Show HN: iFixit created a new USB-C, repairable soldering system (hackaday.com)
It's a USB-C powered soldering iron and smart battery power hub. Super repairable, of course. Our goal is to make soldering so easy everyone can do it: https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub
We didn’t want to make just another iron, so we spent years sweating the details and crafting something that met our exacting standards. This is a high-performance iron: it can output 100W of heat, gets to soldering temperature in under 5 seconds, and automatically cools off when you set it down. The accelerometer detects when you pick it up and heats it back up. Keeping the iron at a lower temperature while you’re not soldering shouold prolong the life of the tip.
What’s the difference between this iron and other USB-C irons on the market? Here’s a quick list:
Higher power (our Smart Iron is 100W, competitors max out at 60W over USB-C, 88W over DC Supply)
Heat-resistant storage cap (you just have to try this out, it’s a real game changer in day-to-day use) Polished user experience
A warranty and a local company to talk to (I can’t find any contact information for Miniware)
Comfier / more natural grip
Shorter soldering tip length
No-tangle, heat-resistant cable
Locking ring on the cable, so it can’t snag and get disconnected (this happens to me all the time on other irons)
More intuitive settings, either on the Power Station or on the computer
We used Web Serial https://caniuse.com/web-serial for the interface, which is only supported in Chromium browsers. The biggest bummer with that is that no mobile browsers support it, yet. Hopefully that changes soon.
Hardware is hard! It's been a journey for us. Happy to answer any questions about how we made it.
Schematics and repair information are online here: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/FixHub_Portable_Soldering_Stat...
398 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 382 ms ] threadhttps://www.pcmag.com/news/ifixit-new-soldering-iron-power-s...
https://www.tomshardware.com/maker-stem/ifixit-fixhub-portab...
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242497/ifixit-fixhub-us...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30LOTlQ3Cc8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IRP2LCswHs
Also, can you safely put 100W through a headphone jack? The ones I can find on Digikey that list a power rating seem to max out at 75W but most are well below that. Headphone jacks aren't exactly meant for high power, there is only a small amount of contact between the terminals since there's very little power required for line audio. Obviously big speakers require more power but those use things like XLR, RCA, and wire posts that provide way more contact.
Adding to this, I don't want to use their Chrome-only web app to configure it. Is this thing actually a serial device or is it something that only Chrome can talk to? If the former, just make it an Electron app if you want to be lazy. Can I still run the web app locally if iFixit decides to stop hosting it?
iFixit acts like they are all for open hardware and then go make something that uses proprietary tips and a (likely) closed source web app. I'm glad I could repair it if necessary but seems like a step back from a cheap solder station from Amazon that has a control panel and takes Hakko tips.
Anyway it's good to have an option that's cheaper than the big names but presumably built to a higher standard than an AliExpress special, and has an actual warranty and safety certifications.
We really see JBC as our competition here. Performance and responsiveness should be comparable or better, at a fraction of the price.
What kind of tips do you plan producing for the fixhub?
P.S.: all JBC stands (genuine and most of knock-offs) have really comfortable holder with detents to change cartridges on-handed on the fly. Do you plan any such features? I do not see any steps or hooks on a tip.
Tips we'll have at launch: Cone, Bevel 1.5, Wedge 1.5, Point, Bevel 2.6, Knife 2.5, Knife 1.4.
They'll be on sale in our store on October 15. https://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Soldering_and_Wiring
We will also be selling a complete line of replacement parts.
I'm working right now on our distribution partners, but we'll have a variety of local and online distributors who you can also buy the system through.
Rather than designing it to change tips on the fly, we set up the Power Station to handle two irons, with two USB ports and a mounting socket on both sides.
> we set up the Power Station to handle two irons
Having two handles is useful sometimes, but quick changing tips are a game-changer even for double jbc stations )
I want to like the miniware, pine, etc irons, but I'd really like being able to buy T15 tips from my local electronics supplier, who carries Hakko.
If the product isn't sucessful and/or ifixit stops producing tips for whatever reason, a perfectly good iron is effectively bricked.
We're posting full service information and schematics here: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iFixit_Soldering
We'll be selling spare parts starting October 15.
If I were to guess - the issue is that many phone basebands appear (at least) as a serial device, and we all know from late 90s/early 00s dialer scams how bad that can go if some hardware manufacturer forgets to label the serial port in a way that can be detected as "never fucking ever expose this to apps"...
And yes, if it seems like mobile browsers don't plan to add support then we'll have to look at wrapping it in a native app.
