Looking closer at the cheap usb soldering iron

Let's take a closer look at that cheap USB powered soldering iron I pulled out of this week's mailbag.

Can it be fixed?
Does it work at all?
Will I be disappointed?

These questions and more answered in today's episode.

Except there were a few questions that I didn't anticipate.

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As with all of my videos, this isn't the only way to do it.
It's probably not the best way to do it.

But it's how I do it.

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[tenlittleindians]

It looks just like the one I have and love! The ball on mine does not push. I get within a half inch of the ball and it automatically turns on. Left on the stand it turns itself off after about 30 seconds. I bought an oscilloscope kit and soldered it together with this little iron! They work great for board work.

[mattivirta]

next you need test and looking inside popular battery iron soldering TS100. how work and have good.

[jayherde]

I missed the part where the mono plug usually connects the left and right stereo channels of the jack together. Exactly where this would have come into play, I didn't check (sorry).

[GadgetReboot]

The good thing about buying cheap simple stuff is it’s usually easy to fix. Maybe they didn’t bother with quality control when they substituted the Jack or the plug to something incompatible, knowing that whoever is going to use something like this can also probably debug it themselves. They should have sold as a soldering iron kit.

[Codedbad]

Great quality control. Looks like someone switched to a cheaper audio jack without testing.
BTW, I received one of those jewelers loupes yesterday and they are great.

[dina]

It looks like you've got the replica one.
The "original" one (which works great) has a plastic yellow nut ( as you can see on the seller's web page) a touch sensitive button and an IC 555 inside the iron.
Also, the "original" iron tip shows copper on the side that fits inside the iron, with a white insulator not black as yours.

[jasonmhite]

I'd guess the RC circuit on the switch is a simple debounce circuit, timer doesn't make much sense.

[kjur]

I wonder how much power is wasted in that cable. If you have some time, try to measure voltage right at the connection, it might be even less than 4V. I have a 16x2 lcd with arduino connected to one usb connector and I use it with LCDSmartie. It's not very power hungry device, but it kept crashing, just because right at the board I had only like 4.5V, barely enough to work. Just because of single crappy usb cable.

[llaci]

lol 4, 3V x 0, 85A is not 5W is 3, 65Watt..

[SidneyCritic]

How long does it take to heat up to solderable state.

[standishgeezer]

Why didn't you just jumper between the pads?