In particular, for portable soldering irons the whole "plug it in" part is not simple. The small irons that are the target for this software predominantly use batteries, USB-PD, or QC for power. The former needs voltage measurement and cutoff, and the latter have negotiation steps before drawing high power.

This firmware also controls tip temperature with a PID loop, whereas a classic 'dumb' temperature-controlled soldering iron might use a thermostat with on/off control.

These "smart" irons also have an automatic shut-off if they're not being used, which is based on an embedded accelerometer, so the firmware needs to be able to filter the noisy IMU data into a reliable on/off signal.

Smart irons also have a configurable target temperature, so they can be adjusted to work better with the particular solder alloy you are using. Their cost is more like a dumb iron, with functionality like an expensive soldering station.

Also, I can understand for some the cable being quite annoying. In electronics class in highschool, a few soldering irons got wrecked by students melting the cable insulation and sparks would fly.

> This firmware also controls tip temperature with a PID loop, whereas a classic 'dumb' temperature-controlled soldering iron might use a thermostat with on/off control.

I'd imagine on-off being perfectly fine for thermocouple-and-heater-in-tip, as you have very short feedback loop there

Mine, I plug it in, it gets hot, I solder things. I put it down, it starts cooling immediately. I pick it up, it's hot again in ~2 seconds. I need more oomph for a bigger component, I push a button and it jumps to my second pre-set temperature. It'll go back to my main temp if I put it down again to grab the next component.

I don't yet have a use for Bluetooth, but I do have a few BLE buttons laying around (they're dirt cheap and last years on a single battery), and I can see e.g. having a dedicated button per temp (or perhaps to switch calibration profiles for different tips) could be useful if I did a lot of soldering.

It's minor stuff, not playing Doom while using motion controls. Hiding this kind of control in a proprietary dongle (i.e. the base) is much worse than it being programmable.

Additionally, the firmware is going to be handling temperature control, in this case with a PID loop. This results in more consistent and precise temperature at the iron tip whether you're working with a small component or a larger one which is sinking a ton of heat, which is always a good thing.

Got a link for those buttons?

Background:

I’ve been trying to find something like that but everything I look at is Smart Home related and bigger than needed.

The smallest BLE button that I did find is part of a cheap China Gadget used to scroll tiktok/social media. Like this https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Control-Photograph-Scrollin...

Unfortunately I couldn’t figure out if it’s hackable or not

I've just held onto random ones I've run across, e.g. itags have been reasonably popular for a while: https://devices.esphome.io/devices/ble_itag and during BLE / IoT bursts of hype random things are sometimes handed out for free at and around events (not often programmable, but that's usually fine - they broadcast a unique ID when powered / when pressed, that's all you really need).

I also have one of these because I get a lot of use out of newsblur and figured I'd support the maker (I don't actually recommend it because it's pricy and not very well supported... but it's functional and flexible): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samuelclay/turn-touch-b...

IKEA has or had a ZigBee button. It's tiny and comes in black or white.

That one still seems to be 45x45mm. I am now using Philips hue smart buttons which are similar in size.

The tiktok ring on the other hand manages to put a simple button, bluetooth, battery and usb port all into a package of roughly 6x10x4mm

IKEA Symfonisk is 50mm round but it has press and rotate. I was actually thinking of Aqara WXKG11LM. It's 45mm square with round corners, but only 12mm thick.

Otherwise you can look at the Picoclick. It's 18x22m (height unknown) with no enclosure, with is 20.6x22.6mm and 11.6mm tall. Smaller than that is probably hard. I have never seen the Picoclick in stock, so you might have to build it yourself. It seems like a neat product, it's too bad the creator doesn't make it available.

My JBC has a lesser temp (like 150C) that it holds for a little while when returned to the stand. This is supposed to extend tip life. The heating element is in the tip, so the tips are spendy.

> It's minor stuff, not playing Doom while using motion controls.

It's only a matter of time before someone ports doom to a soldering iron.

in a way, this has already been done! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCC941xKuBs

Most middle and high end soldering irons have had digital control loops run by microcontrollers for decades and that has serious advantages over a "dumb" iron (though there are some analog closed loop systems like Weller). The targets for IronOS are mostly small portable irons with compact screens and controls that have to be run by something, so at least you can run open source firmware on them.

Edit: Though to be fair, I think the popular ones already have open source firmware from the manufacturer but I may be mis-remembering.

I run kit assembly workshops at Vintage Computer Festival East and bring a bunch of Hexacon temperature controlled soldering stations. I've had a number of comments on how much better 30-40 year old soldering stations perform than various USB/battery powered options. There's no firmware in there, just IIRC a quad comparator, some passives, and a triac.

Maybe these little portable irons are handy for the toolbox (I have a plug-in non temperature controlled Hexacon in my toolbox) but I'm not sure why someone would choose them for their bench iron, which seems to be what a bunch of attendees were suggesting they do with their USB/battery irons.

Seriously asking, what do these USB/battery irons do that's desirable?

At least for me they're compact, reasonably cheap, and yet still much better than a £10 plug in soldering iron from Amazon or wherever. I'm sure if I soldered regularly I'd want something better, but in practice I solder two or three times a year, and don't have space for a workbench with a soldering iron permanently on it, so the point of comparison isn't a full blown soldering station, its the £10 bargain basement iron.

I also was critical at first, but I sold my soldering station and use a TS80P instead (though I would probably choose a Pinecil v2 nowadays). It heats up fast, is small and portable and works well for my hobbyist needs. I can take it anywhere and solder something quickly, if needed using a power bank. For me its just the upside of convenience and no downsides.

