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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: didjamatic on Fri, 11 June 2010, 15:52:20

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: didjamatic on Fri, 11 June 2010, 15:52:20

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: Rajagra on Fri, 11 June 2010, 16:19:18

He's making a booster circuit so his USB port can power his keyboards reliably. Then he can place an online order for some lead-free solder. :lol:

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: chimera15 on Fri, 11 June 2010, 19:14:16

Must be a special soldering iron that can run on 5v.

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: ricercar on Fri, 11 June 2010, 20:32:05

Quote

I’m amazed that you can get solder to melt with only 2.5 Watts of power (5V x 500mA).

Yah. Totally.

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: Oqsy on Fri, 11 June 2010, 20:46:14

Did I miss something or is there nothing in that video that even proves it's using usb power?  Just a guy soldering...  nothing special there.  I could whip out my weller and make an identical video claiming its running on the cold fusion reactor under my desk.  I hate to be the cynic, especially if my near blindness really is making miss something that proves it's USB.  I just don't see how it could get enough energy from a USB bus to melt solder.

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: didjamatic on Fri, 11 June 2010, 20:52:58

Weller BP645MP Battery Powered Soldering Iron (http://www.amazon.com/Weller-BP645MP-Battery-Soldering-Batteries/dp/B000EM98KW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1276307484&sr=1-2) runs on 3 AA batteries, so 4.5v is all it needs.

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: Rajagra on Fri, 11 June 2010, 21:20:23

Well he never said how long it took to reach operating temperature. Even 2.5W will get the tip hot eventually. Maybe the important part of the mod was to insulate some of the tip so it didn't lose energy faster than it was being fed.

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: Oqsy on Fri, 11 June 2010, 23:26:37

I need to go redo my math...

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: Harry_Y on Sun, 13 June 2010, 07:33:29

I should mod my old portable Wahl soldering iron to charge from usb.

Lead is good, been soldering with it for over 35 years

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: Cthulhu on Sun, 13 June 2010, 18:36:41

You can buy USB Soldering Irons for some time now:

http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-White-LED-Precision-Pencil-Type-Soldering-Iron-au1-/130395850402?cmd=ViewItem&pt=AU_Hand_Tools&hash=item1e5c32c6a2

This one supposed to reach 480c another one of those things on ebay.de wich looks identical is said to only reach up to 400c.

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: dfj on Sun, 13 June 2010, 20:27:10

Quote from: Oqsy;192346

I need to go redo my math...

Your math is fine - and a soldering iron continually loses heat to the environment via air cooling. That 'iron' appears to be a normal fine tip stuffed into a plastic case.
  So - if your iron is magic and doesn't lose heat to the air etc... whatever you are soldering will - so unless it is a very thin trace to a single pin on an IC, and your soldering iron only heats at the very very tip 2.5W will not be able to keep up with the object you are soldering conducting heat away to the rest of the board, air, etc...
  Unless someone here with a decent rep actually uses one, I'm not believing that those things work.
  Heck, the ebay page even claims the thing draws 800mA via USB... mebbe that's how the seller tries to reduce returns - claim it works fine if your USB will feed it properly, and since USB was still capped at 500mA last I checked (OK, I'm not tracking the new specs carefully, though) folks will usually not have a device to power it. Jes' a theory. ;)
dfj

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: TheSoulhunter on Sun, 13 June 2010, 22:11:09

Perhaps they need to load (ie. a capacitor or a accu) for some (long) time before you can use em (for short time) >.>
Also, recently I read that some part of the specs (USB On-The-Go) allows up to 1.5A for USB1 and up to 1.8A for USB2!

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: kishy on Mon, 14 June 2010, 00:51:04

USB OTG is a very different creature, is it not?

That's what my old Zen Vision:M had to take content from flash drives and memory cards (essentially a USB host in the mobile device).

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: ricercar on Tue, 15 June 2010, 12:27:17

At Synopsys, the controller chip for USB OTG is a completely different architecture than regular USB: handled by an entirely different set of engineers than wired USB.  Ditto for wireless USB. For wired USB, one chip architecture handles 1.x/2.x/3.x.

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: dfj on Tue, 15 June 2010, 12:37:34

Quote from: TheSoulhunter;192888

Perhaps they need to load (ie. a capacitor or a accu) for some (long) time before you can use em (for short time) >.>
Also, recently I read that some part of the specs (USB On-The-Go) allows up to 1.5A for USB1 and up to 1.8A for USB2!

Well, they could charge a battery of one or several cells from USB, slowly...
  But, AAAs won't fit in that handle so it'll be some expensive setup. My guess is the things simply don't work, though.
  Not impossible, just likely a scam. Certainly not worth my cash to find out when I already have decent soldering rigs. :)
  I'd certainly be interested if someone got one to work, though. Especially if they were in some way better than a corded firestarter.

dfj.

Title: USB Soldering Iron
Post by: InSanCen on Tue, 15 June 2010, 17:41:23

Meh. Gas iron's are the business in portable iron's.

*Strokes Iroda 150*

But please, don't use cheap **** butane in them, they do die from it. This is my second Iroda, the first just buckled after 2 cans of **** gas.