The main reason I don't like setting soldering irons to a very high temperature is that the flux tends to burn off before it makes it all the way around the joint. That makes the solder not flow all the way around even if there's plenty of heat. For soldering large terminals, I like to buy much larger tips with greater heat capacity instead of turning up the iron.
Yea ive noticed more and more people not relying on the flux cores of the solder and using the liquid flux that completely douses the area and just looks like itd be a pain to clean up every time.. but never seen em have a bad joint
@@Z-Ack I'm the same way. Regardless of solder, I detest coated brazing rods for the same reason. Plus coating the joint area with flux restricts solder flow to the joint, essential for high silver content solders.
@@Z-Ack noy hard to remove the excess with any circuit board cleaner, ya its messy... but despit... the temp r excessive, and thers even an extra heat resorvoar, wich would work just fine at 360 deg C, even when u solder a lot it convenient not havng to rely on liquid flux... had a high temp once...and it died within 2 weeks... was a much worse design than this one, so may not be applicable here... but it will eat alot more material and tips def if it stays at 500 deg C for hours a day...
I bought mine in spring this year, mostly because it had ended up in the reduced price corner at my Lidl. I just couldn't resist and was also quite positively surprised by the build quality and the fact that it uses these standard (Hakko-rip-off) tips. I hadn't opened it yet, so a big thank you for saving med the trouble 😎
Indeed. The 3 tiny dual mosfet packages on a AIO flight controller of my cinewhoop can handle continuos 35A to a motor. It's ridiculous how small they can make them these days.
@@Qwarzz yeah i found some vintage robotics motor controllers and they are huge with heatsink and fans, i thought they could handle 150-200a but i looked it up online its just 40a which was a joke for its size
It’s due to the modern MOSFETs having very, very low on resistances. Older MOSFETs and bipolar transistors had to be larger and needed substantial heatsinks in order to deal with the power lost through on the on resistance of the transistor.
For labels that you dont mind showing they have been voided, just run a precision blade along the seam. Thus the clam shell opens to divide the label into 2 parts. Then you dont have to pry up the entire label.
I used to work at a telephone exchange, and we had two types of iron. A large slow heat iron and a 50 Watt quick heat. The slow one could be left on all day and be usable for a couple of terminations, as it slowly went to about 360 deg C. If we needed to do a few hundred terminations we had to use the quick heat, which was about 450 deg C, but needed the oxidation cleaned off every 10 minutes. Also the tips would only last a fortnight before being needed to be replaced.
I love reviews like this, i bought a lot of parkside tools in past and they are priced well for DIY work, but sometimes it is good to have a review like this to see if quality holds up properly before buying it.
@@bigclivedotcom If the iron's grounded you just touch the line and it will heat itself up (unless it errors out on short). If it's not grounded you just need to add the new resistor before removing the old one.
@@TheMookie1590 It got lost in the sub-comments instead. If you have not discovered the answer yet, see Big Clive's review here: ua-cam.com/video/iqxEMFCvGtc/v-deo.html - HAKKO 191 soldering iron tip thermometer
Parkside do appear to make surprisingly decent budget cordless tools. About 5 years ago a friend gave me his Parkside impact driver, general purpose drill, and their SDS drill, as he had bought some proper Dewalt kit, and I used them for a good 3 years for DIY stuff, before making a return to carpentry for work. I figured they might see me through a few months on the job, until I could afford to replace them with professional stuff... Well, they're all still going strong and I've since bought extra batteries and a number of other tools from their range, and I've also discovered that, with a little modification, you can even run the Draper Storm Forcce range, with the Parkside batteries (it looks suspiciously like Draper use the same manufacturer in China, or at least many of the same components). People are always laughing at me on site for using Lidl tools, but those who work regularly with me, have had to grudgingly admit that they're actually pretty good, dependable tools, and of course the batteries are less than a 3rd of the price of Dewalt ones 🙂 A while back I started to wonder why they were so well built for the price, and I found out that it's all down to regulations in Germany, where Lidl are based, as they have to ensure that their power tools comply with a set of semi professional standards over there. Anyway, great video mate, always a pleasure to watch your teardowns of stuff like this 👍
I have had the same parkside impact for almost 8 years!! Still going strong. I dont use it much, but way more than a few times a year. Since that I have bought the drill, grinder, compressor and pump. They are all doing well and having a flashlight/powerbank attachment for the bunch of batteries is so usefull too. I love Parkside, can recommend to all homegamers
Hi Clive.. thanks for bring back memories with the Antex iron.. when I was a young lad getting into things electronics, I got 2 different birthday presents that I still remember… my mum, under my directions, got me an Antex iron and when I turned 21 my sisters got me a set of Stanley screwdrivers.. now 45 years and a bit more I still have both gifts.. apart from the “electrical” screwdriver, with the red plastic insulation, the set still has all the original screwdrivers.. I know were the original electrical driver is, but unfortunately it was in the roof space of a factory, that no longer exists.. A cordless soldering iron is a super “handy dandy” tool to have.. only yesterday I got a bit of kit up and running, situated several hundred metres from the nearest powerpoint, with a quick dab of solder!! Keep up the good work… cheers
God bless this video. I've been searching for some time for a cheap, but not totally rubbish portable soldering iron. But I've never came across for those with adjustable regulation. The fact that this soldering iron is so easilly modifiable makes me happy. So I am instantly buying one of those and I just have to add 100ohm potenciometer. I just hope that the available model PLSA 20-Li B2 has the same PCB and they didn't removed the posibility to add potenciometer for regulation. Also in Czech Republic this product is available on online Lidl shop standalone without battery and charger for 500czk (about 18Ł) - without shiping. Extremely good value i think, if you have other parkside products with 20V batteries. Thanks BigClive for showing this product :D
Thanks for your videos about everything we didn't know we didn't wonder about. I also find it encouraging to see that you make some effort to make everyone understand that water boils at 100 degrees and freezes at 0 degrees (celcius, mostly, but centigrades if you're sufficiently old)
I bought one of these a couple of years ago and it worked for around a couple of months then next time I went to use it had failed. The LED does all the right things, flash and turn green, but the element does not get hot - so the "warm up" indications are time rather than temperature sensed! I tossed it in the bottom draw but now with the help of BC's excellent reverse engineering I'll go and check it out some more - it's probably the element that is broken. Like BC I actually bought it with the intention of using is as a battery connector for my TS100 - which I will still do by installing a connector from the unit.
For a tool battery connector to my TS100, I 3d-printed a battery shoe and then wired in spade connectors to contact the battery terminal springs. That and at XT60 connector was all it took.
One trick I learned when building a computer kit in the 70s is to continuously feed solder while going down the pins of a DIP socket. The capillary (?) effect causes the solder to pull along and not leave bridges. Super fast. Any bridges can be removed in a quick second by running the soldering iron over the pins top to bottom and removing the excess on the iron's tip. My current irons are a SainSmart TS80P portable soldering iron with a usb-c battery brick, and on my bench, a Hakko FX888D-23BY Digital Soldering Station. Once you go temperature controlled, you never go back. They come up to temp like a 1000w iron but stop at the selected temperature. On a recent car stereo project, I soldered all the connections (no crimp/butt connectors) and the SainSmart worked wonderfully.
