
Tetris for TS100 soldering iron - cft
https://github.com/joric/ts100tris
======
lancefisher
_Each time you lose the game the soldering iron tip temperature increases by
10 degrees._

Yikes!

~~~
cstuder
There's a predecessor to this: The Painstation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PainStation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PainStation)

~~~
Tepix
James Bond - Never say never again - Missile Command (1983)

[http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/FF_Bo...](http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/FF_Bond_Octopussy_VideogameH264.mp4/view)

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chris_overseas
For what it's worth, I somewhat hesitantly bought one of these soldering irons
a few months ago off Ali Express. After having used it a lot since then I can
now highly recommend it as a fantastic bit of kit - I've almost become
emotionally attached to the thing! It heats up quickly, holds a consistent
temperature, solders very well, plus has lots of features and configuration
options. For example it can be set to cool down to different temperatures
depending on how long it had been stationary (thanks to its build in
accelerometer). The open source firmware is the icing on the cake.

~~~
cjsuk
I really don't understand how that can actually be a good iron in any way,
shape or form. I've been doing hobby and production soldering for about 25
years.

What you need is an iron that will stay at 700oF whatever you throw at it tip
or workpiece related. That means power, lots of it. That doesn't come from
USB.

Considering my current iron is a 50W Weller TCP, that can switch between
soldering 0805 packages immediately followed by large tag terminal capacitors
and ground planes without have to do anything, change any settings etc. You
don't even have to change tip with the chisel.

Soldering irons also take a heavy battering when you use them as well. The
above Weller is 20 years old and looks and works good as new. I really can't
see that working for very long.

I just don't understand why the product exists really. If I was in the market
you can pick up a whole Weller TCP station for less cash second hand. This is
just a flashy toy.

~~~
oliwarner
> That doesn't come from USB.

No, it comes from the 12-24V power supply you plug into the back of it. It's a
~65W iron.

No apologies for sounding snotty here. You don't know _what_ it is, haven't
seen one, haven't used one but you're already ready to crap all over it. Try
one. It's full of silly novelties that I'm sure you'll hate but it doesn't
take much to improve the usability of a dumb thermocontrolled soldering
station and I —along with much of the internet— believe the TS100 does enough
to be better. It's also dirt cheap to buy and run.

~~~
cjsuk
Fair point about the power. Retracted.

Reading reviews, the handle is slippery, a lot of them arrive with defective
temperature control, the tip isn't grounded with Y2 leakage from mains on it.

Its still junk.

~~~
oliwarner
I've had no issue with temperature or the handling. It's near-impossible for
either of us to quantitatively assess how frequent these issues are so I won't
dispute whether or not you've seen a "lot" of complaints.

The power supply _is_ junk. A nasty, unearthed, noisy switch-mode PSU, like
every other low-output, low-cost PSU out there. There is a grounding pin on
the iron itself but it's not ideal to rely on.

But many remedies do exist. I suspect you have a grounded, linear bench power
supply right next to your existing soldering station. That'll do. Even a cheap
earthed PSU would do better. And many people use battery packs to great
effect.

~~~
alexktz
i use mine the field to perform repairs on my racing drone. it is 100x's
better than any normal soldering iron in this situation because i can 1) fit
it in my bag at about the size of a pencil 2) power it off an existing lipo i
already have with me.

the best camera is the one that you have with you. same goes for irons. how
this dweeb can rate something as junk without having ever used it is beyond
me. i've been pleasantly surprised at how capable it is ever since purchase.

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yangyang
Love this sort of thing.

I did a Tetris game for a led-matrix clock I got from Banggood:
[https://github.com/hollobon/jy-
mcu-3208-tetris](https://github.com/hollobon/jy-mcu-3208-tetris)

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saagarjha
> STM32F103T8U6 (ARM Cortex M3, clock frequency 72 MHz)

That's one powerful chip for a soldering iron.

~~~
bostand
Needed for those smooth animations in the UI. Yes, animations.

Seriously, this iron got style.

~~~
saagarjha
Back in my day we did animations in 8 MHz and we liked it!

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dkonofalski
Next up... can anyone get DooM running on this thing? If you can get the end
of it to light up like a Tesla coil to play the chip music, I'll give you
extra bonus points. :-P

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joric
Author's here
[https://github.com/joric/ts100tris/commit/5214f7ef9fbcdac8d0...](https://github.com/joric/ts100tris/commit/5214f7ef9fbcdac8d05a3af7a0868ba71a69ee06)

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gene-h
The question we should be asking as more ubiquitous devices are built with
comparatively large amounts of computational power is not what will run
tetris, but what won't run tetris?

~~~
nradov
Tetris is a good start, but someone needs to port Doom to it next.

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anfractuosity
Very cool :) Is the STM32F103T8U6 chip, also regulating the temperature of the
iron via a PID algorithm or.., or is that handled elsewhere?

Edit:

Looks like the PID algorithm, is here:

[https://github.com/joric/ts100tris/blob/master/S100App/Src/C...](https://github.com/joric/ts100tris/blob/master/S100App/Src/CTRL.c)

Nice!

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matthberg
While I greatly approve of this implementation, I'd also like to see doom
tried out, or maybe hatris(1) for faster warmup times :)

1)
[https://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html](https://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html)

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_pmf_
Can you hold it at the tip and does it increase temperature with increasing
number of lines?

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yellowapple
But will it run Doom?

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Terr_
For a moment I misread the title as "Tetris for the TIS-100 soldering iron",
and had a very rube-goldberg vision indeed.

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SHFT101
I wonder when they will release Skyrim for the TS100

