I'm an EE who has designed several commercial products that use open fram power supplies. Even if you use a ul listed open frame power supply you still had to get ul cert ($10000-$20000) due to the use of assembled AC wires in your product. By using the built on cable it saved alot of time and cost. Ps actually have one of these that I use all the time. I love the thing. Thanks for the info on the replacement tips.
Thank you for this input! That really explains it and now that you put it that way it makes perfect sense. Also, good to hear that it was a solid purchase, hah!
Right, we always had to do FCC and UL certification for the product, even FCC or UL certified parts were used. As the setup changes parameters. It is also the reason why many stuff from here do not consider cert as they at first thought it would be OK and then found out the cost of this process. A lot of smaller companies from here won't ship from China to the US anymore. Super quality but budget got spend on that or looks instead... And that is why you see a lot of crap: as these don't care as they can flood and be profitable. Another ecample of FCC parameters changing is that Lenovo disallowed mini pcie to be used internally in the Tiny Thinkcentres like M93 (besides certified and tested combination) so they locked this in the bios with a white list for support.
@@gbraadnl Lenovo aren't the only ones to do that. Certification is a nice cover story but I think their real motivation for the whitelist is to force customers into buying upgraded parts from them. As long as they sell a configuration that meets current local emissions regulations then they are off the hook -- it's on the consumer to maintain compliance. It's also worth noting that the WiFi cards themselves are certified. It doesn't make sense to restrict what is installed after purchase since the manufacturer is no longer responsible for it, the laws could have changed, and/or the laptop may have been relocated to a new region with different laws that require changing the card. The antenna's radiation pattern isn't going to change depending on the card it is connected to, even more so since the WiFi cards will have met strict standards for characteristic impedance and transmitted power. It's really quite a BS excuse that the whitelist has anything to do with certification or ERP. There's plenty of other RF equipment that is sold without antennas or with no provisions for preventing the user from changing the antenna.
That doesn't seem like a lot of money. How much of these things do they make? Hundreds of thousands? With those numbers, the money you save by going with an open frame power supply makes up. It's also a waste of material to have an encased power brick inside of the thing. Plastic doesn't grow on trees!
a good tool in amateur hands will do worse than a bad tool in professional hands in many circumstances but a bad tool is a bad tool and will cause more damage to the product than a good tool in anyone's hands
That is fantastic, ha! At least the thing was manufactured with bare wires on the end. Imagining a barrel jack hidden away inside of a soldering iron is quite the amusing thought though.
I love that you're seemingly a big fan of Cathode Ray Dude. It shouldn't be surprising, as you both share quite a few similar interests. But still, it's heartwarming to know that someone who works so hard to provide fun & fascination for the world also gets to relax and appreciate great videos, because there are others who create equally fantastic content that you can enjoy! Long live the New Media! I can't get over how grateful I am that independent creators such as yourselves are now able to reach an audience who appreciates you. I shudder to think of all the great talent and wonder that the world was deprived of when ruled under the old networks and production companies. Together, we should all fight to ensure that creativity stays independent, lest the dinosaurs of old rise and seize back control once again ('cause they damned sure are trying)!
I’m a retired engineer. You spoke about the build quality of the internal PCB and the fact that they had not cleaned it. In recent years manufacturers have developed what is known as “no clean flux.” It contains no corrosive or conductive chemicals, dries hard so it does not attract dust, and does not need to be cleaned. The items you pointed out as rework on the PCB are more likely through hole components that can not be soldered in the same oven as the SMD parts. I also don’t think wire length has anything to do with cost, it has more to do with fitting everything into the box. You see this with many electronic products, even very high-end ones. About the only build issue that I think is a real problem is the PVC cable. I’m not sure why they made that choice, probably a cost thing. But it is a deal killer for me as well.
As far as not needing to clean flux off products... pure rosin core flux without a corrosive ingredients has been available for 50 years , and is not expensive. also a few seconds in an isopropanol alcohol bath is not difficult.
@@Geopholus Except you can't really bath a board that has wires soldered on it. Your bath content will creep into the wires, denature the flame retardant (if any) and lower their lifetime. I'm quite sure the boards have been cleaned after the SMD process, but not after the wires and TH soldering.
Ahem. Rosin core is corrosive, that's what flux IS. Some are just more active than others, but rosin is mildly hygroscopic so can cause problems in humid areas. Also, merely dunking it into an alcohol bath for a few seconds will not remove it. It needs abrasion/scrubbing or a much longer agitating bath for removal, which isn't really needed if they simply use no-clean flux/solder instead. There are many steps in design and manufacturing that could be idealized but in the end it has to be weighed what the benefit is vs all the extra costs. That does not mean that I feel a few cents more spent here or there, wouldn't be worthwhile but remember what Ryobi is, TTI's consumer grade brand for tools rather than contractor or pro grade. @@Geopholus
If you struggle to solder connectors and regularly melt the pins, make sure you are connecting the connector to its mate. It prevents the pins from walking from the heat and keeps them straight while soldering. It also and gives the pins more metal to dissipate the heat and prevent melting the plastic
Great tip! I was melting XT60 connectors til I upgraded from a pathetic 30w iron with junk solder to a 65w with decent solder. The solder was the biggest issue.
There are a lot of very badly made connectors around today. Instead of the insulation being made of decent thermoset plastic it is made of something easy to mold and super cheap like polypropylene. That, combined with poor quality plating in pins, makes some of them almost impossible to solder well no matter your level of expertise. That said, there _is_ considerable art in soldering wires to connectors. One of the most common errors I see is improper feeding of cored solder. It must be fed so that the flux flows over the joint before the molten solder does. I've seen videos that supposedly are teaching soldering where the solder is touched to the iron tip and allowed to flow onto the work. That is just wrong. A lot of people seem to want to slop extra flux all over everything. In the vast majority of cases that is completely unnecessary if your technique is good. I _do_ like to use a tiny amount of low-solids liquid flux for tinning small stranded wires to be soldered to certain types of very small connectors and sometimes use rosin paste flux for tinning large stranded wires, but other than that I very rarely use extra flux. I'd be extremely surprised if the number of joints I've soldered is less than a hundred thousand.
@@d614gakadoug9any videos or channels you recommend where I could pick up knowledge and tips from? Preferably with DC, stranded wire type stuff I have enough knowledge to know when I'm watching someone who doesn't really have a understanding of the fundamentals, or why they're doing something a particular way. I often hear the statement "been doing it this way for so and so years, never had an issue" or similar, which is fine but when their intention is to help viewers it doesn't exactly provide much meaningful value. Combine that with poor video or audio and you've got A LOT of video to sift through and waste time on lol
another tip, instead of plugging the male connector you are soldering, push its pins into potato or an apple or such. This method worked wonders for me =)
One advantage of those "internal" power supplies is that they can replace these with supplies for different regions without redesigning the whole tool.
I considered that, but I'm pretty sure the opening in the chassis is sized for a US plug and would not fit any others, and from what I've been told (and what research I've been able to do) the "hybrid" feature is US-specific, likely for that reason. In the UK, ostensibly, these just run off of battery only.
I was wondering this as well however I have a Bixolon Thermal Printer here where they also put a power brick in the case. It doesn't have a cable on it though, just a socket for a C13 plug (I hope that's what it's called), which would make it even easier to ship it around the world I guess
@@CathodeRayDude we dont have these type of extension cables in the uk, where you can just connect them to a male plug like that. They would have to use an IEC type inlet for here.
I have both versions of soldering iron. I’m not an electronics professional, I’m a field service mechanic and the cheap version has fixed everything from a stranded boat on the water to a forestry mulcher stuck deep in the bush. They both work really well I’ve never burned the cable feeding the iron just as I’ve never burned through my hoses on my acetylene torch. Maybe not for the electronics professionals but for the rest of us it sure beats the old butane butchery of yesterday.
Thank you. that was the idea i had while watching. hes acting like this product is a full electronics professional kit and not just a here you go for the occasional solder when needed. it works fine. ive got one and ive never burned the wires, nor had any issues with it. though i already suspected the way the 120 volt supply was just by looking at mine and going... heeeeeeeyyyyy wait a minute that looks like a totally normal bi pin plug sand witched in place im gonna bet that they just shoved a power supply into the unit and called it a day. honestly i think they missed a good little trick they could have added and sold as a feature. move the plug somewhere else and add the ability to charge a battery. i know its not the most useful idea, but the power supply outputs 18 volts. same as the battery so all they would really need is the same logic that their chargers have which after taking apart a tiny ryobi charger i have... the charging circutry. is really pretty basic. seems like the batteries themselves handle quite a lot of the aspects of the charging and discharging as well as the over and under voltage stuff.
For soldering DIN plugs, just use the potato trick: Ram the plug into a raw potato, it will hold the plug for you and the wet inside of the potato helps cooling the pins so the plastic won't melt.
At least some one on this channel knows what his talking about, used the same trick myself, I manufactured 4 ply boards for computers in the 80s, with a non temp controlled weller soldier iron, never had a problem I did 1,000s over my time, and you don't need to apply any pressure to the tip of Iron, those people that talk about soldier Irons need to know what there taking about first.
@@videomentaryproductionschannel Exactly. Unless you're being lazy and using the soldering iron tip to scrape through the oxide layer on some solder blobs, you really shouldn't need to apply much pressure at all to the tip of the soldering iron. The trick is lots of flux and flowing new leaded solder into the existing solder to make it more workable. Also, using the right size of tip and soldering iron for the job. If you have to apply a lot of pressure on a wire junction to get it to soldering temp, it's likely because your iron is too small or it's unable to output enough heat to soak the wires.
This Pace instruction video on cup terminals is invaluable: th-cam.com/video/_GLeCt_u3U8/w-d-xo.html If you haven't already try Kester #186 liquid flux, the stuff is great. You can get it off ebay in little syringe bottles. I was disappointed that they stopped making the Kester flux paste but once I tried the #186 liquid now I see why. If you absolutely must have paste Caig / Deoxit flux paste is a decent alternative to the out of production Kester. MG Chemicals RA is very powerful flux, but too good in some cases. It promotes too much wicking in stranded wire and it also needs to be cleaned. But it has it's uses in difficult soldering jobs.
I think using external power supplies encased in plastic housings is actually a step up for cheap products. Having one power supply design used in lots of products will most likely have a better average reliability than random cheap internal designs that are not standardized. Plus replacement is infinitely easier if the power supply does die!
Plus, (assuming you know it's in there if it does) you can at least salvage a nice, safe supply before recycling the rest of it. I've gotten a few from laser printers I've salvaged recently, way more reusable than power supplies on pcb only.
@@NVRMTmotion Very good point. I lately became a horder of all sorts of chargers. I keep all chargers before binning devices. Some of the chargers that come with some devices are cheaply made and they break or get faulty easily. So having spares is a bonus. Plus some mobile phones stoped supplying the chargers with the phone. So better keep the spare ones we already have just in case.
A plastic case power supplie in a plastic case will get realy hot. Ist will fail much faster than an open one. Its built with minimal effort, this is not always bad but i would not do it this way. Also very wasteful solution, very Chinese type of thinking.
I’ve owned the smaller version of this for several years. It has handled everything I could throw at it and even surviving a rollover collision when some chucklehead ran a red light and rolled me over. It ended up underneath one of my toolboxes and submerged in oil. 18 months later it still works, and only occasionally reeks of burning oil.
@@deusexaethera To be fair the soldering iron part was completely submerged in oil when I found it 2 days after the wreck. I cleaned it up and flushed it out with some solvent but I never could get all of it. The first time I powered it up it reeked of burnt oil but I kept it running and the smell went away. If I used it often there is no smell but if it sits for a few weeks I guess some more oil wicks it's way in from wherever it's hiding and it smells like burning oil for a few minutes. I've just learned to power it up before I use it inside a hospital or somewhere else where people might object. It's getting fainter. It's still the best portable soldering iron I've ever used. If it died today I'd go buy another one without hesitating. Rattling around in a service truck for years, getting rained on, dropped, smashed by a toolbox and submerged in oil hasn't exactly been an easy life for it, but the thing still works great. It's already lasted longer than my last 3 corded irons and at least two butane ones that were kept in the same environment.
Those inverters are life savers! When the power was out during freezing temps, I had one and was able to store electricity in my batteries, recharge them in the garage so no door needs to be cracked to use the generator.
This is actually remarkably well made to use the bear minimum of parts and have the least assembly required. Some modeller did a great job to let others be lazy.
@@mickalinjezerx7104 That all depends on how efficient the circuitry is. The power supply's won't get any hotter then the one on your lap top so there's no worry there and that control board doesn't look like it was designed to pass much current through it so I doubt it will get very hot. Designers know better then to design products that trap heat because heat is the number one killer of electronics and that means products get returned and manufacturers loss money.
Caught this on my 5th re-watch of this video: Last year I bought a no-name Chinese “probably won’t set your place on fire” soldering station from Amazon and it also had the ceramic pencil style heating element. I can confirm that they’re super fragile and, despite the “engineering” steps taken to protect the element from taking the force as you described, it did, in fact come conveniently pre-broken from the factory. The manufacturer must have known that this was a likely situation to happen so they actually included a spare element in the box. The kicker is that replacing the element involves having to solder the new leads. 🙄
I brought one of these because of your video. I have been through so many irons and this has been the best I have had. The fact that it's hybrid is what sold it for me. I do a lot of RC racing of various genres and this has saved the day on so many occasions as of late. Thank you for the time in reviewing it.
came for that reason as a fellow RC driver this is nice and i need to pick one up as soon as posible. tho the iron that conect directly to a 2S lipo is a good choice for emergencies to bring out to the tracks.
I've been using a Hakko FX-901 for over a decade now for lightweight tasks, and it's worked very well for me. No, it doesn't have temperature control, but a set of 4 NiMH AA cells will give you over an hour of runtime, and you can put the cap back on it while still hot. Of course, it has relatively low thermal mass so it can't take the place of a proper soldering station, but for small parts (Game Boy mods, replacing capacitors, etc) it's very convenient.
I have used a butane soldering iron a lot, probably close to 200 times. Working on ships masts. The temperature control is there, it gets to temp quickly and stays hot up in the breeze. You can also use heat shrink with it and don't have to fumble with a cord while climbing. We bring a plug in electric one, but I've never seen anyone use it. That said, if we can do the soldering at a proper station before climbing then we will, especially if it's a lot of soldering, or we need a vice or something.
I've pulled apart tonnes of electronics, and i have to say the design of this thing is actually quite elegant. The fact that the power supply is fully contained in a closed frame pack is awesome. Imagine you go to add some water to your sponge and you mess up and dump water on the unit. That pack inside that houses all the high voltage is completely water tight. I know, not a super likely scenario, but if that plus the other things like not cleaning of flux (which would be an utter waste of time) help to keep the costs down then I'm all for it.
A lot of products now leave the flux on the PCB. It's some form of newer flux that doesn't become corrosive, so cleaning it off is a waste of time and money for the factory.
This guy is full of 💩💩💩. He obviously has a biased opinion of Ryobi tools. He cried and cried through this whole video. I don't take my tools apart for no reason. I prefer to work with them not purposely destroy them like this🤡
I worked with a lot of strain reliefs at UL when i worked there. That strain relief is pretty solid looking. There would be so much friction that the narrow teeth biting into the cable are probably not likely to cause much, if any, damage over the life of the product.