I'm hopeful that smartphones will start supporting higher power output from their USB-C ports. The iPhone does 4.5W right now, which is (barely) enough to melt solder, but not enough to do anything with.
https://fanttik.com/products/fanttik-t1-max-soldering-iron-k...
1: https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...
2: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil_Firmware
Honestly, I've never been that interested in the Pinecil. It's nice that it's small but you still need a big type C supply. I could give a rats ass that it has open firmware and runs a RISC-V. I only care if it can push a lot of heat accurately and if the tips are affordable and available. Anything else does little to sway me.
My solder station at work is an incredibly dumb Metcal that only has a power switch. Heat is controlled by the tips you use. When you pull it from the iron rest, it turns on instantly. Put it back and it turns off. The handle is just a plug for the tip, all the power electronics are in the base unit. It's got two plugs so you can run dual irons for microsoldering or if you just want a big chisel tip at the ready.
The amount of technology in a Metcal to make it work as well as it does, justifying its $1,000 sticker price back when I did that kind of stuff, makes it far from dumb! The rest of the market has caught up, but back when it was released, Metcals were highly sought after! It does this induction heating thing with the Curie point which makes for a very good soldering iron.
Definitely not beatable in value/price.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/miniware-ts1c
[0] https://pine64.com/product/pinecil-smart-mini-portable-solde...
>The star of the show is, of course, the Smart Soldering Iron. It’s a 100 watt iron that comes up to operating temperature in under five seconds and can work with any suitably beefy USB-C Power Delivery source. The size and general proportions of the iron are very close to the Pinecil V2, though the grip is larger and considerably more comfortable to hold. The biggest difference between the two however is the absence of a display or configuration buttons. According to iFixit, most users don’t change their settings enough to justify putting the interface on the iron itself. That doesn’t mean you can’t tweak the iron’s settings when used in this stand-alone configuration, but we’ll get back to that in a minute.
And with a (simple) firmware change and the appropriate 28v EPR charger, it can do 140w.
https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil#Power_Chart
And you cannot fix this with updates, no firmware can magically grow buck converter with beefy inductor inside the iron...
The chart is intended to show values for both kinds of tips that are usable on a Pinecil. V2 tips have a lower resistance, by design, and either style can be used with either handle.
Temperature is not indicated, although resistance can vary with temperature. But then: Temperature is never indicated for power of soldering irons. If you want to begin a trend of producing this data and filling this void, then by all means do so. Let me know how I can help.
And no, we absolutely do not need a buck converter to accomplish heating a resistive element in a circuit, nor to use PWM to modulate the average power dissipation of this circuit. (A buck converter can be used; sure! But E=IR and P=IE anyway.)
Given that resistance is mostly fixed you cannot reach the maximum rated power, unless your tip is precisely matched for any of these fixed steps. And PWM does not work with some power sources because of sensitive overcurrent protection.
Or what, exactly? What function does a buck converter serve in this application?
You'll have to spell it out for me, because right now using a buck converter in a portable USB-powered soldering iron sounds like a solution looking for a problem to solve.
Most of casual users of usb-c irons do not care about it, but if you ever used professional stuff, these usb toys appear to be deficient in comparison.
They are universal, after all -- at least downwardly.
And what may be some examples of a "pro" soldering iron that uses a buck converter (or transformer taps or whatever) to be flexible to a variety of input voltages?
I don't know how widespread support for that is though.
Why no boost button (unless I missed it)? That's the one on-iron UI feature I'd be missing - very useful for GND planes. I'm guessing its not a matter of rated power, but just the thermal resistance from the physical size of the tip which restricts heat entering into a heavily-heatsinked joint. Helpful to increase the iron temperature momentarily for such cases. Then again, I can't see heat transfer - happy to be told I'm wrong.
Is this your own tip design or is it the same as the TS80? Can't speak to the TS80 but I've found the TS100 tip quality to be somewhat lacking (I've had tips plainly break off before).
Plus, not having the ability to quickly tune temperature settings on the iron itself seems like a step back as well.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong on these, as iFixit's screwdriver sets were one of those things I needed to use to understand the hype (and then promptly bought my own set), so maybe this is another case of subtle quality you have to see for yourself?
But that may not be for everyone: With the Power Station, changing the temperature is fast and easy with the dial, so you can pick a workflow that works best for you. (You can also change the temperature with the web interface.)
I'm really happy with their quality, but you'll have to judge that for yourself.
We're handling the boosting automatically in software. When the iron detects that it's under load, it maxxes out the power to the tip. It's incredibly responsive.
You're right, where you want that is with high thermal mass objects like ground planes. The difficult part is getting enough of a thermal bridge onto the material to really let the iron rip. It can dump a lot of power into a joint.
