I’ve been looking for new soldering iron for a while. I don’t solder a lot but I wanted to buy something that is reliable than my old one which has no station or temperature control.
I was thinking about the Hakko FX-888D but I couldn’t find any 220v version on reasonable price (190$ from the local importer) and converting 110v to 220v is too much for me.
After some research I came across the TS100 a chinese electronic soldering iron and it’s open source.
Some specs
Few Youtube videos was enough for me to understand that it’s great soldering iron.
It’s cheap, lightweight, small and has many good reviews on AliExpress.
Sold in different brand names and models (I got Eakins but SainSmart Pro32 is just the same) and declared to produce between 17 and 65W.
Temperature is in range of 100-400 degrees Celsius (Andreas says on his video that it’s not 400 degrees for real).
It has accelerometer so it knows when you don’t use it and can turn off or enter standby mode and a nice LCD screen.
Works on DC (5525 connector) between 12-24v which can be an advantage for some people who use it with batteries but can be disadvantage because you need to find a proper power supply to power it.
If you power it with 12v you’ll get lower temperature.
I found an old laptop brick with 20v 3.25A so it works fine.
Firmware
A good man out there released a firmware for it which includes many features like setting a low cutting voltage for battery use and boost mode that can raise the temperature as long as button is pressed.
I upgraded the firmware because I’m left handed and this firmware detects the angle of the soldering iron and rotates the LCD accordingly.
You can find the firmware here.
Performance
Speed
This is the fastest soldering iron I ever seen.
It takes around 20 seconds to heat up from room temperature to 300 degrees when using 20v PSU.
I did some soldering and I can say it’s pretty nice, lightweight enough and does the job quickly.
I think the DC input and heating speed are big advantages.
It’s going to be my main soldering iron for now.
