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Complete bench in a box

A project log for Dual T-12 station

Notes about making a dual T-12 soldering station.

lion-mclionheadlion mclionhead 01/03/2019 at 21:140 Comments

It took 6 weeks for the boat to arrive from China.


Bang shiny before they're used.  The legendary hoof tip finally arrived.

Step 1 was fabricating the power supply.  2 Rudung buck converters & a direct 25V connector powered by a single 300W.  The Rudungs have independent grounds, but the lion didn't try shorting anything yet.

There was much tinning of 14 gauge silicone wire.  It was a better wiring job than anything money could buy.  There's room for fans on the Rudungs, but no plan to need high current until the next major LED project.  With pixies now available,

The irons could be fired up.  It was easiest to hot glue the boards on the outside.  Forget about using jumpers to connect the connectors.  Just solder them into the boards.

 Still need a stand, since they don't fit in the Hakko stands.  Tested it at 280C with the Fluke & the temperature was already calibrated in the factory.  Not sure how high the Fluke can go before it melts.  

The soldering station used just the cheapest soldering & a wall wart to weigh it down. 

A note on grounding the tips:

Ideally, the tips would be Earth grounded, but this was intended to be battery powered.  The lion kingdom didn't want to connect the tips to negative supply because they could fry a gadget if the same supply was powering the circuit.

 The tips were originally connected to each other but not to Earth.  This was a failure.  The tips must not be connected if they're powered by the same 25V.  They must be on isolated supplies in order for the tips to be connected, otherwise they'll be unstable when simultaneously heating.  The tips are a current path for the heater but don't connect to negative supply.  When using a common 25V, the tips have to be floating. 

The 2 irons heat up bang fast on 25V.  The power supply fan briefly spins up when it heats up or solders something.  It's quite a powerful feeling, making a fan spin up by soldering.  It could run on a 12V battery, but there wouldn't be a fan.

Absolutely none of the buttons or switches ordered were used.  The switches were failed short circuiting switches from the mastech which the lion kingdom repaired.  The Mastech may be used 1 more time in the lion kingdom's lifespan.

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