I've already killed a cable in a ryobi soldering iron in less than a year of ownership. I just replaced the cable with some more heavy duty wire. Hasn't missed a beat since
I work with PVC cabling all the time. Hang the base in place on a wall, then hit the jacket with a heat gun or blowdryer. Nice even heat, a bit of weight, and some patience, you will remove all of the natural curls. The jacket expands, then contracts to the new shape. It will behave much better after that. You can also wind it around a dowel to give it a tight curl like a phone cable. Handy.
Completly agree, i do that to basically any new thing with a cable. But pvc cable is still not a good choice for soldering iron. Its much stiffer than it should be. Rubber is better but silicone is excellent
I often sort of nest the cable in a towel then blast it with a hot hair dryer. Once it is uniformly quite hot i'll work out the worst "kinks" by hand if necessary then hang it to cool, sometimes with another heating just before hanging. It is a horrible time waster but can make abominable cables into merely not-very-good ones.
I've been liking my TS80P for portable soldering. I chose it over the TS100 because it uses USB Power Delivery instead of flat pack/drone batteries. I have an 18W PD battery pack that works wonders, and it can also use my laptop PD charger. Gets hot enough for any of my little projects and has swappable tips.
Stumbled across your channel via the algorithm. At first glance I was like "who is watching a 47m video on a soldering station?". But here I am, 37m in, and I'm genuinely impressed. Youve dug into this at the level I like to see. Truly worthwhile content. Earned my sub.
I took a broken blue-bosch 18V charger, and removed the internals, put in a 5-20V to 60W USB-PD PCB, 3d printed a little attachment piece, and soldered the wires from the battery terminals to it. So now I can power my Pinecil from my batteries that I use with my other tools that I keep in the van. Plus it doubles as a huge powerbank for my laptop, and other devices.
To me, the bare ceramic is what I think of as standard under the tip. I think every iron I've ever used is like that. No need to make the heat transfer less efficient. With the tip screwed down, you won't have any force being applied to it.
Came here to say the same thing. My best station is a hakko and it's got the bare ceramic same as the cheap ones I've got from Chinese brands. They all work fine, I've never considered that a weakness.
Ye. First time I saw it, I was concerned about how brittle it might be, but in practice never had it crack. It should be held in place and not rattle around - If it rattles it's not making contact and transferring heat.
Hakkos do at least have a replaceable ceramic element from what I remember. Some of these are likely built in a way that you can't get it out without destroying the handle.
Arguably using the ceramic core is less efficient than integrating the heating element directly into the tip, downside of doing that makes the tips more expensive and potentially harder to swap out. TS100 uses such tips.
Honestly, I trust its reliability more after seeing them just cram an entire pre-built DC power brick into the thing. It means that it's a component that works regardless of their engineering and they haven't messed with it.
I'm old school enough that I was expecting the thing I always used to find in cheap but 'sturdy feeling' items... a big chunk of cheap pig iron glued into the bottom of the case.
The tapered screw holes was probably also a cost-saving measure. Very minimally more plastic, to reduce the chances workers will get stuck fumbling around with lining up the screw head to the hole down in there, the taper just makes it magically happen so they can hurry up cinch it down and ship it.
I've opened some radios with such deep screw holes, If they don't have the tapering, I can't know if the screwdriver is really in the slot or is it between the screw and the plastic. I broke a lot of plastic because I thought I was turning the screw but I was actually using the tip of screwdriver as a lever against the screw to break the plastic...
@@zachmiller9175 That's a good thought, that is possible, though if they're machined nice and tight to a 90-degree vertical it should theoretically yield the same results or even better results with releasing as there is less surface area contact with just a straight cylinder rather than a cone shape, but I wouldn't know as I'm not in the PIM industry. I just got to thinking about how tapers are used to *secure* things sometimes, even tooling and chucks.
@@AToolWithTools this is the exact reason, anyone who watches AvE or another hacky tool-abuseing channel like this that has ever heard of the term Draft angle/relief, it is required for injection molding 0.5 degrees on all vertical faces is strongly advised. 1 to 2 degrees works very well in most situations. 3 degrees is minimum for a shutoff (metal sliding on metal). 3 degrees is required for light texture (PM-T1).(stolen from the web)
I definitely appreciate the use case larger, more "industrial-style" soldering iron stations. Honestly for me, I only do soldering on a small scale (hobby stuff type boards, microcontrollers and all that fun stuff), so the TS1000/Pinecil/etc is very convenient, since I'm surrounded by USB-C cables and chargers (but not really any large 18v power tool stuff) and it's nice and small (feels just like another electronic gadget lol). Totally fits my workflow, but I can see why it doesn't fit yours (and your concerns with the rigid connectors).
A laptop USB-C battery bank with a belt clip and a 2M long USB-C cable would make one of those little USB-C soldering pencils into a totally workable portable soldering solutions. Well, as long as you're willing to carry a small bag with you to hold a stand, sponge, brass scrub pot, and some flux and solder. Still, totally doable and no less convenient.
@@christo930 I have trouble believing an iron that doesn't even quote power will be anywhere near as good as a TS100 clone at 65W powered by an RC battery or USB-C PD 20V with a much more massive tip. The only hint I can find is the replacement battery they sell is a 4Wh Ni-Cd which would seem to imply it would run out in a few minutes if it had similar power output (and Ni-Cd has a much lower specific power so likely can't even push that much current). Plus temperature control with a thermocouple close to the tip makes it far easier to get good results without burning things.
a ts100/ts80p/pinecil/any fx951 clone/t12 compatible station would blow this ryobi/888/936 clone/907 compatible out of the water. why? thermal conductivity. the reason why cartridge based systems exist like with the ones i listed in the beginning is exactly that. the older 936/907 design has a removable tip and the heating element is in the handle. with cartridge based systems, the heating element is inside the cartridge and there is no gap or anything inbetween. it is far more efficient. really, if the form factor of the ts100/ts80p/pinecil isnt what youre looking for then just get one of those t12 compatible/fx951 clones. there are ones with an integrated psu.
The butane-powered soldering iron were usefull when I was installing marine communications and navigational equipment in medium size sailboats and powerboats back in the 80's, where a boat at anchorage didnt have 120 VAC "shore power", or you might be working up on the mast, in the cockpit, or on the boat deck where there wasn't an outlet available (for obvious reasons!). The butane iron was great for soldering PL-259's and other large RF connectors.
Was just going to say this. Some of the mobile mechanics in the locale use these things too. Pretty much anywhere where you can expect to not have access to a outlet. They have their uses.
@@venge1894 , of course, ya' gotta be careful with an open flame around car and truck engines, marine engines, and bilges! I do wonder if any of the current crop if battery-powered cordless iron could solder the ground shield of a PL-259 connector; for that, you might need an invertor to provide 120VAC, and a BIG soldering iron, or a Weller 8200 gun.
butane-powered soldering iron one of my most used tool too, i keep one in my car if i somehow ruin my wires(i have alot of them going around), i could get one that works on 12v outlet or make my own one but its easier to use butane one.
@@d_dawg05 I have one of the butane irons for doing the electrical connectors on farm equipment. they also work really well for melting a perfect hole in a plastic sheet to pass cables through without leaving rough edges that will wear the cable over time.
27:30 Personally I prefer Torx screws over Phillips (and god-forbid, flat-head) screws. Much easier to align and nearly impossible to strip, especially because manufacturers commonly use some kind of Loctite on the screws when assembling products. The Nintendo screws are like the worst of both worlds-- uncommon bit AND easy to strip. lol. I have a set of Wiha Torx drivers that are awesome for taking apart all kinds of electronics, all the way down to T1 size. Bonus is that they double as Allen/hex drivers.
Allen screws are also pretty good PROVIDED you use a decent set of allen drivers (i.e. not those god awful L-keys). Wera also makes what are called "hex plus" drivers that have a modified shape which puts more of the driving surface in contact with the insude of the socket. But yeah Torx are the best especially that there are no "metric" or "standard" torx they all use the same drivers.
@@atomicskull6405 Yeah I have some Wera Hex Plus drivers in the L-key format which are pretty nice (probably some of the few L-key types that don't suck). Need to get a set of T-handle ones sometime... just need more desk/storage space first... lol
Yeah honestly I prefer torx as well. As someone who used to be a electronic repair technician torx was far better when I had to take things apart. Far less likely to break from my experience. Torx or Torx Plus is on a lot of insert tooling that I've used. It holds up really well there as well. Torx or Allen is way better than Philip or Flathead for anything that has to be used more than one or two times. Haven't come across hex plus before but it it seems pretty good as well. A bit into that repair technician job I bought a full precision ESD wiha set that comes with the metal holder and each different size/ type is a different full screwdriver. While expensive (350$ ish if I remember right) it was a great investment. That helped a lot on not breaking Phillips as well. Having the right size driver helps a lot on not breaking fasteners. Have it on my workbench at home now and it does have the right size to take that apart and would fit.
I was kinda baffled at the torx part as well. To me torx is a sign of quality and I never use any other head be it the small repairs around the house or building electronics. Philips or PZ is only for those situations when I can't get the correct size screw with a torx head for some reason.
Thanks for letting people know about those cheapo irons at hardware stores. When I was younger and didn't know better i thought soldering was so difficult cause all I had experience with was those crappy non temp control ones. Recently I got a simple one with digital control and man it makes such a difference
My uncle, a long, long time ago, assembled kit radios in his mother's kitchen table, for a soldering iron he used a copper nail held with pliers and heated on the butane range. He sold and repaired radios as a side hustle. I made a solering iron out of a pencil, a small scrap of copper wire snd sone thinner wire strands to hold it together., which worked well enough until I bought a replacement. Both of those options worked better than the shitty irons at the corner shops and hardware stores.
Has nothing to do with temp control, rather it is the type of tip the iron uses. The cheap, screw in type that is nickel plated copper, is difficult to use if you don't constantly file the tip down to clean copper and tin it again, often.
The radio shack pistol grip soldering iron is how I learned to solder, I think if you learn with bad tools at a young age you're really good with proper ones once you graduate to them. Brings back good memories.
I use this iron on occasion, it has yet to fail me. I like that I can store it in a big toolbox and pull it out for a short project without connecting it to the wall. Love it.
And now you know if you don't have access to an extention cable and your batteries are dead you can just take the shell off and pull unscrew the plug bit and plug it into a wall directly
As far as burning the DIN connectors, you actually need a higher temperature. If the temperature is too low, it takes too long to heat the solder and gives the plastic enough time to melt. It shouldn't take more than a second for the solder to melt so that you can get in and out fast.
Big tip and solder bridge 😎 I redid some GE proprietary connectors that were solder pots. They were so thick and the person before me cooked the 14g wire to the point there was no flex. 🙄
Absolutely. When he said that and was then slagging off the simple mains powered irons, I was thinking that this guy doesn't know how to solder! The fancy controlled soldering stations are nice but the basic irons work OK too. Another clue is that he said the tip bend, well they do if you put far too much force into them, trying to get heat into the item, especially if your iron is too cold!
While the iron itself would melt through, the rating is intended to give you an idea how hot the cable itself can actually get. The markings are intended to help you figure out what cable to use for a specific application. Essentially it's saying "Hey if you run enough current through here, it's going to melt and catch fire right about this temperature."
Yeah I really didn't like that this was a significant section of the video. It's the wrong meaning as you said and if that's what he's worried about might as well spend 5 min telling people not to rub the iron on their fingers either. Seems like Ryobi considered this as well with the cool down warning light. But alas can't engineer for every single use case.
No. If your wire is (self) heating up much at all, it is too small a gauge for the design current or the circuit has a fault. On the other hand I do agree that the specs are needed to determine cable compatibility in extreme environments, for example an engine harness or on the space shuttle, inside a toaster oven or curling iron, etc. Most of these applications are also those where you can't use solder, must crimp or weld/etc.
No, it has nothing to do with the current rating. It is to to with where the cord is expected to be. Some devices are made so their power cord will remain cool, and are fine with an 80C one. Some are made such that even the receptacle for the cord can be over 80C, and so need a better cord.
this ryobi has become my daily use solder station. it gets hot nice and quick and holds temp better than any of my other rigs. the extra thick cord is a pain once in a while but im not really bothered. thank you for the video 🤘🦊💜
Reminds me of when I worked with high current circuit breakers on a 130kV facility. Breakers like these uses 4 to 6 large pretensioned springs. Springs that are something like three inches in diameter and three feet (around a meter) long. Pretension in accomplished with electric motors. A particular norwegian made breaker that I had never seen before used... Bosch hand tool power drills with a strap around the button as tensioner motors.
I used to work for TTI, and outside of upper management there's no Milwaukee crossover with Ridgid and Ryobi tools. Hart is basically rebranded Ryobi though. I might be able to get this video to the engineer that works on this tool, they may be able to make some improvements.
Thanks for the info about TTI - I suspected that was largely a myth. People like to look at company ownership and say "oh they're the same company" but that's kind of the *problem* with M&A business culture - businesses largely DON'T truly "merge", and often don't gain any benefits from being part of a larger organization, they operate exactly as they always did but just have to give a chunk of their profits to a parent company. It would probably make a lot of sense to share engineering resources, rather than having a bunch of distinct companies reinventing the wheel, but that's almost never how it plays out. If you're actually able to get some feedback in on this thing (that would be wild!), besides improving the cable, a better detent for the iron holder would be killer - and if they REALLY want to stand out, put high-temp silicone overmold on the barrel nut so you can change tips while hot without pliers. Nobody in the market does that, and it would be a *wildly* user-friendly feature, especially for the home-gamer set that Ryobi seems to target. Heck, overmold the whole barrel, it's not like it's useful for that part to be hot (might interfere with thermal control?)
@@CathodeRayDude I'd also suggest a small fan inside to vent heat out. I don't know how likely it would be that the internals overheat, but this just seems to me a very practical thing that would only cost a few cents.
@@alexs7670 maybe some, but in day to day operations on the engineering side, there aren't shared resources between the Milwaukee engineering team and the Ridgid/Ryobi/Hart team.
I use a ts80p as it can be powered using a USBC charger or power bank which is a bit more compact for my purposes. It came with a really nice, flexible silicone USBC cable
i "upgraded" from a yihua 852d+ to a pinecil and have had no qualms whatsoever. the points cathode ray dude makes at the end of the video are completely true points, but the ergonomics, tiny form factor, complete portability and flexibility of power supplies on top of being dead cheap all make it one of my new favorite tools. if i wanted to use a battery, i could get a big beefy laptop battery that outputs 65 watts and go to town with any old usb c cable. i could get a power supply and have a completely competent soldering station with no added bulk. plus, temp control is on the iron itself, so i wouldn't have to take my eyes off the iron to change temperature. it's extremely impressive for being so cheep
Sounds like the PERFECT "first soldering station" - sufficient to solder your own internals of your own custom soldering station, then gut this one and fill the chassis with the newly made internals with your own, while keeping the soldering iron itself (but swapping the cable).
@@aaaaea9268 as someone who prints in PETG, I beg to differ, if your willing to design it as such and put in the time to print something so overbuilt, you can make boarderline indestructible items (and it's kinda satisfying...)