7:13 in situations like that, I typically just cut the label cleanly at the seam. Most of the time that gives a nicer appearance than pulling the label up and trying to stick it back down.
Glad to hear the XS25 get a mention 👍 I'm still using the one I bought many years ago. I did have an Antex gascat but unfortunately it didn't last 😞 but was great when it was working
I was going to say the same thing - who doesn't have an Antex knocking around? I lost my favourite, favourite Antex (bought many, many years ago) sadly.. replaced it with an XS25, of course :)
Just bought me a YIHUA 938D TWEEZERS soldering station for smd components. It makes stripping down a PCB a 2 minute job. I spent ages the other day trying to take the resistor off an Asda led bulb a la Clive's hack. The pigging thing was cooling faster than I could move my tip and there just wasn't room to get an ordinary tip at he right angle. About £50, I' be been toying for ages but finally snapped and paid up. Only took two weeks on Ali express and it is brilliant, you just grasp and lift and off comes the component no matter how nice the PCB there is enough heat to do the job. I think I'll get my money back pretty soon at this rate
I always found that soldering irons from Parkside and friends tend to fail pretty quickly. After going through a few I don't regret upgrading to a decent temp-controlled station. And I'm excited to see what Clive does with the battery connector. When the heatwave hit in July I printed a swivel mount for a noctua fan that plugs into their triangular 12V batteries. Now the seasons are changing I might see if I can use it to power some bike lights.
I was a Weller man from my apprenticeship days but £200+ for a soldering iron is a bit steep so tried some alternatives for around £70 and was pleasantly surprised at the excellent results. I still believe in good quality kit - even for amateurs.
Nice unit. Nice tear down. As someone who's used several of the TS-80 and TS-100 irons I can say with confidence that the tips' lifetime is shortened at temps above 400. I would mount a multi turn pot that has a long shaft and knob in such a way that I could adjust it from the outside.
Actually, you can set what temperature you need on this PARKSIDE soldering iron. You just need to switch it on and wait the light indicator to get green. Then press and hold the button until the indicator goes red, this is the state of lowing down the temperature. Every brief press of the button will change the maximum temperature of the iron for about 3 degrees C. If you press and hold button until the indicator goes green, this is the state of getting up the maximum temperature. To save the setting, just press and hold the button on more time. I have two of these irons and set them both to reach a maximum temperature for about 365 degrees C. To measure the temperature you may use some thermometer like the one in the video HAKKO 191.
For removing some labels I use Isopropyl Alcohol, just put some drops down the edges and use the Spudger. Most times there is enough glue left on the label that, when dry it will just stick on again! Excellent video as always, also learning a lot through them as Electronics Engineer who also likes to take things apart, modify or repair them!
A couple of years ago, after about 24 year’s service, my trusty Adcola t/c iron died. I tried a couple of generic Chinese irons: the first I sent back as it seemed useless for anything but the lightest tasks. Its replacement was equally bad and on examination I found the problem to be that the bit wasn’t actually in contact with the heating element. This meant it could only get as much power to the tip as could be radiated and conducted across this small air gap. So the tip would get hot while on the stand, but as soon as you tried to solder a wire to a 1/4” spade connector for example, it would exhaust the heat capacity of the bit before you could make a decent joint. Rather than send it back, I shimmed the bit with some copper foil to improve thermal conduction. This made a fair difference and I decided I could live with it. A year later the controller chip went faulty and the MOSFET turned to ash. I now have an Antex 660A. Like everything these days it’s made in China, but at least seems better designed from the thermal aspect.
Thanks for this analysis of a very useful and well-made soldering iron. I was wondering about trying to lower the bit temperature and you have now given me the answer. Re labels covering joints - I usually carefully slit the label along the joint with a very sharp blade, on reassembly the cut is barely noticeable and the adhesive is left uncompromised. This doesn't work where labels cover screws, of course.
I have a number of soldering irons including two Antex TCS (the older analogue version). The first one has seen thousands of hours of use and was used as my normal iron for many years. It dates to the late 1980s. And that’s what I still use whenever I’m away from my normal workbench. Before stocks of this Antex iron ran out, I bought another one just in case… I have a Chinese made soldering station that I now use on my workbench. It’s fine for normal PCB and connector tasks, but if I need to solder or desolder any large joints, it’s the Antex TCS that does the job.
You do make an excellent point about using this soldering iron in auto repair. If you're soldering a few ground leads from the harness to one terminal connection, you need to blast multiple wires with heat quickly - especially since you're often holding several wires together in a tiny space with one hand contorted oddly to keep them all together. 🤣
I saw this video a long ago and today I was able to buy one. Immediatelly added the 33 ohm resistor hack because the temperature was way too high for electonic soldering. Many thanks for finding this easy solution. This unit will replace my old butane powered solder iron when I need a mobile solder station.
There's another option for the older PCBs. You can adjust temperature from the button on the front. I made a video about it. You may be able to tweak the temperature further based on your existing resistor.
The use of the P-MOSFET and N-MOSFET combination to allow the low voltage processor to control the high side (at higher voltage) of the load is exactly what I need for a Halloween decoration I need to get going on.
This circuit used the more difficult PNP circuit to pull the gate high. PNP drivers are more difficult because we need a few seconds to choose appropriate resistors. The designer of this board didn't trust it fully and added sensing of transistor failure and a force off circuit that can work with a shorted PNP.
I bought an Antex in London, about 35 years ago, it seemed good because every part was replaceable. When I came home to Arbroath some years later, the element went... it seems Arbroath had an excellent Weller salesman, who'd chased the Antex guy outta town LOL 😆 thanks to Maplin, and their big book of dreams I ordered one by post. Most recently, I've been using gas irons; very useful, but a pain when the catalyst runs out. I bought one of these Lidl ones recently as a spare. I find Lidls tools quite good, hugely improved since their first offerings, and the versatile battery is a godsend. PS you can set the temperature, if you read the manual first 😂😂😂😂😂
i love that there is an industry standard cordless tool battery (its called CAS) and that ONLY smaller brands use it. seems like literally none of the "major" brands use the standard battery :(
Big brands can't scam you for batteries if they don't control the battery system. I hope the EU forces the brands to use a unified battery standard like they did with USB-C, it's so wasteful for me to need to own a battery or two for a tool I have from a specific brand when I already have lots of batteries. It also makes tools better, people will buy the best tool from whatever brand, not try to pick a brand and then just buy tools aimlessly.
Great device. I'll have to go to Lidl and see if they sell it here in Germany. I think the high soldering tip temperature is especially useful for larger solder joints and cable cross-sections. I usually repair / solder fine electronics at home, so I use my soldering station. This unit is, as you said, intended for outdoor use. Soldering wires in model making, on vehicles and so on. I already have the battery pack and the quick charger here, in the case of my Lidl cordless drill. I've just had a look, unfortunately it's currently sold out in the Lidl online shop.
