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R-T-Curve
03/07/2016 at 21:16 • 0 commentsI made a quick measurement to see how linear the iron's temperature sensor is. Since I don't have a thermocouple I used a Pt1000 strapped to the heating element like this:
So I had one DMM measure the Pt1000's resistance and another one measure the resistance of the iron's sensor. Afterwards I calculated the temperature from the Pt1000's values and came up with this graph:
Internal sensor - primary (left) y-axis; Pt1000 - secondary (right) y-axis
Good (as in linear) enough I guess...
(At lower temperatures you can see that I had the second DMM set to a too high resistance range, hence the steps)
Some more info:
- I recorded this data from high to low temperature as suggested by @Kuro in the comments of #Hakko 907 based Soldering Station.
- For this test I just connected 12V to the heating element (which dropped to about 11V under load) which drew about 1.5A at 400°C so the resistance of the heating element varies between 4Ω at ambient temperature and 7-8Ω at 400°C.
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Component sources
02/18/2016 at 20:11 • 0 commentsjust some notes, can probably be moved to components section once finalized
- Soldering iron/ handle - eBay: http://www.ebay.de/itm/331737608656
- DIN connector - eBay: http://www.ebay.de/itm/201365480597
- MOSFET + heat sink - spare parts
- Arduino Pro Mini - spare part/ eBay: http://www.ebay.de/itm/200957063666
- OpAmp - ?
- PSU - pwr from ATX bench PSU? Laptop pwr brick?
- Display - spare part
- Voltage regulator - spare part?
- PCB - perfboard + modules/ fabbed PCB?
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The (in)complete list of DIY soldering station projects to rule them all
01/08/2016 at 23:01 • 1 commentI might be falling into a pattern...
For now I just want to collect all the sources in one place. The list is somewhat sorted but hopefully I'll go over this list again and summarize all/most of them and maybe do some more sorting.
A quick heads up: There are a lot of duplicate links but I wanted to document for myself how/where I found the projects.
Hakko 907:
- I already mentioned this one which was featured on the blog - I really like the option of driving two irons and the author makes a good point for the analog dial. He also proposes a mod for better heat conduction between the heating element and the tip.
- Right now I'm thinking whatever I'll end up building is going to be very close to #Hakko 907 based Soldering Station because it's very straight forward.
- http://elco.crsndoo.com/wordpress/2012/01/soldering-iron-driver-gen3-rev1-4/, via http://dangerousprototypes.com/2011/10/25/hakki-907-and-compatible-soldering/
- #Soldering Iron Controller - (light on info) / more info: http://www.zl2pd.com/SolderingStation.html - (analog & digital control), via http://hackaday.com/2015/09/02/a-tale-of-three-soldering-iron-controllers/
- #Mobile temperature controlled soldering iron - links for components
Hakko T12
- http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=5264&start=180#p58264 / http://dangerousprototypes.com/2014/07/01/hakko-t12-soldering-controller/
- #70W Soldering Iron Controller / http://smdprutser.nl/project/70w-soldering-iron-controller/
- @Stefan Wagner's #Soldering Station and #TinySolder
Weller RT:
- http://www.martin-kumm.de/wiki/doku.php?id=Projects:SMD_Solderstation, via http://dangerousprototypes.com/2014/05/29/smd-soldering-station-for-weller-soldering-tips/
- https://debugginglab.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/soldering-station/ / https://github.com/ConnyCola/SolderingStation - based on above, very nicely thought out (has standby feature), PCBs on DirtyPCBs
- http://hackaday.com/2015/05/11/hacking-amazing-soldering-features-into-the-already-great-weller-wmrp/
- #Soldering pen by @HP (@banjohat) - also based on the one by [Martin Kumm] linked above, very cool idea of integrating all the controls in the handle, made me think about applying this concept to the 907 iron/handle
- See also the projects in @Teslafly's list rt usb_c soldering iron
Weller WSP80:
- http://www.eosystems.ro/index.php/projects/esol - uses MCU's internal PGA
- #Yet another DIY soldering station by @SUF - expected to have 3 (!) soldering irons and a bunch of other useful features, especially like the ideas to reduce energy consumption
Modded mains soldering iron:
- https://pcbsmoke.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/diy-110v-temperature-controlled-soldering-station/, via http://dangerousprototypes.com/2015/10/05/diy-110v-temperature-controlled-soldering-station/
- https://pcbsmoke.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/soldering-iron-temperature-controller-version-2/
- https://pcbsmoke.wordpress.com/2015/07/12/diy-digital-soldering-station/, via http://dangerousprototypes.com/2015/07/14/diy-digital-soldering-station/
- https://pcbsmoke.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/soldering-iron-pulse-timer-temperature-control/, via http://dangerousprototypes.com/2015/06/05/soldering-iron-pulse-timer-for-temperature-control/
- https://pcbsmoke.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/soldering-iron-pid-temperature-controller/, via http://dangerousprototypes.com/2015/04/27/soldering-iron-pid-temperature-controller/
- #Entry Level Electronics -- Improve your Iron
Misc:
- http://poormanelectronics.blogspot.ro/p/pm-soldering-station.html
- http://dangerousprototypes.com/2016/02/03/unisolder-5-2/ - universal controller
- @monsterome's list SOLDERING STATION DIY
While I focused on soldering stations here, you might also want to check out the official soldering-tools list if you haven't already.
Edit 2016-03-28: Added #Soldering pen
Edit 2016-03-28 #2: Added http://www.eosystems.ro/index.php/projects/esol
Edit 2016-05-07: Added #Yet another DIY soldering station
Edit 2022-09-05: Added links to curated lists and some more projects