While working as an intern one of the designs I was working on my boss actually had me research current available solutions for multiple things including retention and signaling which is a good design practice. If someone makes something you can just buy off the shelf then don't recreate the wheel just buy it and use it! I love your analysis here but I also would like to say that buying the AC adapters to put in doesn't surprise me because of how cheap those are and how good they are able to be made at those prices. The fact that some engineer took the time to measure an off the shelf component to buy and slot into place is actually time well spent because they didn't have to pay 3 other engineers to help with electronics and board layout. Also, about the tip, the heater cartridge and tip system looks a lot like my Tenma soldering iron (yeah, go ahead and make fun of me for being cheap) which takes the same tips as RadioShack digital stations so maybe this is actually a connection style that Hakko licenses or is just easy to copy without running into patents. Either way I loved the teardown. Also, my dad has one of those butane ones and actually uses it as a butane torch too which is great when working on large wires or when you need to quickly melt some shrinkwrap... Not very good on complex circuit boards from what I've seen though.
@@DeagleGamesTV Nothing really wrong with using them if they are placed right. If this had more cooling vents and air channels it wouldn't be much of an issue at all for the customer. Also there's still a quality consideration there by the company. You can buy really good quality AC adapters for a higher price, and still come out under on overall product development costs. Or you just have more integrity as a company. Or they can buy the crappy ones that fail all the time. And it really does keep costs down for the consumer in competitive markets. Power tools is a low margin market overall. It's generally around 5-10%. It's highly competitive.
I have had my cordless Ryobi soldering iron for a while now and IMO it's amazing. It's always in my tool bag it has never failed me, so far has performed flawlessly. The cord might be a bit stiff but I can live with that. Since I have had mine I have yet to melt the cord.
I agree. I own both the Weller mentioned and this unit as well, and for on the go / lazy quick jobs, it's done me plenty well. I own a lot of different tools from different companies, and the most recent Ryobi tools aren't bad. They've made their reputation much better in the past few years, and I don't hate any of the ones that I own. The only complaint I've ever had with their products is the battery could last a hair longer.
Lol yeah I've been wondering if someone is careless enough to set a soldering iron on the cord wether or not they should be playing around with heat sources or circuit boards at all.
Having previously worked at a couple of electronic assembly jobs, my favorite iron was Metcal, but cost $800 around 1995. To hand solder well, I learned two tricks. 1) I prefer a hot iron around 800 F. It allows you to heat the joint quickly and then get off before the heat can travel too far. With a cooler iron you have to keep the iron on it longer melting or destroying what it is touching. 2) Flux is your friend. If attaching a wire I tin the wire first before making the joint. I trim the insulation and expose the wire extra long. With the end of the wire pointed down, I touch the iron on it and the solder allowing the solder to melt. I raise the wire up as I drag the soldering tip down and the flux allow the excess solder to pool at the end of the wire. I then trim the wire to the needed length. To solder your DIN plug, pre-tin your wires and cut the exposed portion 1/8”-1/4” long, or the depth of the solder cup. Touch the soldering tip to the plug’s cup with the solder in the hole. Once the solder melts and coats the pin’s cup, stick the tinned wire in the cup and remove the heat. The pin’s cup has good solder and so does the wire so your connection will be good.
I liked the Weller but we all preferred the Hakko soldering stations in mfg. When doing big things it takes more power. I also have Weller soldering guns. I am skilled enough to do printed through hole boards with chips using a 100/140 :) but I also have units up to 260, 340, and more than 400. The bigger ones around 200-240 are great for doing power and headphone jack bodies and metal shields around RF circuits. That 425 unit I have is great for PL-259 connectors and I even soldered closed a freeze crack in one of my waterpipes. I use it to solder copper connections on antennas and other tough projects. All of which require precision but lots of power. Good tip on the Metcal. I will have to look it up.
your tips made a lot of sense ,and they actually worked to boot, most of what i need to solder is tiny , expensive guitar ,and recording gear stuff , with parts i can't tear out of my evil step-daughter's stereo or TV, ( i did steal stuff out of her PS2 ,lol ,,a momentary switch out of the controler, yes i was proud of myself), but anyway, it only seem to happen at like 2 AM or so, and you have to finish recording or you loose the vibe ,and i would always destroy most of what i was trying to solder ,but not now, so thanx
800F is much too hot, you either needed an iron tip with more thermal mass, or were not using a properly plated tip of the right shape to achieve good heat transfer. I agree with much of the rest of what you wrote, but would add that when soldering connectors, it is very helpful to have the mating other end plugged in, which both helps to pull heat away from the pin, and also holds the pin in the correct aligned position if the heat did begin to soften the plastic.
It saves the cost of EMC compliance and safety testing. If Ryobi designed their own they would have to go through compliance testing which adds cost. Many manufacturers also use off the shelf or customized of the shelf bricks. Faster time to market for the product using an already compliant brick.
@@bobsmith3983 Yeah and there's no point it buying a bare one like he thinks they should have. If the price is right, who cares if it is over-engineered?
seeing that cable triggered me too. silicone insulation is the shit you want: it's super flexible, feels nice to the touch, and it simply does not melt, even when it's literally burning! (think of it being polymerised silicate, a.k.a. sand) PS: the perfect general purpose soldering tip, in my experience, is a single flat / beveled tip, of around 3-3.5mm, over those pencil points. the tip has a fine enough edge to work on PCBs, while the flat makes it super easy to feed solder into the joint, and gives you a big contact area, to easily heat up bigger parts.
Having the brick inside is a fantastic combination of brilliant and cost effective engineering (They very likely saved a good amount of certification cost and time to do it that way). But that makes it no less silly looking, and that's OK, if it's stupid and it works etc. The hand feel of a Metcal is wonderful but I can only justify it to myself by doing dumb/intricate rework. Fantastic video!
This comment came really timely. I took apart my fume extractor yesterday and was beside myself with how overpowered the 12V external transformer was for what was effectively a PC fan connected to a potentiometer in a plastic housing. It seemed unreal that they didn’t simply build the power supply into the housing, but your remark about certification cost makes sense.
This is one of the best break down reviews I have ever seen. Please continue to be an AvE for when he is busy actually working! Subbed, liked, loved it!
@Commie Slayer 100% This.... at first I absolutely loved listening to AvE. I find that his videos to be more annoying than funny to me now. I havn't watched one of his videos in a couple years.
Having worked in amusement game repair for 42 years I have to say this is the first unit that would have made my life easier. I'm retired but have used mine several times and it's exactly what was always needed on the road. Teaming up with my Ryobi in-car charger means all my tools will work all day away from plug-in power. For what it is it's 10 out of 10 for me. And the eBay replacement batteries last just as well as Ryobi for half the price. And work in 20 year old Ryobi tools still. There is no better system.
The psu thing is actually really common and in my opinion, providing the units come from a reputable supplier and are of good quality (which seems to be the case given the one in the lamp) its a good thing. As I am sure you are aware a lot of old AV and computer equipment can literally destroy itself because poorly designed power supplies/systems that go bad, the most well known being the Commodore 64's infamous ”Brick of Death” but some early IBM and Apple machines have/had overheating PSU problems. Because these of the shelf units could be used for thousands of different applications the makers/designers have to try to cover all possible issues that could arise, including being in a confined space. Don't get me wrong I don't think for a second this is the real reason they do it, It is more likely they are avoiding some certification costs by having no AC wiring assembly in the case, and if they could do it in an even cheaper and inferior way they probably would.
I see you annotated that Hakko has the "exposed" ceramic heating element as well. I was going to mention that they use the same type on the Hakko 936. And, in my personal experience, the 936 is an absolute workhorse. But I also have one of these Ryobi units that I received for a website reviewed several year back. I'm actually impressed with how well it works. And for a station that can be used anywhere, with battery power, I'd actually recommend it for the home owner or field tech. EDIT: But you do make a good point about the PVC cord tethering the iron to the base.
8:50 - I used SO many of those cheap irons from Radio Shack,for like 30 years. Literally used them until the tip corroded away to an unusable nub,then bought a whole new iron. They worked fine. Temperature control is nice,but often not necessary.
You are a madman then. I used them and for circuit boards they are a nightmare, especially compared to a 120$ Weller. Nothing crazy, but even a cheap intro soldering iron changed my whole game. As did a hot air station.
Same, I have a "nice" iron that I almost never use because one of these is usually closer. Lol Also gotta love an iron you don't mind using to light your cigarette if you lost your lighter.
@@Zahgurym a TS80/100 is decent for that. I never got one but have seen them used in uncomfortable situations and have considered it. It's annoying to have to disassemble things and get them to my bench to fix sometimes. But a 25$ single temp iron would just drive me nuts lol
I tried to go for that too, but it just does not work nearly as well these days. I would assume that a) quality of these went down since and b) wretched lead free high-temp industrial solder. That stuff won't even get soft from many cheapo irons unless you bake the crap out of the joint. That being said, these are amazing for working with plastics.
@@reptilez13 I have a Weller SP25L. It's the same type of those cheap ones but it's actually good quality, over 10 years and it still works fine. The tip has lasted all those years. I have a soldering station now though.
I laughed out loud both times when you revealed the power supplies in these things! The way you put it is perfect: "it's not a bad thing, it's just a bad look". I really like the idea of easily replaceable internal power supplies with cases that make them safe to handle, although the way they're attached to the rest of the system looks a lot less easy to work with...
Now that you phrase it like that, this is pretty much what desktop computers do, using a standardized power supply that is fully built and could be used on its own, and just sticking it inside a case designed to accommodate it.
The problem is that the bricks are usually ultrasonic welded and thus impossible to repair without destroying the outer shell. There is inherently nothing else wrong with those and as you mentioned it's safer to open the case of the soldering station when all the caps of the PSU can't be accidentally touched.
I know that shoving an off the shelf power supply must be a standard thing, I've taken apart a car starter/tire pumper/phone charger/LED lamp thing and the power supply was just a wall wart mounted inside with the prongs sticking out and the bare wires connected directly to a sealed lead acid battery
I wonder if all of their hybrid products are like that. I have a couple of those fans. One time I took a 600 mile trip to the middle of nowhere and forgot the charger to my laptop (but had one of those fans and the right size barrel jack from a different wall wart). If I had known there was one _inside_ the fan, I would have plucked it out and MacGuyver'd one together instead of driving 4 hours to find one! The laptop wants 19v but will take 18v I found. Those fans are a lot smaller though, going to crack one open! Much less amperage for a fan so I wouldn't be surprised just to see a wall wart like you said.
I had a butane soldering iron for years (until it eventually got clogged up with particulate and died). I found the temperature control to be really good, and it was easy to see what kind of temp you were at based on how red the mesh screen on the exhaust was glowing.
Same. I've got a Snap-On that's been working reliably now for years, and never given me so much as a hiccup. Identical (aside from colour and branding) to the Weller Portasol 100K, which isn't surprising since that's who manufactures them for Snap-On. I'd definitely have no qualms whatsoever about buying the same one if mine were to ever irreparably fail.
I've been using a power probe brand butane iron for about 10 years in a shop. I've had to replace the soldering tip, but it has really held up well. Matco truck usually has them.
I have a Ryobi One set. I found it on in a box on the side of the road and it all works perfect! I had to clean it all real good. There's a drill, One battery, a battery charger, big fan, skill saw, Sawzall, stapler nailer, flashlight & vacuum cleaner. There might be more but I don't feel like digging it out to look for it. I like the stuff. I feel like I was blessed pretty good for all being free!
I like the Ryobi tools specifically because everything uses the same battery. They haven't changed the battery in a way that affects compatibility for like 25 years, so I frequently find tools from their older dark blue line at thrift stores that work perfectly fine once I plug a newer battery in. I also gutted an old dead Ryobi Ni-Cd and instead of putting new cells in, I installed a barrel jack so that for lower power devices that aren't hybrid (but could be) such as the older lights, radios, soldering stations, etc, I can just power it from wall power and save discharge cycles on my batteries.
I feel like you’re my friend and we are just sitting around blasting these tools we have to use. You are awesome. Your word section is perfect. Your technical explanations are dead on.
As someone who runs a lab and does this type of work every day for a living, ……life is too short to have soldering iron‘s that don’t utilize soft and flexible silicon leads. Like with a nice high-end multimeter. Not only will you never burn through them, but the flexibility is absolutely mandatory when doing that stuff every day.
I was just thinking the cord would drive me nuts. My weller lead is just so nice and flexable and, i would probably get rid of the ryobi for that reason alone. Not to mention, tools like this may be useful for the hobbyists but no way would i use this or anything that i can buy at home depot or the like for certain stuff in production. They never hold up to the repeated use, i pack my weller in my electronic service case and it goes through TSA several times a week and works flawlessly every time. Try that with a ryobi. But I digress, my needs aren’t the next guy’s needs, that’s why I don’t mind when a regular joe buys junk tools because they don’t need them daily or abuse them like i do.
23:40 I've sometimes assigned a carelessness grade to electronics technicians based on the number of burns/melted spots on their soldering iron cord. If (s)he's burned the cord, likely a number of plastic items in the chassis got melted, too.
Love videos like this, humorous, very informative and talks about the small things that make or break products and the reasons behind why the incorporation of said materials make it bad. Great work sir!
The power supply kind of makes sense if you realise that Ryobi sell in a huge number of places such as here in the UK with our 240 supply. Just slot in a different supply with a different socket - good to go. Very little extra training for the people that put them together. The moulding is all the same.
I recently acquired a nice butane iron and I gotta admit it's really great. There's no temperature readout, but the actual temperature range you can get by changing the flow rate is surprisingly excellent, and the tip heats up incredibly fast compared to my old weller station. I still don't know if it's a full replacement for my electronic station, but these days I find that I pick the butane iron up nearly every time I need to do some quick work just for how easy it is to set up and start. Don't even get me started on the hot knife attachments.
The closest thing to temperature control ive ever had was on my butane iron which you could set from blazing to literall hell on earth. Worked pretty great tough if it wasnt for the tip breaking after a couple of solder jobs
I've used this soldering iron extensively and it's great for what I use it for -- automotive work where I need a soldering iron that I can cram into a small space and do work where there's no plug. Also weirdly it has an incredibly long battery life; or maybe I just have really low expectations of batteries. You didn't complain about the thing I thought you would -- you make a big deal of temperature control, but you don't note on this that the temperature control isn't labeled except for the bottom and top range. It's honestly just a tiny step above no temperature control because you're just kind of guessing. I would have loved for it to have some increment lines on it personally, or maybe some lines for some common temps. By not marking the temperatures in a meaningful way, they're allowing it to be pretty loosey goosey without making it look like it's loosey goosey :)
Oh I'm pretty sure the temp control is terrible. I mean, something's better than nothing, and I intend to investigate later and see what it's actually sending on the power line to the heater, but I wouldn't be surprised if this thing wobbles all over the place. They likely didn't mark it because that would make the labels more of a lie than they already are, heh.
@@CathodeRayDude I would *love* to see the results of this. I was tempted to try to find this out myself, but I don't have a thermometer that won't be destroyed by soldering iron levels of heat :) So I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Similar to the phone charger cords, I really like the woven cloth cords that we had in the 60's. Those are awesome and I am glad they brought them back in a modern form. I am sure someone with a soldering iron (pun intended) could replace the existing cord with a woven cloth cord. As for temp, there are many cloth like materials (not asbestos) that can handle the heat. We use them in gloves, etc.
The butane irons are actual better than you think. I used them extensively to fix motorcycles for fun. I did it in a shed that had no power and it just made sense. I've redone a whole wiring harness with one and ridden that bike a few thousand miles. There is just a few weird quirks like you need to pay attention to where the exit hole is that the flame exhausts because it can melt plastic. There is also kinda temperature control with the gas regulator.
