Micro Soldering Station

Transform a cheap USB soldering iron in a powerfull Active tip Soldering Station.

With almost no thermal capacity this station regulates the tip's temperature instantaneously. Solder larger thermal mass with ease, it's magic.

fiy: Active Soldering irons cost a lot of money

The cheapest Micro soldering Station ever:

Youtube

Features

Cheap & easy build under 10$
Temperature controled (PID)
Memories
Micro soldering tip
Serial command interface
Ploter (outputs usefull data)
Great User Interface with output power Bargraph
UI Sounds, with temperature reached warning.
Open Source Arduino based
Firmware Updates
3D Printed Case
Wake up from standby iron pickup detection (by temperature sensing)

Materials

1x Arduino Uno
1x Nokia LCD Module
1x USB Soldering Iron
1x Thermistor 100k 3950
1x 4 wire wire cable(usb cable works)
1x 5mm Led
2x 1k resistor
1x 4,7k resitor
1x 10n Capacitor
Kapton tape 10-20mm
1x N MosFet (or use the Iron's pcb one)
1x rocker switch
10 x small screws 2.5x5mm large head

Schematic

Soldering Tip Diagram

UNO R3 CH340 Power Hack

Cut Power the trace underneath the PCB and connect a rocker switch in series.

Fritzing

Remove the pcb from the soldering iron and grab a cable with 4 wires (2 for thermistor, 2 for the heater). Poke an hole in the side of the iron's case, near the yellow nut, to pass the 2 wires and solder them to the thermistor. Use kapton tape to isolate the thermistor pins and to fix the thermistor's glass tip to the iron end with some kapton turns. The other 2 wires connect to the heater and the led with a resistor in series. (watch the polarity of the led) Remove the ball bearing and connect the led in the hole, break the spring post from the other side of the case.

User Interface Screenshots

Operation

main view

< > temp up down
[click] cycle memories
[click & hold] store mem mode
[double click] settings mode

stand by mode

[click] leave standby mode

store mem

< > select memory to store
[click] store

settings mode submenus

< > navigate submenus
[click] edit submenu

edit submenu

< > change value up down
[click] exit submenu

ChangeLog

2018-4-11

interfance feedback sounds, you can disable on settings
temperature reached beep

2018-4-9

improved automatic pickup detection (must be more improved in the future)
you can now choose the type of wake up from standby between manual (by clicking) or automatic (by temperature)