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Perfboard prototype

A project log for Soldering station for Weller RTP/RTM/RTU tips

A soldering station designed to work effortlessly with Weller RT pico, RT micro and RT Ultra tips.

alex-wongAlex Wong 09/01/2020 at 15:260 Comments

As I've mentioned in the project description, I started the project with a pen form factor controller in mind. So when I started to build the perfboard prototype, I decided to construct the prototype with exactly the same components as I would in a compact pen-sized PCB. This resulted in tiny components glued into a perfboard and soldered dead-bug style. Some of the more extreme circuit sections included the DC-DC buck converter and the power switch for the iron. The DC-DC converter was constructed to minimize the AC loop, and the resulting size of the converter circuit would not be much smaller on a proper PCB layout. 

The soldering iron tip power switch was a p-ch and n-ch dual fet squeezed in to a 3x3mm dfn-8 package, and as you can imagine, it was a pain to solder. At this point you may wonder how bad would reworking this circuit construction be, and the answer would be surprise you. I once accidentally revered the power input and fried the DC-DC converter chip, and rework only involved cutting off the IC pins, and resoldering the chip in the same position. The process was not that much worse than working on a proper PCB.

After testing the perfboard prototype I decided to go for a desktop station form factor, where using larger parts would not be an issue, so this self-inflicted microsoldering hell is a bit moot.

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