Worth noting also that you don't light a fire when using a butane iron. The fuel flows through the catalyst and oxidizes without a flame generating heat but with more control. Since there's no flame, you can control the heat just by reducing the amount of fuel hitting the catalyst. Considering you can get a serviceable butane iron for under $5, it's a pretty great cost/performance ratio.
This has been on my wish list for a little while and I think I still want one. I use ryobi tools every day and yes they are not really professional quality but they are affordable and decently built.
The TS100 is amazing for DIY electronics. Reliable and quick. I even 3D printed a little soldering station for it with some washers and nuts for holding the hot parts and keeping the whole thing nicely weighted down. The whole setup fits well on a wooden tray, which is great as I have even less working space then you do!
My guess on the differences between the power supplies is that the smaller one is higher quality because there is a visual indicator if it isn't. The light flickering.
@@RhizometricReality Yeah it almost seems worth it to replace the cable but looking at the tear down that doesn’t really seem feasible. That’s too bad. Hopefully Ryobi will get the message and improve the product
I never laughed so hard the second you popped that open. Was not expecting that. Now I'm paranoid that all my devices are hiding rando off the shelf encased power supplies with hidden "never see light" leds hidden inside.
Wait until you see nock off laptop chargers !!!!!!. They have leds even when you will never see them. Many chargers do no have leds when original, HP for example. So their casing do not expose this crappy led ... but they dont feel cheap enough to take the horrid led out. And this is only the cosmetic part, just wait to see the soldering and isolation separation .... ticking bombs. And dont put tons of effort researching ... they clone even the small detail
Sound engineer here- I have that same Weller. It’s great. Chose it over the digital ones. For soldering connectors like you mentioned (DIN I think you called it?) which look similar to xlr- seems counterintuitive but use HIGHER temp so your work gets to temp faster, meaning you don’t sit there holding the iron to the work as long, decreasing the total amount of heat soak applied. Similar concept to welding. Hahahaha I had that exact butane iron. It was a great novelty/ for remote use
Also, plug the connector you're soldering, into its mating connector so if the plastic were to melt a little, the contacts will stay in the right position. It can also help to tin (plate with solder) the contact, if you can do so without filling it too much to get the wire in), using a shorter amount of heat than if the wire were inserted first, and tin plate the wire, let both cool, then do the final reheating.
Honestly, I think that my favorite solution for portable soldering is a TS-100 + Milwaukee Top off. I really like the temperature control and digital interface.
I run mine on 3d-printed Ridgid battery pack adapters, unless I'm at the workbench, where I'll use a an adjustable DC power supply. Xt60 connectors on either side so I can switch wire length. TS100 and a Pinecil, have multiples of each and tons of tips because they're dirt cheap, I can use 'em in the field on pretty high temp alloys without constantly burning my dumb ass on a gas jet. I have stacks of soldering stations and irons of all sorts and I use a Pinecil most by far. My joints are f'n beautiful.
Oh and Ridgid batteries specifically because they warranty all batteries for life now. They don't know how the hell you burnt it out, you just make a call and get a free replacement.
Also I use hi temp soft silicone 14, 16, or 18awg paired wires, very soft and easy to move around. I can hang the cord over my shoulder and overheard soldering with a face shield & it's damn near perfect for anything that doesn't need a couple hundred watts or a torch. Ridgid battery adapter's ten inches or so of 10awg wire -> Xt60 -> 5S BMS (pretty sure it's unnecessary but better safe than sorry), super soft silicone like probemasters and such, as long as I please like a 4', 6', 10', and so on -> xt60 -> device adapter -> device Marvelous under a car, I have stacks of gas irons I'll probably never use again. Target temp in 10-20 seconds, then cool enough pull the but out in 60-90 seconds.
I spent a good portion of time with *that exact model* of butane soldering iron because both wired ones we had either broke, or had the tip completely oxidized off. There is some ability to control temperature by varying the size of the flame, but it's not really precise (though, the one I use now doesn't have anything other than a dial marked 1 through 9, so it's only slightly better). They actually work decently well, if you don't mind the smell of butane, the fact that all the hot parts are exposed and right next to your fingers (like, closer than usual), and that it's got very little thermal mass of it's own, but... yeah I'd gladly take something better any day.
@@CathodeRayDude Honestly if I knew where ours was I'd just toss it in a USPS envelope, not like we use it anymore. Though it probably got lost last move.
I would recommend the power probe butane iron the only complaint I have with it is you have to be aware or where the exhaust hole for the flame is pointing or you might burn something, but it solders surprisingly well
Wow! I guess i was expecting a big surprising fail at the end but instead, just got the tool version of a great vacation. All about the journey, not the destination. Crazy discoveries all through an extremely thorough tear down w heaps of passionate opinions, all culminating in a confidently voiced judgement of "a product". Yep. You want a product? Well, this may just be what you're after! It is, in fact, produced! 🤣🤣
The work mat and wrist straps are wired together and there is also a long wire on a clip that you ground _somewhere_ . Since the station is battery powered, it has to tie into the ESD's provided ground anyway. For portable jobs, I have a mat that has a pocket like an apron, and I fold it in quarter to stow it. Inside are the wrist straps and other equip. grounding clips. I'll usually clip the ground to the chassis of the PC I'm working in, and I've heard some people replace the power cord on the PC (or whatever) with one that _only_ has the ground pin connected.
Shocks come from any voltage difference, not just ones to ground. By connecting the work to the iron with a large resistor in the middle you can safely normalize and voltage difference without the risk of arcing
I loved the Cold Heat irons for soldering my model train rails together. The isolated solder joint didnt melt the rails and actually did work perfectly for that. Couldn't use it on anything else.
Seems almost like something that could be handy to quickly spot-weld small battery terminals. (Maybe that's why he still has it?) But not so hot for regular soldering for the reasons mentioned in this video.
You know all things considered, this doesn’t actually seem like too bad of a soldering iron. It’s goofy that it has a laptop power supply hiding inside there, but at the same time I sort of find that charming in a sense. It’s like a project that a hobbyist would make; why engineer your own power supply where you have a risk of breaking everything when you can just outsource this to an external entity and let them worry about the details?
Omg I lost it when you revealed the power supply! Was NOT expecting to see that. I've taken apart a lot of electronics in my life and this is a new one.
Actually a place for irons that don't have temp control where they can be useful, is stained glass windows. I have some antique soldering irons (wood handles, cloth power cords) and I've been told they're just about perfect for lead working on stained glass windows.
even though - by that point - we all kinda knew what was coming, I think we were all still a little surprised, and a little delighted; who could ask for more than that?
the tapering screw holes is likely so when you drop the screw into the hole it will end up in the hole instead of on a edge. so they were like "hey we are going to cheap out with these small screws we might as well make it easier get them in the screw holes." which is a nice thought if they used something like a flathead screw which gives you 0 control on position. but they went with torx. i actually think the power brick inside the product is a brilliant bit of cost engineering. the cost to make a good power supply in house or commissioned with proper certification is probably more expensive then buying what is likely a very high production psu. it also gives the benefit of the extra heft from the plastic. that being said the pvc insulation is not the best choice and the short cables could have been lengthen of not that much more.
No, they didn't. That thinking would suggest that they expect or want the consumer to be taking out and replacing screws, and on such a regular interval that the assistance would be appreciated. An absolutely ridiculous supposition. The holes are tapered specifically as a soft anti-tampering method - Which is why they use Torx heads, too. That's why _anyone_ uses Torx heads. One of the most ridiculous things I've read. -They did it to make it easier to put the screws in. I literally can't even.
@@UnitSe7en someone has to assemble the units in the first place. making them easier to assemble - by making screws fall into their holes - is a huge part of designing for manufacture. Not everyone is out to get you. Also btw tin foil is not actually made out of tin... think about THAT instead.
@@cheater00 yes, they only think of the ease and speed of assembly, having the screws automatically drop in the right place so the assembly worker then just needs to tighten it with a torque limited power driver and a suitable long-shank bit (the need for a proprietary bit is no problem in factory assembly) instead of having to chase the hole with the screw may save several seconds for every screw which will amount to a lot of time when assembling hundreds of units per day. So they don't make them hard to service on purpose, they give no thought whatsoever to serviceability as these are not meant to be serviced, they make them as easy and fast as possible to assemble because it saves them time and time is money. Many manufacturers DO apply anti-repair features but tapered screw holes and torx screws are not that, they are simply used to make the assembly faster. Torx actually USED to be an anti-repair measure but nowadays they are so commonplace that the tools are easily and cheaply obtainable to anyone so they are used because of their superior mechanical properties and suitability for mass production using power drivers.
I find that build in power adapter rather smart. You can re-use already existing product and just integrate it saving cost and time. Also, if you don't need the hybrid mode, you can do some weight saving by removing that power adapter and maybe even using it for some other project.
Also, it would be easier to repair if you can just buy the power brick easily. Just like with monitors. Some people complain when they have an external power brick, but I prefer to have one. If the monitor ever dies because of the power supply(chances are that if anything dies, it's gonna be the PSU), you just get another power brick AND you don't have to crack open the monitor or source some specific, probably overpriced, power supply unit.
And if you have no batteries or an extension cable you can take the shell off unscrew the plug end of the power brick and run the cable out the back put the shell back together and now you have a standard solder station you can plug into an outlet directly or like someone else said we don't get these in the UK he bought one from the USA that has the US plug seems its 240v he now knows he can replace it with a UK plug and use the hybrid feature if he has no charged batteries
I think the point of those butane ones is more so for field soldering when you're splicing wires and such. My friend is a generator tech and he uses one on the regular because most of the time you're not right next to an outlet. I also have one, and have used it to splice some wires on my car together with an actual solder joint instead of a flimsy crimp. It works pretty well for fairly thick wires, but I certainly would never dream of using it on a PCB or micro joint.
I've soldered plenty over the past year or two, and even with the 110 wall plug irons, never burnt a joint or scrapped a pcb from too much heat. I have used a temperature control unit, and really could not tell a difference between the 2 irons, it was a nice Weller temp control unit, vs a 10 dollar Walmart iron. Both felt great on wire, pcb, super easy
The downside is waiting ten minutes between joints if you have an open window with a mild breeze. I've done a lot better work with the trash iron, too. I think it forces me to work very, very slowly whereas before id probably have the big iron cranked to 400 impatiently burning everything
@@chris7868 same, working witha better iron I'm actually more likely to screw something up, maybe because I learned on an iron I got for literally 9 bucks
Add me to the list of someone who’s done a ton of soldering on PCBs with only using a decent quality, non adjustable heat, soldering iron. When I worked in an electronic repair shop which had a better soldering station, we rarely were adjusting the temperatures. For someone who professed multiple times that “I’m not very good at soldering” the author seems more attracted to the bells and whistles than an inexpensive, solid, functional tool that gets the job done.
I'm an EE who has designed several commercial products that use open fram power supplies. Even if you use a ul listed open frame power supply you still had to get ul cert ($10000-$20000) due to the use of assembled AC wires in your product. By using the built on cable it saved alot of time and cost. Ps actually have one of these that I use all the time. I love the thing. Thanks for the info on the replacement tips.
Thank you for this input! That really explains it and now that you put it that way it makes perfect sense. Also, good to hear that it was a solid purchase, hah!
Right, we always had to do FCC and UL certification for the product, even FCC or UL certified parts were used. As the setup changes parameters. It is also the reason why many stuff from here do not consider cert as they at first thought it would be OK and then found out the cost of this process. A lot of smaller companies from here won't ship from China to the US anymore. Super quality but budget got spend on that or looks instead... And that is why you see a lot of crap: as these don't care as they can flood and be profitable. Another ecample of FCC parameters changing is that Lenovo disallowed mini pcie to be used internally in the Tiny Thinkcentres like M93 (besides certified and tested combination) so they locked this in the bios with a white list for support.
@@gbraadnl Lenovo aren't the only ones to do that. Certification is a nice cover story but I think their real motivation for the whitelist is to force customers into buying upgraded parts from them. As long as they sell a configuration that meets current local emissions regulations then they are off the hook -- it's on the consumer to maintain compliance. It's also worth noting that the WiFi cards themselves are certified. It doesn't make sense to restrict what is installed after purchase since the manufacturer is no longer responsible for it, the laws could have changed, and/or the laptop may have been relocated to a new region with different laws that require changing the card. The antenna's radiation pattern isn't going to change depending on the card it is connected to, even more so since the WiFi cards will have met strict standards for characteristic impedance and transmitted power. It's really quite a BS excuse that the whitelist has anything to do with certification or ERP. There's plenty of other RF equipment that is sold without antennas or with no provisions for preventing the user from changing the antenna.
@@CathodeRayDude Ts100 can run through 18650s and is amazing.
That doesn't seem like a lot of money. How much of these things do they make? Hundreds of thousands? With those numbers, the money you save by going with an open frame power supply makes up. It's also a waste of material to have an encased power brick inside of the thing. Plastic doesn't grow on trees!
"I hate using bad tools even if I'm gonna do a bad job with them anyway." Man, I felt that one too hard.
Once you start appreciating good tools, not necessarily expensive, but quality ones, you can never use cheap stuff again.
Bad tools are really annoying, they feel wrong when you pick them up.
a good tool in amateur hands will do worse than a bad tool in professional hands in many circumstances but a bad tool is a bad tool and will cause more damage to the product than a good tool in anyone's hands
@@frogz Sometimes you work with what you have. As a kid, I had a 35w pencil soldering iron, but it did work for wiring, but not so good at ICs.
@@the_kombinator i use a weller gun for qfps, use what ya got
That is fantastic, ha! At least the thing was manufactured with bare wires on the end. Imagining a barrel jack hidden away inside of a soldering iron is quite the amusing thought though.
I guess the last bit of the wire is bare, but given that rest of the cord is insulated I feel "unterminated" would be aa better description.
Hi Clint, always nice to see you using your work account for private viewing
I love that you're seemingly a big fan of Cathode Ray Dude. It shouldn't be surprising, as you both share quite a few similar interests. But still, it's heartwarming to know that someone who works so hard to provide fun & fascination for the world also gets to relax and appreciate great videos, because there are others who create equally fantastic content that you can enjoy!
Long live the New Media!
I can't get over how grateful I am that independent creators such as yourselves are now able to reach an audience who appreciates you. I shudder to think of all the great talent and wonder that the world was deprived of when ruled under the old networks and production companies. Together, we should all fight to ensure that creativity stays independent, lest the dinosaurs of old rise and seize back control once again ('cause they damned sure are trying)!
It's time to investigate 🔎🤔🔮🗿🚬
Where I used to work, we dealt with these all the time
I’m a retired engineer. You spoke about the build quality of the internal PCB and the fact that they had not cleaned it. In recent years manufacturers have developed what is known as “no clean flux.” It contains no corrosive or conductive chemicals, dries hard so it does not attract dust, and does not need to be cleaned. The items you pointed out as rework on the PCB are more likely through hole components that can not be soldered in the same oven as the SMD parts. I also don’t think wire length has anything to do with cost, it has more to do with fitting everything into the box. You see this with many electronic products, even very high-end ones. About the only build issue that I think is a real problem is the PVC cable. I’m not sure why they made that choice, probably a cost thing. But it is a deal killer for me as well.
As far as not needing to clean flux off products... pure rosin core flux without a corrosive ingredients has been available for 50 years , and is not expensive. also a few seconds in an isopropanol alcohol bath is not difficult.
