This is going to be a replacement for my current soldering iron that I often call “the worst iron I have ever had”.
It will be a dual solder station to save me swapping tips as frequently.
As it will have a micro-controller, I want to explore the idea of having code recognize different types of soldering and preemptively heat the tip in anticipation of a recognized thermal drain pattern.
For example, if I am repetitively desolating IC pins then I want it to be able to create a power profile for the thermal drain and apply that profile as soon as a drain is detected.
Wish me luck with this lol. If I don’t achieve these expectations then I will just end up with cool dual solder station. Nothing lost.
This project is currently on hold while I get to the point where I can make PCB’s with the toner transfer method. My current iron is erroding away rappidly so I have to get back to this ‘soon’.
THIS PROJECT CONTAINS MAINS WIRING. DO NOT ATTEMPT UNLESS YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO ASSESS ALL ASPECTS OF SAFETY AS NECESSARY.
I don’t actually know anything about PID. Perhaps I will learn this in the process.
I do however have a very good understanding of math and physics so my approach may be somewhat unusual.
This project will be based on the cheap ebay clones of the HAKKO 907 / 937 irons.
The iron will be supplied with AC from a toroidal transformer with zero crossing detection and switching under control of a micro-controller.
I may use an Arduino board as a plug in module so that it easily repeatable and the code can be experimented with.