Having the capability to go to high temperatures is definitely nice but as you mention can be really hard on the tip over time. I think a good solution is to have a more sensible standard temperature and then have some kind of easy to use "high-power" mode, especially if it the element has decent heat output (say 40+W). The IronOS firmware for Pinecil/TS100/MHP30/TS80 for example has a single-button 450C boost mode for example and I can definitely attest that it works great on my Pinecil (V1) when you have something that needs a bit of extra help.
Maybe fitting an extra switch into the case to short out R8 (after removing the zero ohm) and fitting a 33 ohm resistor to R10 (or preset as Clive suggests). Could even be a foot pedal to operate it!
Thinking about modding my one by replacing the zero ohm link with a 47 ohm resistor (315 C) ,but also adding a latching switch that shorts out the resistor so getting you back to the 500 C boost. Thanks to BC for making the otherwise obscure blatantly obvious.
@@stepheneyles2198 Given the length of cable, a foot switch for boost is an awesome idea. The root comment here is what I was thinking, I may pick one up but I'll have to print a connector to use my Aldi ActiveEnergy batteries.
More than 1 temperature nob with a LED each for activation , different tone chimes for different temperatures setting activations and other settings selected by foot switches ( like pedals of an musical organ , and movable footrest ) or voice command , other foot-switches for solder , flux , brush , solder sucker , chair position , tip turret selection , parts tray movement , magnifier control . Figure what vexes your flow and enjoy the making of the silly extreme of gimmicks you add that save you from distraction , time , fatigue , peace .
Looking again at this well made review, made me look around recently for something similar. A T12 type iron that mounts on a Makita/ type battery. Never had an iron that reaches my selected heat in 4 seconds. For those small and quick jobs, a pain waiting for an iron to heat up, this has been a revelation. You probably have, but why not take a look at one.
Your presentation of the circuitry is immaculate! Very inspiring! I want to get this and put a 3 or 4-way switch from sensible temperatures to full power on the side of the case.
If you removed the link and connected a 100 ohm potentiometer to the pads would you then have a variable temperature soldering iron? There wouldn't be a display of the temperature but then my old Maplin soldering station didn't have one but I got to know where to turn the knob depending on what I was soldering.
Yes, and you could draw your own calibrated scale, by testing the tip temp with the sort of thing Clive used, and presto, a temp controlled battery iron !
That looks like a better product than I got many years ago. I had once a mains powered one from LIDL and the solder literally ate through the tip within a couple of month.
It is interesting that vaping devices with temperature stabilization actually use the same two terminals on the 510 connector to measure the temperature: knowing the thermal curve of wire resistance (in case of a homogenous coil) allows for finding out the temperature of the coil by measuring its resistance. This is why at some point they switched from nickel-chromium wire to alloys with higher thermal resistance dependence coefficient - like stainless steel and others.
eons ago I build a temperature controlled soldering iron kit. It supplied the heater with rectified AC and measured the resistance of the heater at the zero crossings to get the temperature
Hi. I fixed this one. It's pretty useful. I replaced R8 with 18 Ohm resistor and it works perfectly. The temperature for 18 Ohm for mine is about 330 to 350 deg C. I guess the sensing wire's resistance value varies a lot from product to product
I am an old school solderer. Factory soldering. I have several Irons. I use one of these for when I am working on site where there is no mains available, its quicker than having to run an extension. Yes it gets very hot, but as long as you are quick and use extra Flux EVERY JOINT. Its fine. Not really very suitable for fine circuit boards though. I run multiple Parkside tools, so have more than enough batteries. BTW, Clive could have just slit the label at the seam.!!
Lidl also sells a slide-on light/USB-charger type thing for those batteries. I replaced the led with a 5v relais to switch a direct battery connection. Now I can use the full 20v with the built in discharge protection and soft switch.
FYI the isolation on the screwdriver is not essentially aimed at avoiding you an electrical shock if you handle it by its metal part while it touch one live element, but protect you from making an accidental short circuit between 2 different live elements and getting blasted and severely burned in the process if the current and/or the voltage delivered by this short circuit is important, like when working in industrial machines panel command boxes, where you might have to act without cutting the main switches if you are an electrician. Where I live, by regulation, those boxes - well the recently installed ones - should only contain equipment that cannot be short circuited with such a tiny length of metal (IP2X standard). I've learned that just today from the instructor of one of those mandatory courses you need to take if you work in a place where anything electrical is done - not that it applies to me as a software engineer, but I started working in an electrical test labs environment recently (on electric vehicles charging stations firmware).
Have build mine myself for the Milwaukee battery platform. Its basically a chinese 12-24V kit and a 3D printed Housing with an Adapter plate and Low Voltage Cutoff and a Switch. Its heating very quick(300C° in 13s) and has an LCD and a smal knob to adjust the temperature. We just needed a nice soldering iron for soldering on the construction site with LED stripes getting more common every year.
I've bought some Hakko clone soldering handles on EBay. Always wanted to make a portable setup like these. Now I can thanks to your teardown. Im going to use a 4.6 volt supervisor chip and a voltage divider for control, hope it works.
Not sure if it is same design... but here in US we have RYOBI rechargeable products. I have a RYOBI soldering station with variable temperature. It operates same as this one you tested (LED) and has multi-turn pot to adjust tip temperature. I like it a LOT more than my butane-gas powered mini-torch for soldering without extension cord.
These 20V Parkside tools are good value for money for light use but can be a little fragile. The first time I plugged my charger in it went pop and released the magic smoke, no problem on exchange in the shop and the replacement is still going. However the battery I use on the multitool isn't the most robust, I must have knocked it around one too many times and one of the blade terminals cracked inside the housing. I ended up soldering a link wire from the blade terminal to a solder pad on the board, there was just too much force on the terminals for a solder joint to survive on the crack itself.
I had multiple of the USB irons reviewed, and it's good to see more in these styles. I've seen a ~12-24V adjustable iron, and I never though of hooking it up to a cordless tool battery! Someone put 2 and 2 together and had a clever idea. It'd be interesting to see a "joule thief" design, because the iron would not need to be voltage regulated. Could use a much larger range of supplies, and only need a little bit for a regulator. Edit: You don't have to take the whole label off! Use an exacto / box cutter!!
Interesting one, I like the battery system approach. What I don't like is the lack of temperature adjustment or even temperature indication. Nice PCB though, and fortunately it looks hackable with that shunted pads for the potentiometer. PS. same heater as in my cheap-ass Repro 936 station I got from a local electronics service. These heaters are easy to get and cost a little, making them practical to replace if one fails.