@@Geopholus Except you can't really bath a board that has wires soldered on it. Your bath content will creep into the wires, denature the flame retardant (if any) and lower their lifetime. I'm quite sure the boards have been cleaned after the SMD process, but not after the wires and TH soldering.
Ahem. Rosin core is corrosive, that's what flux IS. Some are just more active than others, but rosin is mildly hygroscopic so can cause problems in humid areas. Also, merely dunking it into an alcohol bath for a few seconds will not remove it. It needs abrasion/scrubbing or a much longer agitating bath for removal, which isn't really needed if they simply use no-clean flux/solder instead.
There are many steps in design and manufacturing that could be idealized but in the end it has to be weighed what the benefit is vs all the extra costs. That does not mean that I feel a few cents more spent here or there, wouldn't be worthwhile but remember what Ryobi is, TTI's consumer grade brand for tools rather than contractor or pro grade. @@Geopholus
@@Geopholuslol
With determination, one can fabricate a silicon-jacketed cable for this beast.
If you struggle to solder connectors and regularly melt the pins, make sure you are connecting the connector to its mate. It prevents the pins from walking from the heat and keeps them straight while soldering. It also and gives the pins more metal to dissipate the heat and prevent melting the plastic
Great tip! I was melting XT60 connectors til I upgraded from a pathetic 30w iron with junk solder to a 65w with decent solder. The solder was the biggest issue.
There are a lot of very badly made connectors around today. Instead of the insulation being made of decent thermoset plastic it is made of something easy to mold and super cheap like polypropylene. That, combined with poor quality plating in pins, makes some of them almost impossible to solder well no matter your level of expertise.
That said, there _is_ considerable art in soldering wires to connectors. One of the most common errors I see is improper feeding of cored solder. It must be fed so that the flux flows over the joint before the molten solder does. I've seen videos that supposedly are teaching soldering where the solder is touched to the iron tip and allowed to flow onto the work. That is just wrong. A lot of people seem to want to slop extra flux all over everything. In the vast majority of cases that is completely unnecessary if your technique is good. I _do_ like to use a tiny amount of low-solids liquid flux for tinning small stranded wires to be soldered to certain types of very small connectors and sometimes use rosin paste flux for tinning large stranded wires, but other than that I very rarely use extra flux. I'd be extremely surprised if the number of joints I've soldered is less than a hundred thousand.
@@d614gakadoug9 Is that all 100K? I've done millions.
@@d614gakadoug9any videos or channels you recommend where I could pick up knowledge and tips from? Preferably with DC, stranded wire type stuff
I have enough knowledge to know when I'm watching someone who doesn't really have a understanding of the fundamentals, or why they're doing something a particular way. I often hear the statement "been doing it this way for so and so years, never had an issue" or similar, which is fine but when their intention is to help viewers it doesn't exactly provide much meaningful value.
Combine that with poor video or audio and you've got A LOT of video to sift through and waste time on lol
another tip, instead of plugging the male connector you are soldering, push its pins into potato or an apple or such.
This method worked wonders for me =)
One advantage of those "internal" power supplies is that they can replace these with supplies for different regions without redesigning the whole tool.
I considered that, but I'm pretty sure the opening in the chassis is sized for a US plug and would not fit any others, and from what I've been told (and what research I've been able to do) the "hybrid" feature is US-specific, likely for that reason. In the UK, ostensibly, these just run off of battery only.
Unless they are really cheapest out on psu it should handle 100-240v 50-60hz easily
I was wondering this as well however I have a Bixolon Thermal Printer here where they also put a power brick in the case. It doesn't have a cable on it though, just a socket for a C13 plug (I hope that's what it's called), which would make it even easier to ship it around the world I guess
@@virtualtools_3021 I actually says that right on the case of the supply.
@@CathodeRayDude we dont have these type of extension cables in the uk, where you can just connect them to a male plug like that. They would have to use an IEC type inlet for here.
I have both versions of soldering iron. I’m not an electronics professional, I’m a field service mechanic and the cheap version has fixed everything from a stranded boat on the water to a forestry mulcher stuck deep in the bush. They both work really well I’ve never burned the cable feeding the iron just as I’ve never burned through my hoses on my acetylene torch. Maybe not for the electronics professionals but for the rest of us it sure beats the old butane butchery of yesterday.
Thank you. that was the idea i had while watching. hes acting like this product is a full electronics professional kit and not just a here you go for the occasional solder when needed. it works fine. ive got one and ive never burned the wires, nor had any issues with it. though i already suspected the way the 120 volt supply was just by looking at mine and going... heeeeeeeyyyyy wait a minute that looks like a totally normal bi pin plug sand witched in place im gonna bet that they just shoved a power supply into the unit and called it a day.
honestly i think they missed a good little trick they could have added and sold as a feature. move the plug somewhere else and add the ability to charge a battery. i know its not the most useful idea, but the power supply outputs 18 volts. same as the battery so all they would really need is the same logic that their chargers have which after taking apart a tiny ryobi charger i have... the charging circutry. is really pretty basic. seems like the batteries themselves handle quite a lot of the aspects of the charging and discharging as well as the over and under voltage stuff.
@compzac The batteries do have the bms board built in on top of the battery pack.
For soldering DIN plugs, just use the potato trick:
Ram the plug into a raw potato, it will hold the plug for you and the wet inside of the potato helps cooling the pins so the plastic won't melt.
At least some one on this channel knows what his talking about, used the same trick myself, I manufactured 4 ply boards for computers in the 80s, with a non temp controlled weller soldier iron, never had a problem I did 1,000s over my time, and you don't need to apply any pressure to the tip of Iron, those people that talk about soldier Irons need to know what there taking about first.
or just plug it into a mating connector/cable in case there's no potato at hand ^^
@@videomentaryproductionschannel Exactly. Unless you're being lazy and using the soldering iron tip to scrape through the oxide layer on some solder blobs, you really shouldn't need to apply much pressure at all to the tip of the soldering iron. The trick is lots of flux and flowing new leaded solder into the existing solder to make it more workable. Also, using the right size of tip and soldering iron for the job. If you have to apply a lot of pressure on a wire junction to get it to soldering temp, it's likely because your iron is too small or it's unable to output enough heat to soak the wires.
And you get a baked potato at the end!
This Pace instruction video on cup terminals is invaluable: th-cam.com/video/_GLeCt_u3U8/w-d-xo.html
If you haven't already try Kester #186 liquid flux, the stuff is great. You can get it off ebay in little syringe bottles. I was disappointed that they stopped making the Kester flux paste but once I tried the #186 liquid now I see why. If you absolutely must have paste Caig / Deoxit flux paste is a decent alternative to the out of production Kester.
MG Chemicals RA is very powerful flux, but too good in some cases. It promotes too much wicking in stranded wire and it also needs to be cleaned. But it has it's uses in difficult soldering jobs.
I think using external power supplies encased in plastic housings is actually a step up for cheap products. Having one power supply design used in lots of products will most likely have a better average reliability than random cheap internal designs that are not standardized. Plus replacement is infinitely easier if the power supply does die!
Can't argue with that!
Plus, (assuming you know it's in there if it does) you can at least salvage a nice, safe supply before recycling the rest of it.
I've gotten a few from laser printers I've salvaged recently, way more reusable than power supplies on pcb only.
@@NVRMTmotion good point
@@NVRMTmotion
Very good point.
I lately became a horder of all sorts of chargers. I keep all chargers before binning devices.
Some of the chargers that come with some devices are cheaply made and they break or get faulty easily. So having spares is a bonus. Plus some mobile phones stoped supplying the chargers with the phone. So better keep the spare ones we already have just in case.
A plastic case power supplie in a plastic case will get realy hot. Ist will fail much faster than an open one. Its built with minimal effort, this is not always bad but i would not do it this way. Also very wasteful solution, very Chinese type of thinking.
I’ve owned the smaller version of this for several years. It has handled everything I could throw at it and even surviving a rollover collision when some chucklehead ran a red light and rolled me over. It ended up underneath one of my toolboxes and submerged in oil. 18 months later it still works, and only occasionally reeks of burning oil.
Yes, he's ripping on it but they work great.
That last sentence. 🤣
@@deusexaethera To be fair the soldering iron part was completely submerged in oil when I found it 2 days after the wreck. I cleaned it up and flushed it out with some solvent but I never could get all of it. The first time I powered it up it reeked of burnt oil but I kept it running and the smell went away. If I used it often there is no smell but if it sits for a few weeks I guess some more oil wicks it's way in from wherever it's hiding and it smells like burning oil for a few minutes. I've just learned to power it up before I use it inside a hospital or somewhere else where people might object. It's getting fainter. It's still the best portable soldering iron I've ever used.
If it died today I'd go buy another one without hesitating. Rattling around in a service truck for years, getting rained on, dropped, smashed by a toolbox and submerged in oil hasn't exactly been an easy life for it, but the thing still works great. It's already lasted longer than my last 3 corded irons and at least two butane ones that were kept in the same environment.
Those inverters are life savers! When the power was out during freezing temps, I had one and was able to store electricity in my batteries, recharge them in the garage so no door needs to be cracked to use the generator.
This is actually remarkably well made to use the bear minimum of parts and have the least assembly required. Some modeller did a great job to let others be lazy.
Actually sums up every ryobi product ive ever had to use.
That thing is going to get hot very easily.
@@mickalinjezerx7104 That all depends on how efficient the circuitry is. The power supply's won't get any hotter then the one on your lap top so there's no worry there and that control board doesn't look like it was designed to pass much current through it so I doubt it will get very hot. Designers know better then to design products that trap heat because heat is the number one killer of electronics and that means products get returned and manufacturers loss money.
@@iamjackalope You describe literally thousands of products. It doesn't matter how good the is. As far as I know where there is energy carries Heat.
@@iamjackalope well I never had a laptop but I have had a hot phone before.
Caught this on my 5th re-watch of this video: Last year I bought a no-name Chinese “probably won’t set your place on fire” soldering station from Amazon and it also had the ceramic pencil style heating element. I can confirm that they’re super fragile and, despite the “engineering” steps taken to protect the element from taking the force as you described, it did, in fact come conveniently pre-broken from the factory. The manufacturer must have known that this was a likely situation to happen so they actually included a spare element in the box. The kicker is that replacing the element involves having to solder the new leads. 🙄
Reminds me of a joke discussion I had a while ago of "how did we solder together the first soldering iron?"
@@joshm264 very carefully
@@joshm264: The first soldering irons were heated in a fire or on top of a stove.
@@joshm264 lol i made a soldering iron for that, it's basically a resistance waterheater wire heating a thick copper wire, no solder.
@@edwatts9890 i did that too, it's best if you have a bigass piece of copper
"I never felt like using fire in my domicile, or even my subicile"
This had me dyinf
I bet you could use the Cold Heat in a subicile.
Makes you think twice about that e stim device video 👀 lol
Is this like a dominant submissive joke?
@@peterw1534 yes
Thanks, I didn't have closed caption on, and didn't catch the subicile part. LOL.
Keeping the plug on the power supply is a stroke of genius. I love Ryobi. It works for me as a home owner/rancher.
I brought one of these because of your video. I have been through so many irons and this has been the best I have had. The fact that it's hybrid is what sold it for me. I do a lot of RC racing of various genres and this has saved the day on so many occasions as of late. Thank you for the time in reviewing it.
came for that reason as a fellow RC driver this is nice and i need to pick one up as soon as posible.
tho the iron that conect directly to a 2S lipo is a good choice for emergencies to bring out to the tracks.
I've been using a Hakko FX-901 for over a decade now for lightweight tasks, and it's worked very well for me. No, it doesn't have temperature control, but a set of 4 NiMH AA cells will give you over an hour of runtime, and you can put the cap back on it while still hot. Of course, it has relatively low thermal mass so it can't take the place of a proper soldering station, but for small parts (Game Boy mods, replacing capacitors, etc) it's very convenient.
Huh! It looks so simple, but I guess if it does the job!
I got the nice FX-1001 still 🤣
Who else read this comment in Colin’s voice?
I've got one of those hakko ones, too. It's fine for emergency stuff.
Can't be more than 20w iron if 4 aa nimh cells will run it for a hour.
I have used a butane soldering iron a lot, probably close to 200 times. Working on ships masts. The temperature control is there, it gets to temp quickly and stays hot up in the breeze. You can also use heat shrink with it and don't have to fumble with a cord while climbing. We bring a plug in electric one, but I've never seen anyone use it. That said, if we can do the soldering at a proper station before climbing then we will, especially if it's a lot of soldering, or we need a vice or something.
I've pulled apart tonnes of electronics, and i have to say the design of this thing is actually quite elegant.
The fact that the power supply is fully contained in a closed frame pack is awesome. Imagine you go to add some water to your sponge and you mess up and dump water on the unit. That pack inside that houses all the high voltage is completely water tight.
I know, not a super likely scenario, but if that plus the other things like not cleaning of flux (which would be an utter waste of time) help to keep the costs down then I'm all for it.
A lot of products now leave the flux on the PCB. It's some form of newer flux that doesn't become corrosive, so cleaning it off is a waste of time and money for the factory.
This guy is full of 💩💩💩. He obviously has a biased opinion of Ryobi tools. He cried and cried through this whole video. I don't take my tools apart for no reason. I prefer to work with them not purposely destroy them like this🤡
I worked with a lot of strain reliefs at UL when i worked there. That strain relief is pretty solid looking. There would be so much friction that the narrow teeth biting into the cable are probably not likely to cause much, if any, damage over the life of the product.
I've already killed a cable in a ryobi soldering iron in less than a year of ownership. I just replaced the cable with some more heavy duty wire. Hasn't missed a beat since
Dude side note your company blows my mind UL listings are everywhere and your field guys for recertification are super helpful.
I work with PVC cabling all the time. Hang the base in place on a wall, then hit the jacket with a heat gun or blowdryer. Nice even heat, a bit of weight, and some patience, you will remove all of the natural curls. The jacket expands, then contracts to the new shape. It will behave much better after that. You can also wind it around a dowel to give it a tight curl like a phone cable. Handy.
Completly agree, i do that to basically any new thing with a cable. But pvc cable is still not a good choice for soldering iron. Its much stiffer than it should be. Rubber is better but silicone is excellent
@@Boz1211111 Far less than ideal yeah, but it can be worked with if you're on a budget and have some patience.
I often sort of nest the cable in a towel then blast it with a hot hair dryer. Once it is uniformly quite hot i'll work out the worst "kinks" by hand if necessary then hang it to cool, sometimes with another heating just before hanging. It is a horrible time waster but can make abominable cables into merely not-very-good ones.
Replaced mine with a nice soft rubbery cord from Hakko 😅
Wow I'm stupid. You're a bloody genius, I know what I'm doing today!
I've been liking my TS80P for portable soldering. I chose it over the TS100 because it uses USB Power Delivery instead of flat pack/drone batteries. I have an 18W PD battery pack that works wonders, and it can also use my laptop PD charger. Gets hot enough for any of my little projects and has swappable tips.
I have the same for the same reason. Love it.
I was going to comment this same thing. The TS80p is absolutely tiny and heats up in seconds. Absolutely my favorite purchase.
After going through two soldering stations, the TS80P is my new daily driver.
The TS80p and TS100 are incredible the Pinecil is also really great as well.
TS100 is usb power compatible as well.
