Hardware hacking is more fun with open source, DIY tools. That’s why Arhi designed a completely open soldering station controller motherboard. And we designed a through hole version that is now available as a PCB only at Seeed for $7 The completed PCB is the heart of a soldering station, able to control several types […]
Tag Archives: soldering iron driver
Soldering Iron Driver v1.5 assembled and enclosed
Pjkim assembled his Soldering Iron Driver v1.5 free PCB and enclosed it into some Tupperware. He had some problems with the firmware, but he eventually got it to work as intended. The LCD works, the iron gets hot and I can solder stuff with it! What do you call the first functioning of a soldering […]
Soldering Iron Driver v1.5 built with a DIY PCB
Download the source files from our SVN, mask the copper layer with toner-transfer, or UV exposure method, and etch the board with some acid. Once complete you’ll have your very own home-built Soldering Iron Driver v1.5. This is what Alex has done, and so far he seems happy with it. Ok, here is a pic […]
Soldering Iron Driver v1.5 Mouser order
S7726 shared his Mouser part order for the Soldering Iron Driver v1.5. This board is still under development so we haven’t yet decided on all the parts we will use. One thing to note is to follow the partlist on the project page, as the schematic has some errors in component values that will be […]
Preview: Open source soldering iron driver v1.5
Today we sent our updated soldering iron driver v1.5 PCB to be fabricated. This is a 100% through-hole reroute of Arhi’s latest gen 3 design. The ground plane is broken into power supply, analog, and digital sections to help reduce noise. PCBs will be available in the free PCB drawer soon if you’d like to […]
Genesis of the Soldering Iron Driver
We’ve been following Arhi’s work on an open source soldering station for a while now. Now that the latest version is working, he documented the complete process of designing the Soldering Iron Driver project. See his initial ideas and how they developed over 3 generations of into a final “works for me” version. Soldering Iron […]
Soldering iron driver update
Arhi posted pictures of his latest soldering iron driver build: Here are the pictures of the populated board. Actually the DC driver is not populated as I’m not very interested in it and there’s no usb connector and D10, R40 as those are also only required for USB operation and I ain’t going to be […]
Soldering iron driver v2 build
Fcobcn received some soldering iron driver V2 PCBs from Arhi. He used replacement parts for those components he couldn’t find locally. The version 2 unfortunately only supports thermocouple type soldering pencils. Our recommendation is to use the V2 driver with ether the cheaper Solomon SR-976 pencil, or the more expensive Weller PES51. Support for PTC […]
Soldering Iron Driver case
Arhi had a Soldering Iron Driver case made. It’s a two-piece metal box with the front panel drilled and cut to specification. The grey plastic panel holding the LCD was printed on one of his RepRap 3d printers. You can check out a picture of an earlier version below.
Soldering iron driver update
Arhi continues to develop the universal soldering iron driver. This is a rendering of the third generation PCB. The soldering iron driver can use soldering pencils with K-type or PTC type temperature sensors like Solomon, Hakko, and Weller, to name a few… Generation 3 has a reworked analog section. It that now fully supports PTC […]
Open source soldering iron driver update
Arhi has been busy debugging noise from PTC type soldering iron sensors. The problem was the sensor’s sensitivity to the current used as a bias. If the current used is greater or less then 1mA the sensor picks up too much noise. In the latest revision of the Soldering iron driver both PTC and TC […]