No doubts then on the tip quality - I've seen the rest of your stuff (good).
The instant that the iron detects that it's under load, it pours power into the heating element. That makes it feel and perform like a much more powerful iron. We're dynamically responding to the power load and flowing heat into the material.
I guess we'll have to wait for an iFixit teardown to see how this new widget actually differs in internal construction.
after a few days trying to turn that into a daily driver however, i've had to go back to my weller desktop station, for one weird reason: i dont have anywhere to put the hot iron in between uses!
i dont know if it's just me, but my work cadence involves me using my soldering iron about 30-40 times over the course of an hour or so, for about 3-4 seconds each time. sometimes i'm soldering a row of headers, or just one or two joints, but then theres 3-4 minutes where i'm moving wires around or programming something quickly, and i dont want to wait for the tip to cool each time so i can set it somewhere and work on the board a bit, if I can just leave it in a safe place while hot, which my weller always had.
I got one of those bent sheet metal desktop 'holders', but the iron is so light compared to the cable, there's no way it's not falling off the table at some point.
I had one of these pencil soldering irons as I needed to solder something at a location. Once I powered it on, I was like oh snap, where do I put this thing now. Very much noped out and got the thing home where I could solder it properly with proper tools.
1: https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS
Just pick one out out that you like and get it coming your way.
For portable use, I got some snap-on purpose-built "legs" made from steel wire from aliexpress the other day that let me put the Pinecil down safely on a flat surface. They work a treat.
(And for bench use, stick a magnet to the collar of the stand. Pinecil V2 has a Hall effect sensor built in (and one can be added to V1) that will detect when the iron is in the stand, so IronOS will enter a selectable lower-temperature sleep mode right away. It heats back up quick enough that it's unlikely to ever get in the way.)
Our cap is just a game changer there. You handle it more like a Sharpie than a soldering iron. Put the cap on and stick it back in your bag. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXR8kMVbgAEeRgd?format=jpg&name=...
I set the motion timer on mine to 5 seconds. It heats up so quickly when you pick it back up that there's no reason to bother with the power switch. By the time I have it back at the joint, it's at temperature ready to go.
I’m also worried about burning myself if I’m not paying attention when putting the cap on 20 or 30 times in succession.
Will there be other tip shapes available?
Is the tip design patented (and enforced) or will you allow for 3rd party tips?
Tips we'll have at launch: Cone, Bevel 1.5, Wedge 1.5, Point, Bevel 2.6, Knife 2.5, Knife 1.4
We made some different electrical design decisions than they did. TS-80 tips aren't rated for the power that we're putting out, so being compatible with the TS-80 tips could be pretty sketchy.
Unless you're somewhere out in the wilderness, finding an outlet to do any on the road repairs is pretty trivial and you don't need to lug around a large heavy box that does grid to USB-C DC conversion nor a powerbank.
e.g. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1FZWT8M/
On the other hand we already have a standard power thing, it's called an outlet. And in practice you need to charge/use things in parallel so you'd need to carry around like four of these.
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iFixit_Soldering
etc. etc.
If you are into soldering, do yourself a favour and buy something tried and trusted like Hakko FX-951 if you are on the budget. It will probably outlast you.
Tips we'll have at launch: Cone, Bevel 1.5, Wedge 1.5, Point, Bevel 2.6, Knife 2.5, Knife 1.4
What kills tips is oxidation. With our auto-sleep sensor, it drops below the temperature that will wear it out. When you pick it up, it's back at soldering temperature in a few seconds.
Give it a chance! You're right, it's not tried and tested, yet. But Tom at Hackaday is not an easy person to convince: he's been around the block and used every iron out there: "iFixit didn’t just raise the bar, they sent it into orbit."
I could also suggest a Barrel 0.8 tip, that wraps around pin that one wants to solder.
https://bresun.aliexpress.com/store/900239507
https://kaisitool.aliexpress.com/store/3152011
Another benefit of the newer style irons is the tip can usually be hot-swapped (literally while it's still hot) without having to unscrew anything, you just need something insulating to pull the tip out with.
But there's the rub: there are a TON of USB-C irons that use integrated tips, and most are cheaper than this new iFixit iron, so you can get that class improvement for the same price as your Hakko station, so I'm curious if their improvements are a big enough step up from _those_ irons to justify the price.
Legit JBC tips are closer to $20-40, but those are just a different price tier and much more premium. You can also get knockoff/clone JBC tips for $10 pretty easily, and in my experience they work just fine.
As plenty of folks have said, the FX-888D is an "older" design in the sense that the heating element and tip are separate components. But, that isn't to say that this layout is obsolete - it's still very common and Hakko (among others) still makes new irons using the same system.