Stumbled across your channel via the algorithm. At first glance I was like "who is watching a 47m video on a soldering station?". But here I am, 37m in, and I'm genuinely impressed. Youve dug into this at the level I like to see. Truly worthwhile content. Earned my sub.
Same! I've soldered exactly 5 joints, ever. Still watched the whole video lol
@@jonpearson6279 I've soldered 0 joints ever but I've smoked countless joints 😉😂
meeee tooooo!!!!!
Same thoughts here, and now it has over a million views… for a soldering vid! Who knew?
Agree
I took a broken blue-bosch 18V charger, and removed the internals, put in a 5-20V to 60W USB-PD PCB, 3d printed a little attachment piece, and soldered the wires from the battery terminals to it. So now I can power my Pinecil from my batteries that I use with my other tools that I keep in the van. Plus it doubles as a huge powerbank for my laptop, and other devices.
To me, the bare ceramic is what I think of as standard under the tip. I think every iron I've ever used is like that. No need to make the heat transfer less efficient. With the tip screwed down, you won't have any force being applied to it.
Came here to say the same thing. My best station is a hakko and it's got the bare ceramic same as the cheap ones I've got from Chinese brands. They all work fine, I've never considered that a weakness.
Ye. First time I saw it, I was concerned about how brittle it might be, but in practice never had it crack. It should be held in place and not rattle around - If it rattles it's not making contact and transferring heat.
Hakkos do at least have a replaceable ceramic element from what I remember. Some of these are likely built in a way that you can't get it out without destroying the handle.
Arguably using the ceramic core is less efficient than integrating the heating element directly into the tip, downside of doing that makes the tips more expensive and potentially harder to swap out. TS100 uses such tips.
It's been the standard for over 20 years, he needs to do more research when doing a video.
I don't know what I was expecting to be inside there, but it certainly wasn't that power supply 😱
Honestly, I trust its reliability more after seeing them just cram an entire pre-built DC power brick into the thing. It means that it's a component that works regardless of their engineering and they haven't messed with it.
I have a Caterpillar branded car jump starter that was built just like this.
I'm old school enough that I was expecting the thing I always used to find in cheap but 'sturdy feeling' items... a big chunk of cheap pig iron glued into the bottom of the case.
The tapered screw holes was probably also a cost-saving measure. Very minimally more plastic, to reduce the chances workers will get stuck fumbling around with lining up the screw head to the hole down in there, the taper just makes it magically happen so they can hurry up cinch it down and ship it.
I've opened some radios with such deep screw holes,
If they don't have the tapering, I can't know if the screwdriver is really in the slot or is it between the screw and the plastic.
I broke a lot of plastic because I thought I was turning the screw but I was actually using the tip of screwdriver as a lever against the screw to break the plastic...
@@phs125 My own experiences with non-tapered holes is what gave me the thought that this was their purpose too lol
My guess would be they're tapered for better release from the injection mould but that would definitely be an added benefit.
@@zachmiller9175 That's a good thought, that is possible, though if they're machined nice and tight to a 90-degree vertical it should theoretically yield the same results or even better results with releasing as there is less surface area contact with just a straight cylinder rather than a cone shape, but I wouldn't know as I'm not in the PIM industry. I just got to thinking about how tapers are used to *secure* things sometimes, even tooling and chucks.
@@AToolWithTools this is the exact reason, anyone who watches AvE or another hacky tool-abuseing channel like this that has ever heard of the term Draft angle/relief, it is required for injection molding
0.5 degrees on all vertical faces is strongly advised. 1 to 2 degrees works very well in most situations. 3 degrees is minimum for a shutoff (metal sliding on metal). 3 degrees is required for light texture (PM-T1).(stolen from the web)
Thanks!
I definitely appreciate the use case larger, more "industrial-style" soldering iron stations. Honestly for me, I only do soldering on a small scale (hobby stuff type boards, microcontrollers and all that fun stuff), so the TS1000/Pinecil/etc is very convenient, since I'm surrounded by USB-C cables and chargers (but not really any large 18v power tool stuff) and it's nice and small (feels just like another electronic gadget lol). Totally fits my workflow, but I can see why it doesn't fit yours (and your concerns with the rigid connectors).
I have begun using soldering tips that screw into vape mods. Its super convenient.
A laptop USB-C battery bank with a belt clip and a 2M long USB-C cable would make one of those little USB-C soldering pencils into a totally workable portable soldering solutions. Well, as long as you're willing to carry a small bag with you to hold a stand, sponge, brass scrub pot, and some flux and solder. Still, totally doable and no less convenient.
@@christo930 I have trouble believing an iron that doesn't even quote power will be anywhere near as good as a TS100 clone at 65W powered by an RC battery or USB-C PD 20V with a much more massive tip. The only hint I can find is the replacement battery they sell is a 4Wh Ni-Cd which would seem to imply it would run out in a few minutes if it had similar power output (and Ni-Cd has a much lower specific power so likely can't even push that much current). Plus temperature control with a thermocouple close to the tip makes it far easier to get good results without burning things.
@@schroedingershat7912 BigClive did a video on the Iso-Tip iron and it does its job pretty well.
a ts100/ts80p/pinecil/any fx951 clone/t12 compatible station would blow this ryobi/888/936 clone/907 compatible out of the water.
why? thermal conductivity.
the reason why cartridge based systems exist like with the ones i listed in the beginning is exactly that.
the older 936/907 design has a removable tip and the heating element is in the handle. with cartridge based systems, the heating element is inside the cartridge and there is no gap or anything inbetween. it is far more efficient.
really, if the form factor of the ts100/ts80p/pinecil isnt what youre looking for then just get one of those t12 compatible/fx951 clones. there are ones with an integrated psu.
The butane-powered soldering iron were usefull when I was installing marine communications and navigational equipment in medium size sailboats and powerboats back in the 80's, where a boat at anchorage didnt have 120 VAC "shore power", or you might be working up on the mast, in the cockpit, or on the boat deck where there wasn't an outlet available (for obvious reasons!). The butane iron was great for soldering PL-259's and other large RF connectors.
Was just going to say this. Some of the mobile mechanics in the locale use these things too. Pretty much anywhere where you can expect to not have access to a outlet. They have their uses.
@@venge1894 , of course, ya' gotta be careful with an open flame around car and truck engines, marine engines, and bilges! I do wonder if any of the current crop if battery-powered cordless iron could solder the ground shield of a PL-259 connector; for that, you might need an invertor to provide 120VAC, and a BIG soldering iron, or a Weller 8200 gun.
butane-powered soldering iron one of my most used tool too, i keep one in my car if i somehow ruin my wires(i have alot of them going around), i could get one that works on 12v outlet or make my own one but its easier to use butane one.
I use my butane powered iron for soldering and, recreational use
@@d_dawg05 I have one of the butane irons for doing the electrical connectors on farm equipment. they also work really well for melting a perfect hole in a plastic sheet to pass cables through without leaving rough edges that will wear the cable over time.
27:30 Personally I prefer Torx screws over Phillips (and god-forbid, flat-head) screws. Much easier to align and nearly impossible to strip, especially because manufacturers commonly use some kind of Loctite on the screws when assembling products. The Nintendo screws are like the worst of both worlds-- uncommon bit AND easy to strip. lol. I have a set of Wiha Torx drivers that are awesome for taking apart all kinds of electronics, all the way down to T1 size. Bonus is that they double as Allen/hex drivers.
Allen screws are also pretty good PROVIDED you use a decent set of allen drivers (i.e. not those god awful L-keys). Wera also makes what are called "hex plus" drivers that have a modified shape which puts more of the driving surface in contact with the insude of the socket.
But yeah Torx are the best especially that there are no "metric" or "standard" torx they all use the same drivers.
@@atomicskull6405 Yeah I have some Wera Hex Plus drivers in the L-key format which are pretty nice (probably some of the few L-key types that don't suck). Need to get a set of T-handle ones sometime... just need more desk/storage space first... lol
Yeah honestly I prefer torx as well. As someone who used to be a electronic repair technician torx was far better when I had to take things apart. Far less likely to break from my experience. Torx or Torx Plus is on a lot of insert tooling that I've used. It holds up really well there as well. Torx or Allen is way better than Philip or Flathead for anything that has to be used more than one or two times. Haven't come across hex plus before but it it seems pretty good as well.
A bit into that repair technician job I bought a full precision ESD wiha set that comes with the metal holder and each different size/ type is a different full screwdriver. While expensive (350$ ish if I remember right) it was a great investment. That helped a lot on not breaking Phillips as well. Having the right size driver helps a lot on not breaking fasteners. Have it on my workbench at home now and it does have the right size to take that apart and would fit.
I was kinda baffled at the torx part as well. To me torx is a sign of quality and I never use any other head be it the small repairs around the house or building electronics. Philips or PZ is only for those situations when I can't get the correct size screw with a torx head for some reason.
I like torx, hate security torx
Thanks for letting people know about those cheapo irons at hardware stores. When I was younger and didn't know better i thought soldering was so difficult cause all I had experience with was those crappy non temp control ones. Recently I got a simple one with digital control and man it makes such a difference
My uncle, a long, long time ago, assembled kit radios in his mother's kitchen table, for a soldering iron he used a copper nail held with pliers and heated on the butane range. He sold and repaired radios as a side hustle.
I made a solering iron out of a pencil, a small scrap of copper wire snd sone thinner wire strands to hold it together., which worked well enough until I bought a replacement.
Both of those options worked better than the shitty irons at the corner shops and hardware stores.
Has nothing to do with temp control, rather it is the type of tip the iron uses. The cheap, screw in type that is nickel plated copper, is difficult to use if you don't constantly file the tip down to clean copper and tin it again, often.
The radio shack pistol grip soldering iron is how I learned to solder, I think if you learn with bad tools at a young age you're really good with proper ones once you graduate to them. Brings back good memories.
I use this iron on occasion, it has yet to fail me. I like that I can store it in a big toolbox and pull it out for a short project without connecting it to the wall. Love it.
And now you know if you don't have access to an extention cable and your batteries are dead you can just take the shell off and pull unscrew the plug bit and plug it into a wall directly
As far as burning the DIN connectors, you actually need a higher temperature. If the temperature is too low, it takes too long to heat the solder and gives the plastic enough time to melt. It shouldn't take more than a second for the solder to melt so that you can get in and out fast.
Big tip and solder bridge 😎
I redid some GE proprietary connectors that were solder pots. They were so thick and the person before me cooked the 14g wire to the point there was no flex. 🙄
Absolutely. When he said that and was then slagging off the simple mains powered irons, I was thinking that this guy doesn't know how to solder! The fancy controlled soldering stations are nice but the basic irons work OK too. Another clue is that he said the tip bend, well they do if you put far too much force into them, trying to get heat into the item, especially if your iron is too cold!
Also he probably doesn't clean the surfaces he wants to solder, nor use flux other than in the cored solder!
you need good thermal recovery, i can solder connectors fine using a JBC core
While the iron itself would melt through, the rating is intended to give you an idea how hot the cable itself can actually get. The markings are intended to help you figure out what cable to use for a specific application. Essentially it's saying "Hey if you run enough current through here, it's going to melt and catch fire right about this temperature."
24:17
Yeah I really didn't like that this was a significant section of the video. It's the wrong meaning as you said and if that's what he's worried about might as well spend 5 min telling people not to rub the iron on their fingers either. Seems like Ryobi considered this as well with the cool down warning light. But alas can't engineer for every single use case.
If you push enough current through a cable for it to reach 80c you've got way bigger problems than your cable melting and catching fire.
No. If your wire is (self) heating up much at all, it is too small a gauge for the design current or the circuit has a fault. On the other hand I do agree that the specs are needed to determine cable compatibility in extreme environments, for example an engine harness or on the space shuttle, inside a toaster oven or curling iron, etc. Most of these applications are also those where you can't use solder, must crimp or weld/etc.
No, it has nothing to do with the current rating.
It is to to with where the cord is expected to be.
Some devices are made so their power cord will remain cool, and are fine with an 80C one.
Some are made such that even the receptacle for the cord can be over 80C, and so need a better cord.
this ryobi has become my daily use solder station.
it gets hot nice and quick and holds temp better than any of my other rigs.
the extra thick cord is a pain once in a while but im not really bothered.
thank you for the video 🤘🦊💜
Reminds me of when I worked with high current circuit breakers on a 130kV facility. Breakers like these uses 4 to 6 large pretensioned springs. Springs that are something like three inches in diameter and three feet (around a meter) long. Pretension in accomplished with electric motors. A particular norwegian made breaker that I had never seen before used... Bosch hand tool power drills with a strap around the button as tensioner motors.
I used to work for TTI, and outside of upper management there's no Milwaukee crossover with Ridgid and Ryobi tools. Hart is basically rebranded Ryobi though. I might be able to get this video to the engineer that works on this tool, they may be able to make some improvements.
Thanks for the info about TTI - I suspected that was largely a myth. People like to look at company ownership and say "oh they're the same company" but that's kind of the *problem* with M&A business culture - businesses largely DON'T truly "merge", and often don't gain any benefits from being part of a larger organization, they operate exactly as they always did but just have to give a chunk of their profits to a parent company. It would probably make a lot of sense to share engineering resources, rather than having a bunch of distinct companies reinventing the wheel, but that's almost never how it plays out.
If you're actually able to get some feedback in on this thing (that would be wild!), besides improving the cable, a better detent for the iron holder would be killer - and if they REALLY want to stand out, put high-temp silicone overmold on the barrel nut so you can change tips while hot without pliers. Nobody in the market does that, and it would be a *wildly* user-friendly feature, especially for the home-gamer set that Ryobi seems to target. Heck, overmold the whole barrel, it's not like it's useful for that part to be hot (might interfere with thermal control?)
@@CathodeRayDude I'd also suggest a small fan inside to vent heat out. I don't know how likely it would be that the internals overheat, but this just seems to me a very practical thing that would only cost a few cents.
It's actually likely that they shared manufacturing before the merge once Milwaukee started being made in china.
@@alexs7670 maybe some, but in day to day operations on the engineering side, there aren't shared resources between the Milwaukee engineering team and the Ridgid/Ryobi/Hart team.
@@KevinFields777 it's only 45 watts. It's gunna be fine.
Wow look at TH-cam actually recommending me a video as soon as it's uploaded! And just in time for lunch!
Ryobi had a wallwart in it's hybrid fan too if I remember right. I'm surprised they didn't use silicone wire being a soldering iron.
TS100 is a really good mobile iron - works well with drill battery or laptop PSU
I use a ts80p as it can be powered using a USBC charger or power bank which is a bit more compact for my purposes. It came with a really nice, flexible silicone USBC cable
I personally have a pinecil, USB-C too, portable stuff is nice
i "upgraded" from a yihua 852d+ to a pinecil and have had no qualms whatsoever. the points cathode ray dude makes at the end of the video are completely true points, but the ergonomics, tiny form factor, complete portability and flexibility of power supplies on top of being dead cheap all make it one of my new favorite tools. if i wanted to use a battery, i could get a big beefy laptop battery that outputs 65 watts and go to town with any old usb c cable. i could get a power supply and have a completely competent soldering station with no added bulk. plus, temp control is on the iron itself, so i wouldn't have to take my eyes off the iron to change temperature. it's extremely impressive for being so cheep
I use the TS100 with a power bank. There are cheap USB C to barrel plug cables on Ali. It works really good so far.