To your point I could see a lot of mechanics using this. Most mechanics use butane soldering irons anyway. You don't always have an electrical outlet so you either have to run an extension cable set up your soldering iron inside the car because you can't really take the wiring harness out
Nice product 👌. I recently purchased some Whia SlimFix VDE screwdrivers, having flush insulation with driver bit, I didn't know these were available, but just my regular change/replacement routine. Great video, thanks for sharing
as much as I've been watching your videos especially on your video you show your examples of how to do soldiering and the difference in a good soldiering as to bad. also different types of soldiering irons and temperature adjustments and it help me as do all your clear videos you make. ty
As for the isolation of the screwdriver shaft: It protects not only against a clumsy human to touch the potentially live shaft of your driver, but also against connecting it to other components or the case. You might hold or rest your hand on the metal case of your junction box while screwing down live wires and the plastic protects you from shorting that to the case. Best case you pop a fuse or the GFI and the power goes out, but there was probably a reason you didnt cut the power to the terminals in the first place. So its not a completely stupid standard.
I think I would fit a wee switch to the side to be able to flick it between the full 500C and, say, 375C, which is my favorite bit temperature. Also looks like you could drill a small hole under the sponge tray to allow a trimmer tool to reach a small multiturn trimmer fitted on the PCB.
I've had an Antex XS25 since I first bought myself a soldering iron, probably 25years ago, I had no idea what was good or bad, but I remember using the yellow Antex in school so knew they'd be robust, I control the tip temp with the wet soapy sponge, did away with the all plastic holder I bought and made my own solder/glue gun station which I prefer.. I also am lucky enough to still have a enough leaded solder to keep me going and have not had to struggle with lead free yet, I dread the day..
Using the comparator built in to the micro is a great way of providing a safety function. It can kill the power if the controller latches or the drive latches high,it takes the safety function away from the software. You an set it to also interrupt the MC so it can try to recover from the error. If you need a safety function its easier to do it in hardware than software, kill the fault then let the software recover if it can. Hardware is far easier to certifie than software.
I do like how the stand fits the soldering iron handle so solidly. I bought a pine pencil -based soldering iron and it didn't come with a stand, so I've been using my old FX-888D soldering iron stand. It kind-of works, but it's not really a great fit. They do sell a stand for it, but it's the shitty kind that you're meant to just lean the iron on. I'm not going to carefully place it down on the stand, I want to use muscle memory and shove it back into the hole without looking, but it's just not satisfying when it's not a good fit.
This is actually really cool, and I might actually look into how to get ahold of one of these in the US. I think I might be inclined to, instead of having a fixed resistor or a trimmer pot, etc, actually add an external switch to allow switching between "high" (480-ish C) or "medium" (350-ish C) settings, which would probably cover most of my own needs pretty well (I do often want to solder things for which 450+ C would probably be just too hot, but it would be nice to have the option when working on things like (as you mentioned) automotive or house wiring type stuff)... And I think the reason it's got such a complicated switching design, and it's got a separate "power on indicator" line and "shutdown" line is that it's actually carefully designed so that if _any_ component fails in any way, the MCU will be able to detect it and prevent any possible configuration where such a fault would cause the iron to be live when it's not supposed to be. If either of the initial "voltage converter" transistors fails in the "on" state somehow, for example, it will be able to detect that they have turned on the iron even though it didn't tell them to, and the separate shutdown signal can be applied to halt everything even if the normal power control line doesn't work as normal due to component failures. By my reading, the only possible way for the iron to be hot when the MCU doesn't intend it to be is if the main switching MOSFET actually fails shorted somehow (which is hard to protect against). Anything short of that is detectable/preventable due to the design, though...
The screwdriver insulated tip is not for your finger's safety, it's for when it's on top of one terminal, the body doesn't "touch" another terminal and connect them together. Especially common in cruddy wiring or the back of outlets. The idea is that only ~1cm of metal is exposed, which should be about the same size as most compliant clearances between terminals.
Hi Clive, great video as always. I'd just like to tell you about my ALDI soldering iron which is a FERREX which is ALDIS version of tools. It is mains powered and cost me £9 it comes with two tips, a stand and a small tub of flux.The tips are ready available from ebay/amazon for pennies. Its a 30w with the tip that's held in with a screw ( if you know what I mean) don't know what temp it gets to but it's fine for me and seems to do the job nicely for what I use it for. ( mainly repairing and building my own through hole circuit boards) anyway the main reason I'm messaging you is that I have had this iron now for about 2 years and no issues at all I have only put two tips in it over that time and believe me it's done a lot of work so far ( I do keep the tip very clean and well tinned after every use) sorry I'm digressing 🤣 . I last used this iron last Saturday it is now Friday ( 6 days later) and have just come into my shed (which is my little workshop) to grab a beer out of the fridge after what seems a very long week at work. ( beer fridge in the shed is essential 🍺🤣) and realised that I left the iron switched on, I thought well that's it that heating element must be burnt out by now and the tip completely cooked to death, but to my absolute surprise it was still hot and running but the tip looked a bit sorry for itself, anyway I re tinned the tip and gave it a quick clean and it's like I never left it switched on. For a very cheap iron I'm absolutely gob smacked that it's still running and as for the tip that's surprised me too. Sorry for the essay but I'm so surprised by this if it had of burnt out I would have just bought another one for less than a tenner who cares anyway 🤣 . I did mean to add that this iron is not temperature controlled, just wondering why it didn't burn out any ideas or have I just been lucky.
I sometimes left my Antex soldering iron on accidentally for days at a time, and on one instance weeks while I was away from home. It was fine. These elements usually run at a temperature that isn't particularly degrading to the materials involved.
@@bigclivedotcom this was £9 and is made in China so was not expecting to last very long anyway, so for it to last two years so far with the amount of work it's done and for me to leave it running for nearly a week has very much h surprised me. Keep up the good work clive. 👍
I used to use Ungar for everything, and I have several of their desoldering stations, some of the best ever made. Their old 115 V irons had easily changed tips, where they had a female thread, and they were hot, which, like you said, allows one to fly when soldering. I carried those in my service and tube caddies. Weller bought them out in the end.
@@tubastuff I carried a 777 in my tool caddy as well, which has been copied by several manufacturers now, but in the shop I have the automatic pistol type 4024 stations. As long as you keep fresh cotton in the glass tube, plus, don't break the tube, and keep the tip clean, it works wonders.
@@craxd1 I used to use the old Weller DS801 desoldering iron that ran off of plant air. I screwed down the aspirator and hooked it up to a carbon-vane vacuum pump with a small (about 1 gal.) tank. When you hit the foot pedal, the vacuum inside the tank would suck the dickens out of anything you used. The iron had the same glass tube stuffed wtih glass wool as your Ungar unit. It was a pain to use--I got rid of it and reverted to my old Soldapullt. Now I see there seem to be some pistol-type desoldering irons made in China for not a lot of money. I'm seriously tempted to see if they're better than the big Soldapullt and solder-wick braid.
There is a calibration mode for this soldering iron: 1) power it on, let it turn solid green 2.a) to reduce the temperature press and hold power until it turn solid red 2.b) to increase the temperature press and hold power until it turn blinking green 3) short press power to increase or decrease the temperature (3 clicks around 10 degrees change) 4) to end the calibration, press and hold power button until it turns solid green slimmed down, without the holes for a potentiometer, neither this calibration mode works for the B2 version.