Given that iFixit's design uses a TRS jack as a tip mount, you can safely assume there will never be a hook tip for this particular iron, and wide chisels are probably out of the question too. That makes this iron a non-starter for me, but it all depends on your use case.
What doesn't depend on your use case is the use of a USB port as a power source. Sure, it makes sense for consumer products where compatibility trumps all. But, its fragile contacts and lack of shear strength mean that this isn't just a soldering station that's easy to fix, it's a station that you're going to need to fix.
The way I see it, FixHub is a gadget, and an 888 is an appliance. FixHub has several design decisions that compromise its sole purpose: soldering stuff. Direct heating elements are great, don't get me wrong. But if you're soldering frequently enough that a direct heating element would meaningfully boost your productivity, then a high-end RF induction iron would serve you much better. I wouldn't accept such a compromised tip mount and cable at any price point, let alone ~$350.
Installed IronOS on it and it got even better…!
https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS
I don't want this. I would rather push a button and wait for a light to turn on. Automatic off, fine, I guess, though I don't love it and would never want to rely on it. Automatic on, no way.
Awesome. Thank you!
Other times you just want the equivalent of a drill or toaster. Pull trigger, drill spins. Twist chuck or shift gearbox, it slips or changes speeds. Push toast down, it toasts, twist the dial if you want darker or lighter.
An on/off switch, a potentiometer or 7-segment and some buttons to set temp, and a nice, fast, powerful PID loop to control the temperature (with a 120V AC cable to make 100W all day not a problem) is all I want in a soldering iron. I have a combination soldering/hot air station that's almost 20 years old, it just always works.
How is that worse than it just being full temp the whole time?
And it's going to guess wrong a lot of the time. Automatically turning on and off both have unsafe failure modes that lead to it being on unexpectedly (it turns back on when I don't expect it to, and it doesn't turn off when I do expect it to) based on imperfect sensing hardware and software that can both stop working, and I'm not ok with unsafe failure modes in a device that will burn down my house.
This is also the reason that I disfavor battery-powered soldering irons in general, but at least being portable adds something you may need and can't otherwise achieve.
I've never had it guess wrong -- my hand isn't so steady that it will turn off while I'm using it. If it's on and on the table, it is still visibly ON so this is just extra safety if it's a little bit cooler.
We designed it as a soldering station that can replace the station on your workbench. The cap mounts to the battery pack.
https://www.ifixit.com/products/fixhub-power-series-portable...
You actually get a few more watts of power (104 W or so) if the hub is plugged into an AC charger (there's a third USB-C port on the rear).
It's amazing how versatile a well designed analog connector can be.
So you can plug an unused tip into your Walkman's headphone jack for safekeeping...
https://www.weller-tools.com/us/en/industrial-soldering/prod...
EDIT: I take the following back. The actual cable is USB-USB. The P2 connector links directly to the heated head, what is perfectly equivalent to "labeled".
But yeah, people that design products, please if you make a non-standard use of a standard connector, label it.
I would absolutely not buy this because that USB-P2 cable will mix with every other thing that thought was a good idea to use an unlabeled USB-P2 cable that only God knows whether they are compatible or not. (Common sense would imply they are, but common sense already flew out of the window long ago when you see a cable like that.)
Or, mount two soldering irons with different tips. The wheel controls the temperature, and the blue action button toggles between which one you're controlling. Two soldering irons can be hot at once.
Once you set the temperature, the iron remembers it and you can use any power source.
We've spent a lot of time talking to engineers and makers who solder all day, and it turns out that most people rarely change the temperature. Pick a temperature you like and leave it there.
Our heating algorithm detects and dynamically responds to load, so you don't need to turn the temperature up for larger thermal masses: it'll add as many joules as required to get it to temperature.
Chrome just happens to be the only browser that supports it right now. It's not like it's using proprietary protocols that will never exist outside of Chrome.
https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/fixhub_seria...
It's hard to argue because that's mostly what I do. But it feel really odd for a soldering iron not to have a temperature control right on it. Especially given competitor irons have screens and buttons. Going to a web interface seems insane in comparison to pressing some buttons.
$110 cad for the soldering iron is semi-reasonable, if a bit high compared to their competitors. $342 for the iron + battery means that's a $230 battery pack, which is absolutely insane.
Requiring the battery pack to be able to easily change controls means anyone doing more than super basic work, needs the $342 combo.
I spent over 200$ on a glorified PCB holder and some probes (PCBite), which is in hindsight one of the most useful tools I own and still makes me happy every time I use it (even that alone is kinda worth it over time!).