How much of that is due to having a larger thermal mass near the tip? That makes a fair bit of difference.

Otherwise: what would USB change? Power is power. I like that I can plug my laptop charger into it, rather than needing yet another unique barrel jack supply.

> Seriously asking, what do these USB/battery irons do that's desirable?

Not necessarily a feature of only battery powered ones, but the more “high tech” irons have an advanced thermal sensing and regulation feedback loop that is aware of how much heat is being sunk into whatever the tip contacts with. This allows for easier soldering of many different thermal masses to heat up, e.g. if your circuit board has beefy traces for high currents without thermal reliefs, you will see some plug-and-play irons struggle heat it up in a reasonable time. If you are working with consistent trace sizes and thermal masses per joint, then you may not see a benefit.

An advantage of battery powered ones specifically (especially for new learners) is that you can eliminate the need for an cord that could be damaged by the user of the device in which it’s powering.

> An advantage of battery powered ones specifically (especially for new learners) is that you can eliminate the need for an cord that could be damaged by the user of the device in which it’s powering.

Proper irons have heat resistant cords, though!

> I'm not sure why someone would choose them for their bench iron, which seems to be what a bunch of attendees were suggesting they do with their USB/battery irons.

Me either. I have both -- I have a very nice battery/usb-powered one that I keep in my portable electronics kit, and a mid-level bench iron for at-home work.

The bench iron simply works better in every way, and I'd never even consider using the portable one when I have the option of using a bench one.

The newer ones put thermocouple and heater in the tip so you get much faster reaction, which means they can get away with less power as they react faster. Not gonna help with desoldering some thick cables tho, for that you need raw power. Then again, ones like TS101 have the raw power comparable to the stations.

That being said difference between one and good classical soldering station isn't that big.

> but I'm not sure why someone would choose them for their bench iron, which seems to be what a bunch of attendees were suggesting they do with their USB/battery irons.

Frankly because they are cheaper...

For me, it's the portability/size.

I don't have a benchtop I can use just for soldering, so my soldering toolkit lives in a box with all it needs. When I wanna do some work, I pick up the box, open it, and most of the stuff gets used directly out of it.

I put a silicone mat on a table, pull out the copper scrub and iron holder, and work on whatever pcb. When it's done, I can pack it all in the box and store it.

A TS80 is portable enough to fit in the box. A full on station would be a bit harder.

Thanks for the replies, everyone! With all the price comments, I took a look at the Pinecil v2 and apparently it's in the plug-in unregulated iron price range, so I can definitely see why some people are choosing that over an unregulated iron for the toolbox.

There must be some generational gap where older hackers are used to the mindset of having to buy industrial castoffs and fixing/refurbing to get something decent, whereas a lot of folks getting going now can buy something like the Pinecil and start out way ahead of the Rat Shack plug-in tip melters, heh.

I use my pinecil soldering iron to melt brass inserts (for metal screws) into 3d printed parts.

It definitely works without a smart iron but if I could use bluetooth to set the right temperature automatically based on the printed material, why not?

Even though I’ll probably never set it up this way, it is still cool to be able to

Especially when prices of temperature-controlled stations with analog controllers (less than a dozen discrete components) have gone down a lot over the past few years. Knowing how software bugs appear, I want as little software as possible in places where it isn't needed.

it’s not like it connects to internet or anything, having a digital display to set power/temperature is pretty convenient

I bought one of the firmware-requiring soldering irons on AliExpress and thought exactly the same. But then the thing is so much better than the usual plug-in-get-hot irons that it's definitely worth it. Disclaimer: my soldering skills are about 3 out of 5, so not too good.

I have the same experience. I've used nothing but "Firestarter" sticks - cheap ones from RadioShack, amazon, wherever and up to nicer branded $50 ones and dont consider myself more than average at soldering. I got a TS-80p because I have a personal push to get everything on USB-C for power that I can. I will say it lives up to the hype around it - heats up super fast, can solder things even my 100W auto soldering iron can (10 gauge wires on to thick metal) without breaking too much of a sweat.

Yes it has firmware, but I haven't had to mess with it yet in the two years of use.

Every soldering iron I am aware of with integrated cartridge-tips or Curie point tech will yield a better joint quicker than anything analog - they heat up instantly, etc.

Every one of these soldering irons has an MCU running the control loop.

I mean sure you could create an all analog PID that reads out the temperature sensor in the tip and heats it accordingly and maybe displays the tips temperature — but then you would get all the disadvantages of analog without any of it's benefits.

I have multiple digital JBC soldering stations and the time from taking out the sleeping handle to having it heated to soldering temperature is so short you stop bothering even thinking about it.

And because the sensor is in the tips you can solder huge pads without the temperature of the tip going down enough to notice.

I am a guy who loves analog (in fact I build a lot of modular synthesizer stuff that is mostly analog computers), but in this case anything other than digital is silly, especially if you want your iron to do advanced things like extending the tips livetime by having a sleep mode that reacts to how often you took the tip out in the past minute etc.

For what it’s worth, I have both a Pinecil and an old-school decent iron, and I use the Pinecil most often.

Soldering iron firmware is useful for closed-loop temperature regulation and viewing the current temperature, but can be dangerous when the code goes wrong. A while back I found and fixed a bug that would cause button handling to malfunction after 49.7 days of uptime being plugged in, which could be dangerous if anyone actually plugs their Pinecil in for that long. Also I find that the two-button input is difficult to configure such a complex iron with nested menus, selectable options, iron on/off and temperature control and boost, and I sometimes end up mistakenly setting my iron to a temperature higher or lower than intended.