
Pine64 announce the Pinecil, TS100 compatible RISC-V soldering iron - taylorfinley
https://www.pine64.org/2020/07/15/july-updatepmos-ce-pre-orders-and-new-pinephone-version/
======
kd5bjo
> Obviously the one crucial bit of having the Pinecil actually functional is
> having software support for the device.

Personally, I would’ve thought the one crucial bit of a functional soldering
iron is to deliver enough thermal power at the tip to melt solder. All the
software in the world won’t help if the hardware can’t manage that.

~~~
leoc
Apparently the quality of the temperature control also matters quite a bit. It
seems the TS100 has little problem in either of those departments
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgrB5P-rDLw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgrB5P-rDLw)
[https://hackaday.com/2017/07/24/review-ts100-soldering-
iron/](https://hackaday.com/2017/07/24/review-ts100-soldering-iron/) ,
especially if you use a 24V power supply. It's also embarrassingly cheap
compared to the mid-spec soldering irons from prestige brands which it tends
to match.

~~~
quaa55
ts100 with a 4S lipo at ~14v has no issues getting to temp or staying at temp.
it's great kit, highly recommend. this pine64 pencil looks awesome.

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m0xte
Meanwhile on planet Earth, my Metcal production iron doesn’t even have a
computer in its brain.

The important bit of the iron is not really the brain but the latency of the
control loop and the absolute power delivery which is easy enough to solve
with a couple of lm358’s on the ts100 element/sensor.

~~~
fragmede
That's a weird flex, given that Metcals are a high-tech device, using a
patented technology and were exorbitantly expensive before patent ran out.
They still are, compared to the bargain basement soldering iron pricing. When
the patent ran out, the original engineers ran off to start Thermaltronics.

We've all accidentally left the soldering iron on, sometime in our decades.
The sensors in the iron lets it shut off and not burn your house down. Having
an firmware (like the TS100 or TS80) means you can fully customize its
behavior unlike most consumer devices. (I _wish_ there was a microwave oven
whos firmware I could tweak in order for, eg the popcorn button to make
popcorn how _I_ like my popcorn.)

Soldering irons are at this fairly unique intersection of consumer device and
hardware hacker that I'm really surprised by the some of the luddite attitudes
around here. I bet there's some cool firmware mods you could do if you have to
solder something that looks like a heat sink. (Eg maybe it could do 18650
cells, if you don't have a welder.)

The other innovation of the TS100 is that battery-power capably powers a
soldering iron. The TS100 is a bit older than the TS80, and can use 12V
rechargable battery packs (eg for RC cars/planes); the TS80P can use recent
USB-battery pack powering standards. It doesn't do much at the workbench, but
if you're one of those people that leaves the house (modulo Covid), it turns
out to be really useful! In decades prior, butane (cigarette lighter fluid)
powered soldering irons existed, but could be persnickety and were a special
version to buy. Now, just bring the iron along with USB battery pack you were
probably gonna bring anyway.

~~~
m0xte
The metcal PS900 is actually cheaper now than the equivalent bottom end Weller
TCP units and much much cheaper than the Hakko FX951 irons.

The TS type irons and the T12's are however 100% not safe devices. The tip
mount/socket shorts out which will blow the guts out of the MOSFET and there
are various brown-out conditions which cause the thing to crash and dump the
entire supply into the tip until it glows orange. And also the thermal sensor
fails unsafe. That risk is especially high when you have high capacity
supplies.

An image to back up my claim:

[https://imgur.com/uE1CPn0](https://imgur.com/uE1CPn0)

Buying a decent, simple iron will probably cost you less than your house does
if it goes up.

As for leaving irons on I have never done it. Metcal PS900 also has an
optional stand which puts the iron in safe standby mode. They heat up within 2
seconds when you pick the iron up as they do not use normal heating elements.
They use RF heating. There is no condition that can cause a complete thermal
overload cycle.

On the T12 irons which are sometimes mentioned they are borderline illegal
when it comes to the power supply design earthing and will quite happily kill
you dead if you don't rework them first.

Is economy worth it? Probably not.

~~~
codys
> The metcal PS900 is actually cheaper now than the equivalent bottom end
> Weller TCP units and much much cheaper than the Hakko FX951 irons.

\- Hakko FX951 is listed for $269.77, less tips

[https://www.hakkousa.com/products/soldering/hakko-
fx-951-sol...](https://www.hakkousa.com/products/soldering/hakko-
fx-951-soldering-station.html)

\- Metcal PS-900 is listed for $275.93

[https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Metcal/PS-900](https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Metcal/PS-900)

The statement that the PS-900 is much much cheaper does not appear to be
accurate now.

~~~
m0xte
Check prices in Europe as well.

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axegon_
Overall I've been very impressed with pine64 lately. They've been really
stepping up their game. The tablet, phone and now this. All in the span of a
month and a half, during quarantine/lock down. Good job pine64, keep it up!

~~~
peterbmarks
I worry that they're doing too much. Surely shipping PineBook Pros in quantity
should be the top priority.

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

~~~
spuz
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](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.

~~~
squarefoot
> 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.

~~~
KMag
> 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.

------
syntaxing
At the price point of $25, it's super tempting. Honestly not too sure what I
would do with the RISC-V functionality. But I guess it would be fun trying to
program a RISC-V based uC which I never done before. Would be very interesting
if they add some I/O pins to it.

~~~
StavrosK
Holy shit, if this thing is anywhere close to a TS100 for $25, it's going to
be amazing. The TS100 is by far the best soldering iron I've ever used (though
I haven't used any $200+ ones).

If you can get one for $25, don't even think about it.