You can remove the DS pin on the pcb and put a 10k resistor between B- and DS to activate the circuit, everything works except low battery cut-off. BTW for those interested I have just tested it at 12v, it dose work, start up around 3.5 amp and drops to around 2.4 amp when up to temp.
Lidl are currently selling a different model with battery integrated into the iron (bulky pen style). The specs say it has a 30s heat up, 60 minute run time, and Max temp of 470°C. it's priced at £14.99 and available now (mid April 2023). It appears to come with a handy stand including a sponge, plus a usb A to usb c charging cable. Doesn't look to have temperature or output power control either, looks to be single button operation and work the same as those instant/cold heat soldering iron guns. Looks to come with a single needle tip which I think is the same type as on the model Clive has his way with here.
I suspect what Clive has labelled "Heater control" is just enabling the pull-up for the MOSFET gate, which can be switched off to minimise standby current draw. The "On" signal is likely going into an ADC for battery voltage monitoring, and the current draw through this divider would also be stopped by "Heater control".labelled
I recently bought the Dremel versatip for my occasional outside soldering needs, I just keep a can of butane gas around, and it works surprisingly well for soldering. The price is also surprisingly okay for a dremel product.
Open flame soldering is only for items that can survive the flame. A hot iron puts the heat precisely where it touches, in particular the old old school ones that you heat over an open furnace then move to the item to be soldered.
@@johndododoe1411 as has been said before, it is a soldering iron with a proper soldering tip, it's just heated by gas instead of electricity. The hot air is vented away from the working area.
If you're really adventurous, you might try Zinc wire welding. Zinc melts around 420C and you could solder aluminum wires or thin strips of different meatls. They sell low temp aluminum brazing rods like "Blue demon" @ 387°C, which are mostly Zinc with a flux core.
The "trick" underpowered irons use by going extremely hot, can work for some applications, but I would caution against using it on small and especially SMD solder joints. Because upon initial contact, it can be hot enough to break down the adhesive securing the solder pads to the substrate/board. Meaning you risk detaching pads from the board. And if that pad is attached to a via straight underneath it, there might not be an available surface trace for you to attach a jumper wire to, and you're gonna have a really bad day.
in northern europe lidl sold an adjustable soldering iron (100-500 degrees) the design is very different from the one shown in this video (even the handle and type of tips they use are different). It also comes with solder/an extra soldering tip/cleaner for the tip and storage for all of the mentioned. very interesting to see another variant in the UK.
I bought a, to all appearances, brand new vacuum sealer in a charity shop. Since it was getting a bit too hot I took it apart to see if there was any solution inside. I was quite surprised by the complexity. It might be worth a look.
Hello Clive, I’ve only recently stumbled upon your videos (probably due to you tubes algorithms from once watching something entirely unrelated) and just wanted to say they are superb, subscribed of course please keep up the good work.
Hi Clive, is it possible for you to take a look at the Erbauer 20v range. It would be handy to know where the smarts are located, in the battery or the charger or both. Pinouts would be great too. Thanks in advance, great content.
I have one and for outdoor work especially in wind and it still gets the jobs done that I need it too. Would definitely replace it if it broke but most my Parkside electrical tools seem incredibly reliable.
The soldering irons I use at work are set at 800F. They heat up in about a minute and can solder larger components fast but sensitive components can be damaged with them if you arent careful.
I wonder if it's running full-power at max temp for parts count reasons. As you pointed out, the board has space for a trimpot and in lieu of that, it just has a zero-ohm resistor. It also has an unpopulated pad for a second MOSFET. Could it be that at max power, the MOSFET is being pushed into saturation in the 'max power' config, requiring little power dissipation (enough to be handled by one device), whereas if the controller were adjusted to a lower temp, the MOSFET would slip into the linear region, which would increase power dissipation, requiring two MOSFETs to handle the load?
Small Tip A friend bought some extra Parkside batteries for his equipment. Now one of them showed defect whilst charging. The problem was that it was below a certain threshold. I connected it with a good and 100% charged battery (+ to + and - to -) for a while and then tried to charge it and it was OKAY !!
You do a great impersonation of the safety officers Clive... Be careful though - its a slippery slope towards becoming one! 🙂 Thank you for a great video!
Lidl US occasionally has Parkside gadgets. Will have to keep my eyes out for this, but I won't buy their battery just for that one device. I have two other 20v battery systems from power tools. If one of them is not compatible, I will make it compatible. What could go wrong?
Very nice analysis, as always. Thanks for that! I am a bit confused by the ForceOff function. The ForceOff can only help in case something in the control electronics would fail. In my experience in a circuit like this the (by far) highest risk of failure is the Power MOSFET. These fail typically by shorting out drain and source, which means the soldering iron is fully powered and something else (probably the heating element) would need to suffer a painful death. In that case the ForceOff circuit does not help at all. Why spending so much effort in a ForceOff logic, but not investing in a second FET to cut of the current in case of failure? Or is there maybe any trick to command the battery switching off its supply current? Do you know how the soldering iron behaves if the FET is shorted?
@@bennopuetz206 Using the switch within the battery pack would make sense, but then this 'ForceOff' needs to go to the battery connector and the battery needs to have this functionality to be switched off by an external signal. I am not sure if these Parkside batteries support this.
AFAIK Parkside is Lidl's house brand of... stuff... It's one of the few things I like about shopping at Lidl. They have a few isles of things you really don't expect to find in a superstore. At times I've found things such as chainsaws, shop compressors, pneumatic tools, power tools and sewing machines. Now they don't seem to match inventory to the area where the store is located, so the chainsaws I found in a store in the middle of the city where really no one needs one. You never know just what they will have this week as they rotate the inventory regularly. Almost all tools will be branded Parkside and the prices seems to be on the low side. I have no idea about general quality but I kind of expect it to match the prices. So not really high quality but not quite Alibaba cheep crap either. The sewing machine however was a Zinger so that's at least a well known brand.
I bought a corded one. Tip lasted a week before it ate through the nickel plate. Made a solid nickel tip from a chunk used for plating . Hard stuff to machine!
There is a calibration mode for this soldering iron: 1) power it on, let it turn solid green 2.a) to reduce the temperature press and hold power until it turn solid red 2.b) to increase the temperature press and hold power until it turn blinking green 3) short press power to increase or decrease the temperature (3 clicks around 10 degrees change) 4) to end the calibration press and hold power button until it turns solid green
This looks like just the thing i could use in my garage. Well it would be if it wasnt for a crazy thing. I left my lovely old Weller tcp iron untended, the thermostat shorted & damaged the heater. Decades of soldering iron love was over i thought. But no, i found a replacement & the damaged one with a short in the heater works well enough on 12 volts dc 🙂 My Weller iron continues.
Handy tools to have.VDE compliance causes issues !I still have my low voltage Ungar from the 80s .have gone through a few tips but .it still works .Ozone has started to attack the rubber strain reliefs but it keeps on working.They have pt 100/1000 as tiny as 1mmx.5mm as a tiny chip with 2 tiny wires on it .Amazing to see .8 should send you a photo of one .It was in a 1/4 inch stainless tube probe
Modern SWD (and JTAG) programmers usually have a voltage sense input so they can automagically adapt to programming 5V, 3V3, 1V8 or whatever systems. That might be what's going on with the PRG1 header.