I don't know your financial situation, but just consider: How much do you spend each month on meals/entertainment? Is $300 actually an inappropriate cost for a quality thing that you often need?
Note: Iron + station shows up as $250 to me, $350 is the set with some additional bits and bobs.
And most of what you are going to overpay (?) for this is going to ifixit, which is also a plus. It's like buying merch from a band you like.
I'm thinking of the heating liquid pad, which gave me a bit of a laugh and didn't work, the plastic spudgers that were too soft to be durable, the precut adhesive strips that almost seemed insultingly ineffective. The actual handles and screwdriver bits were great though, so mixed feelings, I just hate waste.
The ts100 and variants of it have been around for a long time, can be adjusted on device and powered by regular usb pd power banks.
IMO 340€ for the whole set with the wirecutters and tweezers and such is still an ok deal, even though it is slightly expensive, because the accessories are probably good quality also, and there are few things as frustrating as bad wirecutters ;).
I see this is a potential "better quality" portable option for a professional (than something like a Pinecil and a TS100), that might want to carry it around or use it when not at a desk, but the quality and performance remains to be seen (though I do trust iFixit).
At £240 in the UK, it's about 2.5x the cost of the Pinecil + Powerbank (which I already had). If I didn't have a Hakko soldering station and wanted something portable but capable to use fairly regularly, this seems like a good option.
For everyone else, if you already own a PD powerbank, the ~£25-30 (~£50 with a bunch of tips) for a Pinecil is _much_ more palatable.
The comparison here is a Pinecil. I've been using a Pinecil for a couple of years now, I power it from a USB-PD power bank that's already in my backpack, and charges everything else I carry, and has more capacity and a lower price than this one, and the Pinecil without the power bank is much cheaper and more functional with its buttons and display than this iron alone; I don't need a PC (and I don't use Chrome anyway, though I do really like the WebSerial configuration).
I already own a Hakko soldering station, but I find I reach for the Pinecil 99% of the time due to convenience; only when I know I'll be doing a _lot_ of soldering in one go, and I'm going to do it at my desk, do I get the Hakko out.
This looks like a nice iron, and I'm all for supporting repairability (and iFixit in general), if someone will use it as their main station, and assuming this can perform, it seems like an excellent option.
For everyone else, a Pinecil and that powerbank you already have is an excellent option at a trivially low price.
EDIT: Fixed some typos
If you just buy the iron, you have access to all the settings in our web console: https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub/console
The iron persists settings when you unplug it. You can change the sleep timer and timeout, set target temperatures, calibrate the accelerometer, and more.
The Power Station is nice to have, but you don't lose any functionality without it.
FWIW this is just my $0.02. I'm sure you'll still sell lots, but if that had an onboard display + buttons then I'd have ordered one right away for the other nice tweaks you've done.
YMMV, but I think you can get a lot of mileage with a setup like that. Thinking about it, even my 'stationary' old Weller is used as an ON/OFF affair 98% of the time.
Looked around, heard Joule was the "go to" these days, got one. Gave it the fuck away eventually after the 15th time the app lagged or wouldn't work or whatever.
I'm sick and tired of my tools (yes it's a cooking tool) having the audacity to require an app. I get there's a lot of possible functionality that an app provides, but the annova I replaced it with still has a functional interface so I don't have to fuck with it for the basics.
I don't even see what the workflow would be to use their web interface on this iron?
It's a convenience but I'm happy using CoolTerm on my Mac or launching Chrome if I need some WebSerial feature like in-browser flashing of my Meshtastic nodes.
So how are you supposed to actually use that? I don't think there are any computers out there which can provide 100W out of their USB ports.
Am I supposed to unplug the iron from its power supply, plug it into a computer, change the temperature, unplug it, plug the power supply back in, wait for it to heat up, and finally continue soldering? That's awkward enough that even a crappy proprietary smartphone app would've been better!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XF5489G
Make sure it can support 100W (that one only goes to 85W).
Plug one end into your PC, one into a wall charger, and one into your soldering iron.
If you want to solder such a thing yourself, there's USB-C PD data/power splitters sold in various places (it needs to be smarter than just connecting pins, since it needs to intercept the power negotiation), but I haven't yet found a part that is advertised to handle 100W.
The hub has a bunch of female ports, and one male USB C port.
The male USB port is the only one that provides USB PD charging output, and it is also the only port that can be used with a USB host machine.
This means that it cannot be used to change settings on the iFixit iron with a computer and give give the iron enough power to heat up. It's not an improvement at all over a regular computer that also cannot do both of these things concurrently.
It looks like a lovely hub to keep on a desk for plugging in a laptop, but it is broadly limited to doing exactly that.