control (more than twice the cost of the iron itself) that I left on the bench for safe keeping?
Or do I see this situation in advance, and buy seemingly any other temperature-controlled portable soldering iron instead?
It's got batteries in it. Is it really going to last longer than something that runs on AC with no chips in it?
EDIT: I take the following back. The actual cable is USB-USB. The P2 connector links directly to the heated head, what is perfectly equivalent to "labeled".
But yeah, people that design products, please if you make a non-standard use of a standard connector, label it.
I would absolutely not buy this because that USB-P2 cable will mix with every other thing that thought was a good idea to use an unlabeled USB-P2 cable that only God knows whether they are compatible or not. (Common sense would imply they are, but common sense already flew out of the window long ago when you see a cable like that.)
https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS
It's a very nice, incremental improvement making the occasional hobbyist soldering a joy.
T100s aren't known to be failure prone.