That looks nice and is a decent price ino. I've been using my TS100 plugged into a m18 or 2 m12 batteries when I need to travel. There's 3d printed battery connectors that go nice with 3d printed stands that are nice, a plus so you can stay with your chosen ecosystem of tools
When working outside on a vehicle even the faintest breeze will cool your iron.I have a really old 100W iron for those big terminals/connections, its got a massive copper tip.
The main reason I don't like setting soldering irons to a very high temperature is that the flux tends to burn off before it makes it all the way around the joint. That makes the solder not flow all the way around even if there's plenty of heat. For soldering large terminals, I like to buy much larger tips with greater heat capacity instead of turning up the iron.
Yea ive noticed more and more people not relying on the flux cores of the solder and using the liquid flux that completely douses the area and just looks like itd be a pain to clean up every time.. but never seen em have a bad joint
@@Z-Ack
I'm the same way. Regardless of solder, I detest coated brazing rods for the same reason. Plus coating the joint area with flux restricts solder flow to the joint, essential for high silver content solders.
Just bought a new tip for my Antex, wish I’d done it a long time ago !
@@Z-Ack …and even moar rosiiiiiiin! ©
@@Z-Ack noy hard to remove the excess with any circuit board cleaner, ya its messy...
but despit... the temp r excessive, and thers even an extra heat resorvoar, wich would work just fine at 360 deg C, even when u solder a lot it convenient not havng to rely on liquid flux...
had a high temp once...and it died within 2 weeks... was a much worse design than this one, so may not be applicable here... but it will eat alot more material and tips def if it stays at 500 deg C for hours a day...
Parkside tools are quite good for the price especially when on sale. Perfect for the powertool you use once or twice a year.
People dismiss them as 'rubbish' [politely putting it] but it's German rubbish. Germany does do half-hearted.
I bought mine in spring this year, mostly because it had ended up in the reduced price corner at my Lidl. I just couldn't resist and was also quite positively surprised by the build quality and the fact that it uses these standard (Hakko-rip-off) tips. I hadn't opened it yet, so a big thank you for saving med the trouble 😎
I'm still impressed by how much current those small MOSFET packages can switch.
Indeed. The 3 tiny dual mosfet packages on a AIO flight controller of my cinewhoop can handle continuos 35A to a motor. It's ridiculous how small they can make them these days.
@@Qwarzz yeah i found some vintage robotics motor controllers and they are huge with heatsink and fans, i thought they could handle 150-200a but i looked it up online its just 40a which was a joke for its size
@@Qwarzz I am working with automotive Power steering ECUs, and we have here MOSFETs of size about 6x8 mm that can handle about 300A of current.
@@chemik166 Yea, these are more like 3x3mm with two mosfets in the same package with no other cooling but the PCB.
It’s due to the modern MOSFETs having very, very low on resistances. Older MOSFETs and bipolar transistors had to be larger and needed substantial heatsinks in order to deal with the power lost through on the on resistance of the transistor.
For labels that you dont mind showing they have been voided, just run a precision blade along the seam. Thus the clam shell opens to divide the label into 2 parts. Then you dont have to pry up the entire label.
just shove a screwdriver into it repeatedly till you find it, never fails me
I used to work at a telephone exchange, and we had two types of iron. A large slow heat iron and a 50 Watt quick heat. The slow one could be left on all day and be usable for a couple of terminations, as it slowly went to about 360 deg C. If we needed to do a few hundred terminations we had to use the quick heat, which was about 450 deg C, but needed the oxidation cleaned off every 10 minutes. Also the tips would only last a fortnight before being needed to be replaced.
Good summary of the typical trade off
I love reviews like this, i bought a lot of parkside tools in past and they are priced well for DIY work, but sometimes it is good to have a review like this to see if quality holds up properly before buying it.
As a challenge, you should attempt to replace the setpoint resistor using the iron itself. I.e. have it perform surgery on itself!
That could work, as the iron holds the heat for a while.
@@bigclivedotcom If the iron's grounded you just touch the line and it will heat itself up (unless it errors out on short). If it's not grounded you just need to add the new resistor before removing the old one.
@@bigclivedotcom what is that tool at the start that you soldered on that measured temp?
replaying here because it will get lost in the comments.
@@TheMookie1590 It got lost in the sub-comments instead. If you have not discovered the answer yet, see Big Clive's review here: ua-cam.com/video/iqxEMFCvGtc/v-deo.html - HAKKO 191 soldering iron tip thermometer
Smug boast alert: I once used a 'scope to find a fault within itself. It did work because of the nature of the fault.
Parkside do appear to make surprisingly decent budget cordless tools. About 5 years ago a friend gave me his Parkside impact driver, general purpose drill, and their SDS drill, as he had bought some proper Dewalt kit, and I used them for a good 3 years for DIY stuff, before making a return to carpentry for work. I figured they might see me through a few months on the job, until I could afford to replace them with professional stuff... Well, they're all still going strong and I've since bought extra batteries and a number of other tools from their range, and I've also discovered that, with a little modification, you can even run the Draper Storm Forcce range, with the Parkside batteries (it looks suspiciously like Draper use the same manufacturer in China, or at least many of the same components). People are always laughing at me on site for using Lidl tools, but those who work regularly with me, have had to grudgingly admit that they're actually pretty good, dependable tools, and of course the batteries are less than a 3rd of the price of Dewalt ones 🙂
A while back I started to wonder why they were so well built for the price, and I found out that it's all down to regulations in Germany, where Lidl are based, as they have to ensure that their power tools comply with a set of semi professional standards over there. Anyway, great video mate, always a pleasure to watch your teardowns of stuff like this 👍
I have had the same parkside impact for almost 8 years!! Still going strong. I dont use it much, but way more than a few times a year. Since that I have bought the drill, grinder, compressor and pump. They are all doing well and having a flashlight/powerbank attachment for the bunch of batteries is so usefull too. I love Parkside, can recommend to all homegamers
Hi Clive.. thanks for bring back memories with the Antex iron.. when I was a young lad getting into things electronics, I got 2 different birthday presents that I still remember… my mum, under my directions, got me an Antex iron and when I turned 21 my sisters got me a set of Stanley screwdrivers.. now 45 years and a bit more I still have both gifts.. apart from the “electrical” screwdriver, with the red plastic insulation, the set still has all the original screwdrivers.. I know were the original electrical driver is, but unfortunately it was in the roof space of a factory, that no longer exists..
A cordless soldering iron is a super “handy dandy” tool to have.. only yesterday I got a bit of kit up and running, situated several hundred metres from the nearest powerpoint, with a quick dab of solder!!