I use a TS100 as well, when I’m at my bench I have a cable I can use with my bench power supply or I use a battery from my drone when out and about
Sounds like the PERFECT "first soldering station" - sufficient to solder your own internals of your own custom soldering station, then gut this one and fill the chassis with the newly made internals with your own, while keeping the soldering iron itself (but swapping the cable).
You just described building 3D printers.
No 3D printed thing will feel that solid
@@aaaaea9268 I think he meant "buy a crap printer, print parts of good printer, gut the crap printer to make a good one."
for 40 dollars just get zhaoxin
@@aaaaea9268 as someone who prints in PETG, I beg to differ, if your willing to design it as such and put in the time to print something so overbuilt, you can make boarderline indestructible items (and it's kinda satisfying...)
5:34 this has to be my favorite running joke on this channel, and possibly ever
im so happy he uses it as much as he does, as it's one of my favourite modern memes
This is one of the coolest little tools I own by Ryobi.
"Who has a non-hex-bit Torx driver sitting around?"
I feel attacked...
While working as an intern one of the designs I was working on my boss actually had me research current available solutions for multiple things including retention and signaling which is a good design practice. If someone makes something you can just buy off the shelf then don't recreate the wheel just buy it and use it! I love your analysis here but I also would like to say that buying the AC adapters to put in doesn't surprise me because of how cheap those are and how good they are able to be made at those prices. The fact that some engineer took the time to measure an off the shelf component to buy and slot into place is actually time well spent because they didn't have to pay 3 other engineers to help with electronics and board layout. Also, about the tip, the heater cartridge and tip system looks a lot like my Tenma soldering iron (yeah, go ahead and make fun of me for being cheap) which takes the same tips as RadioShack digital stations so maybe this is actually a connection style that Hakko licenses or is just easy to copy without running into patents. Either way I loved the teardown. Also, my dad has one of those butane ones and actually uses it as a butane torch too which is great when working on large wires or when you need to quickly melt some shrinkwrap... Not very good on complex circuit boards from what I've seen though.
Good for the company, bad for the customer still.
@@DeagleGamesTV Nothing really wrong with using them if they are placed right. If this had more cooling vents and air channels it wouldn't be much of an issue at all for the customer. Also there's still a quality consideration there by the company. You can buy really good quality AC adapters for a higher price, and still come out under on overall product development costs. Or you just have more integrity as a company. Or they can buy the crappy ones that fail all the time. And it really does keep costs down for the consumer in competitive markets. Power tools is a low margin market overall. It's generally around 5-10%. It's highly competitive.
I have had my cordless Ryobi soldering iron for a while now and IMO it's amazing. It's always in my tool bag it has never failed me, so far has performed flawlessly. The cord might be a bit stiff but I can live with that. Since I have had mine I have yet to melt the cord.
I agree. I own both the Weller mentioned and this unit as well, and for on the go / lazy quick jobs, it's done me plenty well. I own a lot of different tools from different companies, and the most recent Ryobi tools aren't bad. They've made their reputation much better in the past few years, and I don't hate any of the ones that I own. The only complaint I've ever had with their products is the battery could last a hair longer.
Lol yeah I've been wondering if someone is careless enough to set a soldering iron on the cord wether or not they should be playing around with heat sources or circuit boards at all.
first thing i did was replace the cable sleeve, honestly can't complain outside of the cable.
@@JackPorter good call
Having previously worked at a couple of electronic assembly jobs, my favorite iron was Metcal, but cost $800 around 1995.
To hand solder well, I learned two tricks. 1) I prefer a hot iron around 800 F. It allows you to heat the joint quickly and then get off before the heat can travel too far. With a cooler iron you have to keep the iron on it longer melting or destroying what it is touching. 2) Flux is your friend. If attaching a wire I tin the wire first before making the joint. I trim the insulation and expose the wire extra long. With the end of the wire pointed down, I touch the iron on it and the solder allowing the solder to melt. I raise the wire up as I drag the soldering tip down and the flux allow the excess solder to pool at the end of the wire. I then trim the wire to the needed length.
To solder your DIN plug, pre-tin your wires and cut the exposed portion 1/8”-1/4” long, or the depth of the solder cup. Touch the soldering tip to the plug’s cup with the solder in the hole. Once the solder melts and coats the pin’s cup, stick the tinned wire in the cup and remove the heat. The pin’s cup has good solder and so does the wire so your connection will be good.
I liked the Weller but we all preferred the Hakko soldering stations in mfg. When doing big things it takes more power. I also have Weller soldering guns. I am skilled enough to do printed through hole boards with chips using a 100/140 :) but I also have units up to 260, 340, and more than 400. The bigger ones around 200-240 are great for doing power and headphone jack bodies and metal shields around RF circuits. That 425 unit I have is great for PL-259 connectors and I even soldered closed a freeze crack in one of my waterpipes. I use it to solder copper connections on antennas and other tough projects. All of which require precision but lots of power. Good tip on the Metcal. I will have to look it up.
your tips made a lot of sense ,and they actually worked to boot, most of what i need to solder is tiny , expensive guitar ,and recording gear stuff , with parts i can't tear out of my evil step-daughter's stereo or TV, ( i did steal stuff out of her PS2 ,lol ,,a momentary switch out of the controler, yes i was proud of myself), but anyway, it only seem to happen at like 2 AM or so, and you have to finish recording or you loose the vibe ,and i would always destroy most of what i was trying to solder ,but not now, so thanx
800F is much too hot, you either needed an iron tip with more thermal mass, or were not using a properly plated tip of the right shape to achieve good heat transfer. I agree with much of the rest of what you wrote, but would add that when soldering connectors, it is very helpful to have the mating other end plugged in, which both helps to pull heat away from the pin, and also holds the pin in the correct aligned position if the heat did begin to soften the plastic.
I think the use of the power brick inside the tool is genius tbh.
It saves the cost of EMC compliance and safety testing. If Ryobi designed their own they would have to go through compliance testing which adds cost. Many manufacturers also use off the shelf or customized of the shelf bricks. Faster time to market for the product using an already compliant brick.
@@bobsmith3983 Yeah and there's no point it buying a bare one like he thinks they should have. If the price is right, who cares if it is over-engineered?
Even better it makes a key component easily replaceable.
seeing that cable triggered me too. silicone insulation is the shit you want: it's super flexible, feels nice to the touch, and it simply does not melt, even when it's literally burning! (think of it being polymerised silicate, a.k.a. sand)
PS: the perfect general purpose soldering tip, in my experience, is a single flat / beveled tip, of around 3-3.5mm, over those pencil points. the tip has a fine enough edge to work on PCBs, while the flat makes it super easy to feed solder into the joint, and gives you a big contact area, to easily heat up bigger parts.
lol your comment got copied by a bot and is higher in the comments now
Yup, chisel tip for the win! It's a bit of a misnomer, however, because it's rounded, beveled and blunted, unlike an actual wood chisel.....
Having the brick inside is a fantastic combination of brilliant and cost effective engineering (They very likely saved a good amount of certification cost and time to do it that way). But that makes it no less silly looking, and that's OK, if it's stupid and it works etc. The hand feel of a Metcal is wonderful but I can only justify it to myself by doing dumb/intricate rework. Fantastic video!
This comment came really timely. I took apart my fume extractor yesterday and was beside myself with how overpowered the 12V external transformer was for what was effectively a PC fan connected to a potentiometer in a plastic housing. It seemed unreal that they didn’t simply build the power supply into the housing, but your remark about certification cost makes sense.
About the tapering screw holes: yes that's draft angle. Without it, the part would be very difficult to get it out of the mold
This is one of the best break down reviews I have ever seen. Please continue to be an AvE for when he is busy actually working! Subbed, liked, loved it!
@Commie Slayer 100% This.... at first I absolutely loved listening to AvE. I find that his videos to be more annoying than funny to me now. I havn't watched one of his videos in a couple years.
"its gonna overheat your joints, which is great if its after business hours, but not when you're tryna get something done" 😭😂
Having worked in amusement game repair for 42 years I have to say this is the first unit that would have made my life easier. I'm retired but have used mine several times and it's exactly what was always needed on the road. Teaming up with my Ryobi in-car charger means all my tools will work all day away from plug-in power. For what it is it's 10 out of 10 for me. And the eBay replacement batteries last just as well as Ryobi for half the price. And work in 20 year old Ryobi tools still. There is no better system.
Wondering - are we ever going to see the pinecil / TS80/100 video?
The psu thing is actually really common and in my opinion, providing the units come from a reputable supplier and are of good quality (which seems to be the case given the one in the lamp) its a good thing. As I am sure you are aware a lot of old AV and computer equipment can literally destroy itself because poorly designed power supplies/systems that go bad, the most well known being the Commodore 64's infamous ”Brick of Death” but some early IBM and Apple machines have/had overheating PSU problems. Because these of the shelf units could be used for thousands of different applications the makers/designers have to try to cover all possible issues that could arise, including being in a confined space.
Don't get me wrong I don't think for a second this is the real reason they do it, It is more likely they are avoiding some certification costs by having no AC wiring assembly in the case, and if they could do it in an even cheaper and inferior way they probably would.
I see you annotated that Hakko has the "exposed" ceramic heating element as well. I was going to mention that they use the same type on the Hakko 936. And, in my personal experience, the 936 is an absolute workhorse. But I also have one of these Ryobi units that I received for a website reviewed several year back. I'm actually impressed with how well it works. And for a station that can be used anywhere, with battery power, I'd actually recommend it for the home owner or field tech. EDIT: But you do make a good point about the PVC cord tethering the iron to the base.
8:50 - I used SO many of those cheap irons from Radio Shack,for like 30 years. Literally used them until the tip corroded away to an unusable nub,then bought a whole new iron. They worked fine. Temperature control is nice,but often not necessary.
You are a madman then. I used them and for circuit boards they are a nightmare, especially compared to a 120$ Weller. Nothing crazy, but even a cheap intro soldering iron changed my whole game. As did a hot air station.
Same, I have a "nice" iron that I almost never use because one of these is usually closer. Lol
Also gotta love an iron you don't mind using to light your cigarette if you lost your lighter.
@@Zahgurym a TS80/100 is decent for that. I never got one but have seen them used in uncomfortable situations and have considered it. It's annoying to have to disassemble things and get them to my bench to fix sometimes. But a 25$ single temp iron would just drive me nuts lol
I tried to go for that too, but it just does not work nearly as well these days. I would assume that a) quality of these went down since and b) wretched lead free high-temp industrial solder. That stuff won't even get soft from many cheapo irons unless you bake the crap out of the joint.
That being said, these are amazing for working with plastics.
@@reptilez13 I have a Weller SP25L. It's the same type of those cheap ones but it's actually good quality, over 10 years and it still works fine. The tip has lasted all those years. I have a soldering station now though.
I find the design brilliant !
I laughed out loud both times when you revealed the power supplies in these things! The way you put it is perfect: "it's not a bad thing, it's just a bad look". I really like the idea of easily replaceable internal power supplies with cases that make them safe to handle, although the way they're attached to the rest of the system looks a lot less easy to work with...
Now that you phrase it like that, this is pretty much what desktop computers do, using a standardized power supply that is fully built and could be used on its own, and just sticking it inside a case designed to accommodate it.
The problem is that the bricks are usually ultrasonic welded and thus impossible to repair without destroying the outer shell. There is inherently nothing else wrong with those and as you mentioned it's safer to open the case of the soldering station when all the caps of the PSU can't be accidentally touched.
The rubberband snapping joke caught me way off guard, perfect delivery, I am going to laugh about that for weeks
i dont get the salivating part
@@lowercasehandle It's a reference to Pavlov's experiments.
I know that shoving an off the shelf power supply must be a standard thing, I've taken apart a car starter/tire pumper/phone charger/LED lamp thing and the power supply was just a wall wart mounted inside with the prongs sticking out and the bare wires connected directly to a sealed lead acid battery
It's a LOT cheaper than using an open frame one bc of UL listing and stuff.
I wonder if all of their hybrid products are like that. I have a couple of those fans. One time I took a 600 mile trip to the middle of nowhere and forgot the charger to my laptop (but had one of those fans and the right size barrel jack from a different wall wart). If I had known there was one _inside_ the fan, I would have plucked it out and MacGuyver'd one together instead of driving 4 hours to find one! The laptop wants 19v but will take 18v I found. Those fans are a lot smaller though, going to crack one open! Much less amperage for a fan so I wouldn't be surprised just to see a wall wart like you said.
@@craigjensen6853 mine isn't even hybrid. It's just charging an internal lead acid battery.
The flux on the solder joints is perfectly fine. It will help keep the joints from corroding due to moisture.
I had a butane soldering iron for years (until it eventually got clogged up with particulate and died). I found the temperature control to be really good, and it was easy to see what kind of temp you were at based on how red the mesh screen on the exhaust was glowing.
Same. I've got a Snap-On that's been working reliably now for years, and never given me so much as a hiccup. Identical (aside from colour and branding) to the Weller Portasol 100K, which isn't surprising since that's who manufactures them for Snap-On. I'd definitely have no qualms whatsoever about buying the same one if mine were to ever irreparably fail.
@@strathadam1 Mine was an Iroda, to be fair I think it was using some cheap butane that killed it off
I've got the radioshack special, i find that it heats up faster and is more accurate for what i do than the weller. (No ICs but plenty surface mount)
I love my portasol butane soldering iron. Heats up in seconds, great temperature control
I've been using a power probe brand butane iron for about 10 years in a shop. I've had to replace the soldering tip, but it has really held up well. Matco truck usually has them.
I have a Ryobi One set. I found it on in a box on the side of the road and it all works perfect!
I had to clean it all real good. There's a drill, One battery, a battery charger, big fan, skill saw, Sawzall, stapler nailer, flashlight & vacuum cleaner. There might be more but I don't feel like digging it out to look for it. I like the stuff. I feel like I was blessed pretty good for all being free!
I like the Ryobi tools specifically because everything uses the same battery. They haven't changed the battery in a way that affects compatibility for like 25 years, so I frequently find tools from their older dark blue line at thrift stores that work perfectly fine once I plug a newer battery in.
I also gutted an old dead Ryobi Ni-Cd and instead of putting new cells in, I installed a barrel jack so that for lower power devices that aren't hybrid (but could be) such as the older lights, radios, soldering stations, etc, I can just power it from wall power and save discharge cycles on my batteries.
I feel like you’re my friend and we are just sitting around blasting these tools we have to use. You are awesome. Your word section is perfect. Your technical explanations are dead on.
As someone who runs a lab and does this type of work every day for a living, ……life is too short to have soldering iron‘s that don’t utilize soft and flexible silicon leads. Like with a nice high-end multimeter. Not only will you never burn through them, but the flexibility is absolutely mandatory when doing that stuff every day.
Yes, life is too short for that..... haha
I was just thinking the cord would drive me nuts. My weller lead is just so nice and flexable and, i would probably get rid of the ryobi for that reason alone. Not to mention, tools like this may be useful for the hobbyists but no way would i use this or anything that i can buy at home depot or the like for certain stuff in production. They never hold up to the repeated use, i pack my weller in my electronic service case and it goes through TSA several times a week and works flawlessly every time. Try that with a ryobi. But I digress, my needs aren’t the next guy’s needs, that’s why I don’t mind when a regular joe buys junk tools because they don’t need them daily or abuse them like i do.