~~~
agumonkey
25$ is low indeed

I wish someone designed flat tips for desoldering small multipins

~~~
myself248
I've been using these in my TS100 and they work great. Sticks out too far, but
still works:

[https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32849007766.html](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32849007766.html)

Photo:

[https://i.imgur.com/v0HV86r.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/v0HV86r.jpg)

~~~
agumonkey
wow, thanks. Better than nothing !

------
ladberg
For anyone else who's wondering why a RISC-V soldering iron is special, it's
not necessarily for soldering:

> This means you can use the Pinecil as a platform to create something
> completely different based on this platform, such as a drill or a
> multimeter.

------
squarefoot
Wait, no WiFi? How do I signal my coffee machine to make a cup every 2 hours
of soldering? That's a fail!

/s

Seriously, I'm not for putting too much silicon into a thing that should only
keep control of the tip temperature, but the price makes it very tempting, and
I'd love to support Pine64 for their work on open source devices.

------
ncmncm
NB: Cannot buy it yet; give it a few months. But you can pre-order a
PinePhone. If you do, make sure the phone is the only thing in the cart, or
the order won't work.

------
kristopolous
As someone who has an 80% chance of destroying whatever I'm trying to solder,
any improvement in what I'm using would be super welcome.

------
lsllc
The Pinecil sounds interesting! I have a Antex Gascat 75P [0] propane powered
soldering iron that I absolutely love! I keep it in my "primary" toolbag along
with a few feet of Sparkfun's 0.020" "special blend" solder [1] (which is also
excellent). It can be a bit finicky to ignite, but it heats up super-quickly
and can be refilled easily from a common-or-garden propane refill.

I'll definitely have to try the Pinecil, even if it's just because "RISC-V!".

[0] [https://www.antex.co.uk/products/cordless-soldering-
irons/ga...](https://www.antex.co.uk/products/cordless-soldering-
irons/gascat-75p-kit/)

[1]
[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10242](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10242)

~~~
exmadscientist
That "special blend" solder is interesting; it appears from the MSDS to be a
standard water-soluble flux core paired with an almost-standard SAC305 lead-
free solder (there's some Sb added). I'm not sure what's so nice about that,
but I'll take their word for it.

What I would NOT do, though, is choose this stuff for general purpose use,
especially "tool bag" use. Water-soluble fluxes are powerful, but they __must
__be cleaned or you 'll have corrosion troubles. Maybe I'm just getting old,
but I'd prefer a RMA-type flux here.

~~~
lsllc
Actually I have been using the special blend with a Hakko FX888D soldering
station on my workbench for a few years now and haven't had any problems with
corrosion with this solder/flux (mostly for through hole on headers etc).

------
anderspitman
Does anyone know if the current crop of FLOSS phone companies (pine64, Purism,
etc) have sustainable/profitable businesses? That seems to me the most
important variable when setting my hopes of getting a usable Linux phone
anytime soon.

~~~
the_pwner224
pine64 has been making open source hardware for a while, with a bunch of
single board computers similar to the raspberry pi. They're probably going to
be around for a while.

Purism appears to be having hardware issues with the Librem, and from what
I've heard their laptop hardware is also pretty bad.

~~~
RealStickman_
Do you have any sources for problems with Purism Laptops?

Just out of curiosity as I only heard about problems with the Librem 5, never
about problems with their laptops.

~~~
the_pwner224
[https://anarc.at/hardware/laptop/purism-
librem13v4/#hardware...](https://anarc.at/hardware/laptop/purism-
librem13v4/#hardware-reliability)

And the third top level comment here:
[https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hr8hvi/not_recommend...](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hr8hvi/not_recommending_purism/)

I've heard similar things in the past, but can't remember where.

------
Alexander729
This calculator ought to not be made use of in circumstances where the warm
resource is much smaller sized than the base of the heat sink <a
href="[https://heatscape.com/">Custom](https://heatscape.com/">Custom) Heat
Sinks</a>

------
Waterfall
If you don't already have a soldering iron this is not a bad idea if you have
a low budget. You should get a heat gun instead if you want something useful
in today's modern age though to work with SMDs unless you prefer baking all
your components. A heat gun is much better for removing smd components and is
a lot more useful than a clunky iron even if it's risc-v

------
Alexander729
This calculator ought to not be made use of in circumstances where the warm
resource is much smaller sized than the base of the heat sink
[https://heatscape.com/](https://heatscape.com/)

------
ThatPlayer
Looks interesting, especially USB-C input. There's a TS80 (and TS80P) which
does Qualcomm Quick Charge (and the P for USB-PD) USB-C input, but the
Pinecil's flexibility of both seems better. The TS80s also uses different tip
form factors, so I would need entirely new tips compared to this.

~~~
topspin
I love the idea of using my lab power supply to power my soldering iron. I
will gladly take back the space of my soldering station, it's separate power
plug and wires, etc. Plus I'll be able to see current draw in real time.

~~~
myself248
I do this with my TS100 right now, when I'm gonna be running it for long
enough that the Ryobi battery, which serves as its steady base, would not have
a good time.

The TS100 can show you the input voltage and duty cycle, I wonder if there's
firmware that calculates watts...

------
mkl
> The PinePhone can now achieve 100hrs standby time without modem

Is it really standby without the modem? Sounds more like sleep.

~~~
MartijnBraam
It's both, it's more like a baseline. I think modem-on sleep time can still be
better than 24 hours.

------
127
Unfortunate that they didn't improve the handle, but really nice effort
nonetheless.

~~~
spuz
The post says they have improved on the ergonomics and the grip.

------
eointierney
Tinkering electronically Let's celebrate and explore