Keep up the good work… cheers
God bless this video. I've been searching for some time for a cheap, but not totally rubbish portable soldering iron. But I've never came across for those with adjustable regulation. The fact that this soldering iron is so easilly modifiable makes me happy. So I am instantly buying one of those and I just have to add 100ohm potenciometer. I just hope that the available model PLSA 20-Li B2 has the same PCB and they didn't removed the posibility to add potenciometer for regulation.
Also in Czech Republic this product is available on online Lidl shop standalone without battery and charger for 500czk (about 18Ł) - without shiping. Extremely good value i think, if you have other parkside products with 20V batteries.
Thanks BigClive for showing this product :D
Thanks for your videos about everything we didn't know we didn't wonder about. I also find it encouraging to see that you make some effort to make everyone understand that water boils at 100 degrees and freezes at 0 degrees (celcius, mostly, but centigrades if you're sufficiently old)
I bought one of these a couple of years ago and it worked for around a couple of months then next time I went to use it had failed. The LED does all the right things, flash and turn green, but the element does not get hot - so the "warm up" indications are time rather than temperature sensed!
I tossed it in the bottom draw but now with the help of BC's excellent reverse engineering I'll go and check it out some more - it's probably the element that is broken.
Like BC I actually bought it with the intention of using is as a battery connector for my TS100 - which I will still do by installing a connector from the unit.
For a tool battery connector to my TS100, I 3d-printed a battery shoe and then wired in spade connectors to contact the battery terminal springs. That and at XT60 connector was all it took.
One trick I learned when building a computer kit in the 70s is to continuously feed solder while going down the pins of a DIP socket. The capillary (?) effect causes the solder to pull along and not leave bridges. Super fast. Any bridges can be removed in a quick second by running the soldering iron over the pins top to bottom and removing the excess on the iron's tip. My current irons are a SainSmart TS80P portable soldering iron with a usb-c battery brick, and on my bench, a Hakko FX888D-23BY Digital Soldering Station. Once you go temperature controlled, you never go back. They come up to temp like a 1000w iron but stop at the selected temperature. On a recent car stereo project, I soldered all the connections (no crimp/butt connectors) and the SainSmart worked wonderfully.
Always found Parkside to have good and reliable budget/entry level tools.
7:13 in situations like that, I typically just cut the label cleanly at the seam. Most of the time that gives a nicer appearance than pulling the label up and trying to stick it back down.
Glad to hear the XS25 get a mention 👍
I'm still using the one I bought many years ago.
I did have an Antex gascat but unfortunately it didn't last 😞 but was great when it was working
I was going to say the same thing - who doesn't have an Antex knocking around? I lost my favourite, favourite Antex (bought many, many years ago) sadly.. replaced it with an XS25, of course :)
Funny How this Popped up. I have the Ryobi 18V with Variable temp control, Works a treat...
Thanks Mike M.
Just bought me a YIHUA 938D TWEEZERS soldering station for smd components. It makes stripping down a PCB a 2 minute job. I spent ages the other day trying to take the resistor off an Asda led bulb a la Clive's hack. The pigging thing was cooling faster than I could move my tip and there just wasn't room to get an ordinary tip at he right angle. About £50, I' be been toying for ages but finally snapped and paid up. Only took two weeks on Ali express and it is brilliant, you just grasp and lift and off comes the component no matter how nice the PCB there is enough heat to do the job. I think I'll get my money back pretty soon at this rate
I always found that soldering irons from Parkside and friends tend to fail pretty quickly. After going through a few I don't regret upgrading to a decent temp-controlled station.
And I'm excited to see what Clive does with the battery connector. When the heatwave hit in July I printed a swivel mount for a noctua fan that plugs into their triangular 12V batteries. Now the seasons are changing I might see if I can use it to power some bike lights.
I was a Weller man from my apprenticeship days but £200+ for a soldering iron is a bit steep so tried some alternatives for around £70 and was pleasantly surprised at the excellent results. I still believe in good quality kit - even for amateurs.
Nice unit. Nice tear down. As someone who's used several of the TS-80 and TS-100 irons I can say with confidence that the tips' lifetime is shortened at temps above 400. I would mount a multi turn pot that has a long shaft and knob in such a way that I could adjust it from the outside.
Actually, you can set what temperature you need on this PARKSIDE soldering iron. You just need to switch it on and wait the light indicator to get green. Then press and hold the button until the indicator goes red, this is the state of lowing down the temperature. Every brief press of the button will change the maximum temperature of the iron for about 3 degrees C. If you press and hold button until the indicator goes green, this is the state of getting up the maximum temperature. To save the setting, just press and hold the button on more time.
I have two of these irons and set them both to reach a maximum temperature for about 365 degrees C. To measure the temperature you may use some thermometer like the one in the video HAKKO 191.
For removing some labels I use Isopropyl Alcohol, just put some drops down the edges and use the Spudger.
Most times there is enough glue left on the label that, when dry it will just stick on again!
Excellent video as always, also learning a lot through them as Electronics Engineer who also likes to take things apart, modify or repair them!
A couple of years ago, after about 24 year’s service, my trusty Adcola t/c iron died.
I tried a couple of generic Chinese irons: the first I sent back as it seemed useless for anything but the lightest tasks.
Its replacement was equally bad and on examination I found the problem to be that the bit wasn’t actually in contact with the heating element. This meant it could only get as much power to the tip as could be radiated and conducted across this small air gap.
So the tip would get hot while on the stand, but as soon as you tried to solder a wire to a 1/4” spade connector for example, it would exhaust the heat capacity of the bit before you could make a decent joint.
Rather than send it back, I shimmed the bit with some copper foil to improve thermal conduction. This made a fair difference and I decided I could live with it. A year later the controller chip went faulty and the MOSFET turned to ash.
I now have an Antex 660A. Like everything these days it’s made in China, but at least seems better designed from the thermal aspect.
Thanks for this analysis of a very useful and well-made soldering iron. I was wondering about trying to lower the bit temperature and you have now given me the answer. Re labels covering joints - I usually carefully slit the label along the joint with a very sharp blade, on reassembly the cut is barely noticeable and the adhesive is left uncompromised. This doesn't work where labels cover screws, of course.
I have a number of soldering irons including two Antex TCS (the older analogue version). The first one has seen thousands of hours of use and was used as my normal iron for many years. It dates to the late 1980s. And that’s what I still use whenever I’m away from my normal workbench. Before stocks of this Antex iron ran out, I bought another one just in case…
I have a Chinese made soldering station that I now use on my workbench. It’s fine for normal PCB and connector tasks, but if I need to solder or desolder any large joints, it’s the Antex TCS that does the job.
You do make an excellent point about using this soldering iron in auto repair. If you're soldering a few ground leads from the harness to one terminal connection, you need to blast multiple wires with heat quickly - especially since you're often holding several wires together in a tiny space with one hand contorted oddly to keep them all together. 🤣
I was going to skip over this video, but the "(with schematic)" is like nerd cat nip to me and gets me every time. I love you Clive.
I saw this video a long ago and today I was able to buy one. Immediatelly added the 33 ohm resistor hack because the temperature was way too high for electonic soldering. Many thanks for finding this easy solution. This unit will replace my old butane powered solder iron when I need a mobile solder station.
