Soldering Iron

The soldering iron UI consists of a screen and two buttons that control everything, not just adjusting temperature but also the myriad of settings in the soldering iron.

Things to change

• Buttons

I'm not a fan of only two buttons - I'm a clumsy human and I'd much rather have my tools be idiot-proof. Two buttons for temperature and everything else, with the differentiator being the duration of presses, is just asking for me to accidentally mess with something.

Two separate buttons for temperature, preferably something I can change easily with my left hand while I'm holding the iron with my right, would be great.

• Molded Grip

Would prefer the soldering iron to only have one way to hold it, as well as be able to stay in my hand when I press on it. I realized that soldering irons aren't meant to be used with force, but I do sometimes press threaded inserts into 3D prints.

Would love some texture as well, cos the grip is slippery when my hands are wet or oily. I know I probably shouldn't be soldering with dirty hands but nevermind that.

• Screen

Would much prefer to have the screen to always face us, especially so I can monitor the temperature. I would also prefer to not have an OLED screen but an e-ink display.

• LED

Would like to have LEDS that give me feedback, in addition to the screen.

You need an external device, to, u h h h, adjust the temperature. Pinecil’s two-buttons-and-screen UI offers a ton of features that you will otherwise miss out on – not just adjusting temperature or boost mode, but also the myriad of settings and small features that makes your Pinecil experience maximum comfortable, and things like PD test mode that the Pinecil offers thanks to its thriving open firmware community.

For soldering irons that are designed to be powered by 'smart' power sources (PD and QC), the firmware supports settings around the negotiated power and voltage. For soldering irons that are designed to be powered by batteries (TS100 & Pinecil), settings for a cutoff voltage for battery protection are supported.

Key features

• PID style iron temperature control
• Automatic sleep with selectable sensitivity
• Motion wake support
• All settings exposed in the intuitive menu
• (TS100) Set a voltage lower limit for Lithium batteries so you don't kill your battery pack
• (TS80) Set 18 W or 24 W settings for your power bank
• (TS80P) Automatically negotiates appropriate PD and falls back to QC mode like TS80
• (Pinecil) Supports all 3 power modes (PD, QC, DC In).
• (Pinecilv2) Supports USB-PD EPR for 28V operation.
• Improved readability Fonts, supporting multiple languages
• Use hardware features to improve reliability
• Can disable movement detection if desired
• Boost mode lets you temporarily change the temperature when soldering (i.e. raise the temperature for short periods)
• (TS100/Pinecil) Battery charge level indicator if power source set to a lipo cell count
• (TS80/TS80P/Pinecil) Power bank operating voltage is displayed
• Custom boot up logo support
• Automatic LCD rotation based on the orientation

Using PD

Driving a soldering iron is not like a normal load that these power supplies are designed for. Normally a laptop or phone will gently ramp the power draw up and down. Where as the soldering iron will rapidly go from 0 to full power, and then back to 0 again. This can cause issues with some power supplies tripping out.