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A project log for RT Soldering Station

A basic soldering station for Weller RT tips

david-h-bronkeDavid H. Bronke 09/25/2019 at 07:310 Comments

So, I finally go around to transferring this from the breadboard to a protoboard with its own enclosure. Looks kinda hacky, but it works great!

More glamour shots:

My wonderful solder job. Sadly, I had already crammed the whole thing into the box before I thought to take any photos. Also, I seem to have lost the cover for the project box, so it's currently open on the bottom.

Somehow, this thing actually worked the first time I plugged it in. I'm still shocked.

The temperature control is still about as accurate as it's ever been. (read: not very, but at least it's consistent)

This would be a great marketing shot, if it weren't for my terrible case job.

The old and new side-by-side. Here you can see that I've pulled some parts from the old one: the OLED and the Arduino Nano now live in the new box, and the rest of these parts will probably be pulled off the breadboard soon.

All in all, I'd say this project has been a success! I may pursue getting some actual boards printed professionally and maybe 3D-printing a custom enclosure, but for now I'm pretty happy that I managed to build my own soldering iron controller that works so much better than any of the other irons I own.

One more thing I'll probably change soon, though: I want to get some terminal blocks so the cord is completely removable without unsoldering or cutting wires. That way I can swap it out for a better cord once I find some 3-conductor stranded shielded cable and get a new stereo jack. Oh, and a power switch might be nice. Maybe I'll make use of that extra hole in the side?

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