23:40 I've sometimes assigned a carelessness grade to electronics technicians based on the number of burns/melted spots on their soldering iron cord. If (s)he's burned the cord, likely a number of plastic items in the chassis got melted, too.
Love videos like this, humorous, very informative and talks about the small things that make or break products and the reasons behind why the incorporation of said materials make it bad. Great work sir!
The power supply kind of makes sense if you realise that Ryobi sell in a huge number of places such as here in the UK with our 240 supply. Just slot in a different supply with a different socket - good to go. Very little extra training for the people that put them together. The moulding is all the same.
I recently acquired a nice butane iron and I gotta admit it's really great. There's no temperature readout, but the actual temperature range you can get by changing the flow rate is surprisingly excellent, and the tip heats up incredibly fast compared to my old weller station. I still don't know if it's a full replacement for my electronic station, but these days I find that I pick the butane iron up nearly every time I need to do some quick work just for how easy it is to set up and start. Don't even get me started on the hot knife attachments.
The closest thing to temperature control ive ever had was on my butane iron which you could set from blazing to literall hell on earth. Worked pretty great tough if it wasnt for the tip breaking after a couple of solder jobs
I've used this soldering iron extensively and it's great for what I use it for -- automotive work where I need a soldering iron that I can cram into a small space and do work where there's no plug. Also weirdly it has an incredibly long battery life; or maybe I just have really low expectations of batteries.
You didn't complain about the thing I thought you would -- you make a big deal of temperature control, but you don't note on this that the temperature control isn't labeled except for the bottom and top range. It's honestly just a tiny step above no temperature control because you're just kind of guessing. I would have loved for it to have some increment lines on it personally, or maybe some lines for some common temps. By not marking the temperatures in a meaningful way, they're allowing it to be pretty loosey goosey without making it look like it's loosey goosey :)
Oh I'm pretty sure the temp control is terrible. I mean, something's better than nothing, and I intend to investigate later and see what it's actually sending on the power line to the heater, but I wouldn't be surprised if this thing wobbles all over the place. They likely didn't mark it because that would make the labels more of a lie than they already are, heh.
@@CathodeRayDude I would *love* to see the results of this. I was tempted to try to find this out myself, but I don't have a thermometer that won't be destroyed by soldering iron levels of heat :) So I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Similar to the phone charger cords, I really like the woven cloth cords that we had in the 60's. Those are awesome and I am glad they brought them back in a modern form. I am sure someone with a soldering iron (pun intended) could replace the existing cord with a woven cloth cord. As for temp, there are many cloth like materials (not asbestos) that can handle the heat. We use them in gloves, etc.
The butane irons are actual better than you think. I used them extensively to fix motorcycles for fun. I did it in a shed that had no power and it just made sense. I've redone a whole wiring harness with one and ridden that bike a few thousand miles. There is just a few weird quirks like you need to pay attention to where the exit hole is that the flame exhausts because it can melt plastic. There is also kinda temperature control with the gas regulator.
Worth noting also that you don't light a fire when using a butane iron. The fuel flows through the catalyst and oxidizes without a flame generating heat but with more control. Since there's no flame, you can control the heat just by reducing the amount of fuel hitting the catalyst. Considering you can get a serviceable butane iron for under $5, it's a pretty great cost/performance ratio.
They're kinda scary and obviously have a learning curve but they are super duper neat.
This has been on my wish list for a little while and I think I still want one. I use ryobi tools every day and yes they are not really professional quality but they are affordable and decently built.
I agree. I have a few ryobi tools and for the price they do what I need them to. I also have Milwaukee for the big things.
The TS100 is amazing for DIY electronics. Reliable and quick. I even 3D printed a little soldering station for it with some washers and nuts for holding the hot parts and keeping the whole thing nicely weighted down. The whole setup fits well on a wooden tray, which is great as I have even less working space then you do!
And if you want an actual proper station, the t12 is amazing too
I hate the wire on the iron, too. Is there a replacement wire we can purchase, so the iron is more flexible and easier to work with? Thanks,
My guess on the differences between the power supplies is that the smaller one is higher quality because there is a visual indicator if it isn't. The light flickering.
Honestly, respect to the engineers. It's a pretty elegant solution in terms of design. Sometimes the best engineering is doing the least of it!
Other then the cord this is a nice product. For 20$ this would be worth it.
@@RhizometricReality Yeah it almost seems worth it to replace the cable but looking at the tear down that doesn’t really seem feasible. That’s too bad. Hopefully Ryobi will get the message and improve the product
I never laughed so hard the second you popped that open. Was not expecting that. Now I'm paranoid that all my devices are hiding rando off the shelf encased power supplies with hidden "never see light" leds hidden inside.
Wait until you see nock off laptop chargers !!!!!!. They have leds even when you will never see them. Many chargers do no have leds when original, HP for example. So their casing do not expose this crappy led ... but they dont feel cheap enough to take the horrid led out. And this is only the cosmetic part, just wait to see the soldering and isolation separation .... ticking bombs. And dont put tons of effort researching ... they clone even the small detail
I have a cheap one from AliExpress. 120w digital readout, USB powered and it's slim and light. Works so well. I love the on off switch on it as well.
Sound engineer here- I have that same Weller. It’s great. Chose it over the digital ones.
For soldering connectors like you mentioned (DIN I think you called it?) which look similar to xlr- seems counterintuitive but use HIGHER temp so your work gets to temp faster, meaning you don’t sit there holding the iron to the work as long, decreasing the total amount of heat soak applied. Similar concept to welding.
Hahahaha I had that exact butane iron. It was a great novelty/ for remote use
Also, plug the connector you're soldering, into its mating connector so if the plastic were to melt a little, the contacts will stay in the right position. It can also help to tin (plate with solder) the contact, if you can do so without filling it too much to get the wire in), using a shorter amount of heat than if the wire were inserted first, and tin plate the wire, let both cool, then do the final reheating.
Honestly, I think that my favorite solution for portable soldering is a TS-100 + Milwaukee Top off. I really like the temperature control and digital interface.
I run mine on 3d-printed Ridgid battery pack adapters, unless I'm at the workbench, where I'll use a an adjustable DC power supply. Xt60 connectors on either side so I can switch wire length. TS100 and a Pinecil, have multiples of each and tons of tips because they're dirt cheap, I can use 'em in the field on pretty high temp alloys without constantly burning my dumb ass on a gas jet. I have stacks of soldering stations and irons of all sorts and I use a Pinecil most by far. My joints are f'n beautiful.
Oh and Ridgid batteries specifically because they warranty all batteries for life now. They don't know how the hell you burnt it out, you just make a call and get a free replacement.
Also I use hi temp soft silicone 14, 16, or 18awg paired wires, very soft and easy to move around. I can hang the cord over my shoulder and overheard soldering with a face shield & it's damn near perfect for anything that doesn't need a couple hundred watts or a torch.
Ridgid battery adapter's ten inches or so of 10awg wire -> Xt60 -> 5S BMS (pretty sure it's unnecessary but better safe than sorry), super soft silicone like probemasters and such, as long as I please like a 4', 6', 10', and so on -> xt60 -> device adapter -> device
Marvelous under a car, I have stacks of gas irons I'll probably never use again. Target temp in 10-20 seconds, then cool enough pull the but out in 60-90 seconds.
I spent a good portion of time with *that exact model* of butane soldering iron because both wired ones we had either broke, or had the tip completely oxidized off. There is some ability to control temperature by varying the size of the flame, but it's not really precise (though, the one I use now doesn't have anything other than a dial marked 1 through 9, so it's only slightly better).
They actually work decently well, if you don't mind the smell of butane, the fact that all the hot parts are exposed and right next to your fingers (like, closer than usual), and that it's got very little thermal mass of it's own, but... yeah I'd gladly take something better any day.
Hahaha, thank you for the input *and* the pledge! I gotta get myself one of those butane irons.
@@CathodeRayDude they are fun. Good for really huge joints, but generally just fun to mess with.
@@CathodeRayDude Honestly if I knew where ours was I'd just toss it in a USPS envelope, not like we use it anymore. Though it probably got lost last move.
I would recommend the power probe butane iron the only complaint I have with it is you have to be aware or where the exhaust hole for the flame is pointing or you might burn something, but it solders surprisingly well
Wow! I guess i was expecting a big surprising fail at the end but instead, just got the tool version of a great vacation. All about the journey, not the destination. Crazy discoveries all through an extremely thorough tear down w heaps of passionate opinions, all culminating in a confidently voiced judgement of "a product". Yep. You want a product? Well, this may just be what you're after! It is, in fact, produced! 🤣🤣
Wait. How does the grounding strap work if it's not connected to earth ground?
You clip on to the lug and tie it back to earth or an esd grounding system, is my impression.
The cilp works in the manner as wraping a ground wire around the metal barrel. The other end goes to earth ground. It's acutually nice.
The work mat and wrist straps are wired together and there is also a long wire on a clip that you ground _somewhere_ . Since the station is battery powered, it has to tie into the ESD's provided ground anyway.
For portable jobs, I have a mat that has a pocket like an apron, and I fold it in quarter to stow it. Inside are the wrist straps and other equip. grounding clips. I'll usually clip the ground to the chassis of the PC I'm working in, and I've heard some people replace the power cord on the PC (or whatever) with one that _only_ has the ground pin connected.
@@CathodeRayDude well white wire in a 15A or 20A American's outlets use it for neutral purposes and it is connected to ground.
Shocks come from any voltage difference, not just ones to ground. By connecting the work to the iron with a large resistor in the middle you can safely normalize and voltage difference without the risk of arcing
I loved the Cold Heat irons for soldering my model train rails together. The isolated solder joint didnt melt the rails and actually did work perfectly for that. Couldn't use it on anything else.
Works great on thin photo etched brass parts too.
Seems almost like something that could be handy to quickly spot-weld small battery terminals. (Maybe that's why he still has it?) But not so hot for regular soldering for the reasons mentioned in this video.
You know all things considered, this doesn’t actually seem like too bad of a soldering iron. It’s goofy that it has a laptop power supply hiding inside there, but at the same time I sort of find that charming in a sense. It’s like a project that a hobbyist would make; why engineer your own power supply where you have a risk of breaking everything when you can just outsource this to an external entity and let them worry about the details?
I agree. No need to reinvent the wheel on something so simple. Power supplies should be picked off the shelf when possible.
Omg I lost it when you revealed the power supply! Was NOT expecting to see that. I've taken apart a lot of electronics in my life and this is a new one.
Actually a place for irons that don't have temp control where they can be useful, is stained glass windows. I have some antique soldering irons (wood handles, cloth power cords) and I've been told they're just about perfect for lead working on stained glass windows.
This is true! Also used in pipe organ pipe repair and automotive radiator rebuilding
even though - by that point - we all kinda knew what was coming, I think we were all still a little surprised, and a little delighted; who could ask for more than that?
Umm.. how is your comment 6 days old when youtube says this was released 2 hours ago?
@@SmileyFace01 I'm a wizard
a wizard with a patreon subscription
dark magic!
the tapering screw holes is likely so when you drop the screw into the hole it will end up in the hole instead of on a edge. so they were like "hey we are going to cheap out with these small screws we might as well make it easier get them in the screw holes." which is a nice thought if they used something like a flathead screw which gives you 0 control on position. but they went with torx.
i actually think the power brick inside the product is a brilliant bit of cost engineering. the cost to make a good power supply in house or commissioned with proper certification is probably more expensive then buying what is likely a very high production psu. it also gives the benefit of the extra heft from the plastic.
that being said the pvc insulation is not the best choice and the short cables could have been lengthen of not that much more.
No, they didn't. That thinking would suggest that they expect or want the consumer to be taking out and replacing screws, and on such a regular interval that the assistance would be appreciated.
An absolutely ridiculous supposition.
The holes are tapered specifically as a soft anti-tampering method - Which is why they use Torx heads, too. That's why _anyone_ uses Torx heads.
One of the most ridiculous things I've read. -They did it to make it easier to put the screws in.
I literally can't even.
@@UnitSe7en someone has to assemble the units in the first place. making them easier to assemble - by making screws fall into their holes - is a huge part of designing for manufacture. Not everyone is out to get you. Also btw tin foil is not actually made out of tin... think about THAT instead.
@@cheater00 yes, they only think of the ease and speed of assembly, having the screws automatically drop in the right place so the assembly worker then just needs to tighten it with a torque limited power driver and a suitable long-shank bit (the need for a proprietary bit is no problem in factory assembly) instead of having to chase the hole with the screw may save several seconds for every screw which will amount to a lot of time when assembling hundreds of units per day. So they don't make them hard to service on purpose, they give no thought whatsoever to serviceability as these are not meant to be serviced, they make them as easy and fast as possible to assemble because it saves them time and time is money. Many manufacturers DO apply anti-repair features but tapered screw holes and torx screws are not that, they are simply used to make the assembly faster. Torx actually USED to be an anti-repair measure but nowadays they are so commonplace that the tools are easily and cheaply obtainable to anyone so they are used because of their superior mechanical properties and suitability for mass production using power drivers.
I’ve been using this exact model for at least a year and it works great.
I find that build in power adapter rather smart. You can re-use already existing product and just integrate it saving cost and time. Also, if you don't need the hybrid mode, you can do some weight saving by removing that power adapter and maybe even using it for some other project.
Also, it would be easier to repair if you can just buy the power brick easily. Just like with monitors. Some people complain when they have an external power brick, but I prefer to have one. If the monitor ever dies because of the power supply(chances are that if anything dies, it's gonna be the PSU), you just get another power brick AND you don't have to crack open the monitor or source some specific, probably overpriced, power supply unit.
And if you have no batteries or an extension cable you can take the shell off unscrew the plug end of the power brick and run the cable out the back put the shell back together and now you have a standard solder station you can plug into an outlet directly or like someone else said we don't get these in the UK he bought one from the USA that has the US plug seems its 240v he now knows he can replace it with a UK plug and use the hybrid feature if he has no charged batteries
I think the point of those butane ones is more so for field soldering when you're splicing wires and such. My friend is a generator tech and he uses one on the regular because most of the time you're not right next to an outlet. I also have one, and have used it to splice some wires on my car together with an actual solder joint instead of a flimsy crimp. It works pretty well for fairly thick wires, but I certainly would never dream of using it on a PCB or micro joint.
I've soldered plenty over the past year or two, and even with the 110 wall plug irons, never burnt a joint or scrapped a pcb from too much heat. I have used a temperature control unit, and really could not tell a difference between the 2 irons, it was a nice Weller temp control unit, vs a 10 dollar Walmart iron. Both felt great on wire, pcb, super easy
The downside is waiting ten minutes between joints if you have an open window with a mild breeze. I've done a lot better work with the trash iron, too. I think it forces me to work very, very slowly whereas before id probably have the big iron cranked to 400 impatiently burning everything
the cheap irons work perfectly fine. i soldered a lot with a crappy iron in high school, and never had a problem either
@@chris7868 same, working witha better iron I'm actually more likely to screw something up, maybe because I learned on an iron I got for literally 9 bucks
Add me to the list of someone who’s done a ton of soldering on PCBs with only using a decent quality, non adjustable heat, soldering iron. When I worked in an electronic repair shop which had a better soldering station, we rarely were adjusting the temperatures. For someone who professed multiple times that “I’m not very good at soldering” the author seems more attracted to the bells and whistles than an inexpensive, solid, functional tool that gets the job done.
You managed to fascinate me for 46 minutes. About a damn soldering iron. Thank you sir!