There's another option for the older PCBs. You can adjust temperature from the button on the front. I made a video about it. You may be able to tweak the temperature further based on your existing resistor.
The use of the P-MOSFET and N-MOSFET combination to allow the low voltage processor to control the high side (at higher voltage) of the load is exactly what I need for a Halloween decoration I need to get going on.
This circuit used the more difficult PNP circuit to pull the gate high. PNP drivers are more difficult because we need a few seconds to choose appropriate resistors. The designer of this board didn't trust it fully and added sensing of transistor failure and a force off circuit that can work with a shorted PNP.
Please tell me that "Halloween decoration" is a euphemism for "a device to keep kids away." ;)
@@marienbad2 🤣👍🇮🇪
See now knowing I could help prevent the oxidation of the tip is something I have not thought of. Thank you Clive
I bought an Antex in London, about 35 years ago, it seemed good because every part was replaceable. When I came home to Arbroath some years later, the element went... it seems Arbroath had an excellent Weller salesman, who'd chased the Antex guy outta town LOL 😆 thanks to Maplin, and their big book of dreams I ordered one by post.
Most recently, I've been using gas irons; very useful, but a pain when the catalyst runs out. I bought one of these Lidl ones recently as a spare.
I find Lidls tools quite good, hugely improved since their first offerings, and the versatile battery is a godsend.
PS you can set the temperature, if you read the manual first 😂😂😂😂😂
You answered my intrigue in the first 5 seconds. My first thought when setting the thumbnail was "that design looks like something you'd find at Aldi"
i love that there is an industry standard cordless tool battery (its called CAS) and that ONLY smaller brands use it. seems like literally none of the "major" brands use the standard battery :(
Big brands can't scam you for batteries if they don't control the battery system.
I hope the EU forces the brands to use a unified battery standard like they did with USB-C, it's so wasteful for me to need to own a battery or two for a tool I have from a specific brand when I already have lots of batteries.
It also makes tools better, people will buy the best tool from whatever brand, not try to pick a brand and then just buy tools aimlessly.
So which brands of battery would work with this soldering iron. Is there a list somewhere please?
@@stevejagger8602 The Parkside batteries.
Which other reasonably well known brands of tool will work with Parkside batteries?
@@chriswilliams1096 none unless you buy an adaptor
Great device. I'll have to go to Lidl and see if they sell it here in Germany. I think the high soldering tip temperature is especially useful for larger solder joints and cable cross-sections. I usually repair / solder fine electronics at home, so I use my soldering station. This unit is, as you said, intended for outdoor use. Soldering wires in model making, on vehicles and so on.
I already have the battery pack and the quick charger here, in the case of my Lidl cordless drill.
I've just had a look, unfortunately it's currently sold out in the Lidl online shop.
Having the capability to go to high temperatures is definitely nice but as you mention can be really hard on the tip over time.
I think a good solution is to have a more sensible standard temperature and then have some kind of easy to use "high-power" mode, especially if it the element has decent heat output (say 40+W). The IronOS firmware for Pinecil/TS100/MHP30/TS80 for example has a single-button 450C boost mode for example and I can definitely attest that it works great on my Pinecil (V1) when you have something that needs a bit of extra help.
Maybe fitting an extra switch into the case to short out R8 (after removing the zero ohm) and fitting a 33 ohm resistor to R10 (or preset as Clive suggests). Could even be a foot pedal to operate it!
Thinking about modding my one by replacing the zero ohm link with a 47 ohm resistor (315 C) ,but also adding a latching switch that shorts out the resistor so getting you back to the 500 C boost. Thanks to BC for making the otherwise obscure blatantly obvious.
@@stepheneyles2198 Given the length of cable, a foot switch for boost is an awesome idea.
The root comment here is what I was thinking, I may pick one up but I'll have to print a connector to use my Aldi ActiveEnergy batteries.
@@stepheneyles2198 - that’s exactly what I was thinking 😉
More than 1 temperature nob with a LED each for activation , different tone chimes for different temperatures setting activations and other settings selected by foot switches ( like pedals of an musical organ , and movable footrest ) or voice command , other foot-switches for solder , flux , brush , solder sucker , chair position , tip turret selection , parts tray movement , magnifier control .
Figure what vexes your flow and enjoy the making of the silly extreme of gimmicks you add that save you from distraction , time , fatigue , peace .
"Force off" may be linked to a comparator to turn it off if the battery voltage goes too low
Looking again at this well made review, made me look around recently for something similar. A T12 type iron that mounts on a Makita/ type battery. Never had an iron that reaches my selected heat in 4 seconds. For those small and quick jobs, a pain waiting for an iron to heat up, this has been a revelation. You probably have, but why not take a look at one.
Your presentation of the circuitry is immaculate! Very inspiring! I want to get this and put a 3 or 4-way switch from sensible temperatures to full power on the side of the case.
If you removed the link and connected a 100 ohm potentiometer to the pads would you then have a variable temperature soldering iron? There wouldn't be a display of the temperature but then my old Maplin soldering station didn't have one but I got to know where to turn the knob depending on what I was soldering.
Yes, and you could draw your own calibrated scale, by testing the tip temp with the sort of thing Clive used, and presto, a temp controlled battery iron !
Bought a year ago. Not my main iron.Great for working on the car.I think I will add a 10k pot thanks to uncle Clive 👍🏻.great bit of kit though
Not 10K. 100 ohm. 10K would result in the iron being cold for most of the travel and then suddenly at full at the end.
_I think I will add a 10k pot thanks to uncle Clive_ - He comes up with great ideas, doesn't he. And provide the means to carry it out.
That looks like a better product than I got many years ago.
I had once a mains powered one from LIDL and the solder literally ate through the tip within a couple of month.
oh yeah, the mains powered one just uses a dimmer circuit, and the tips are made from the cheapest metal you can imagine.
It is interesting that vaping devices with temperature stabilization actually use the same two terminals on the 510 connector to measure the temperature: knowing the thermal curve of wire resistance (in case of a homogenous coil) allows for finding out the temperature of the coil by measuring its resistance. This is why at some point they switched from nickel-chromium wire to alloys with higher thermal resistance dependence coefficient - like stainless steel and others.
eons ago I build a temperature controlled soldering iron kit. It supplied the heater with rectified AC and measured the resistance of the heater at the zero crossings to get the temperature
@@fuzzy1dk seems like a clever solution.
Hi. I fixed this one. It's pretty useful. I replaced R8 with 18 Ohm resistor and it works perfectly. The temperature for 18 Ohm for mine is about 330 to 350 deg C. I guess the sensing wire's resistance value varies a lot from product to product
I am an old school solderer. Factory soldering.
I have several Irons. I use one of these for when I am working on site where there is no mains available, its quicker than having to run an extension.
Yes it gets very hot, but as long as you are quick and use extra Flux EVERY JOINT. Its fine.
Not really very suitable for fine circuit boards though.
I run multiple Parkside tools, so have more than enough batteries.
BTW, Clive could have just slit the label at the seam.!!
Lidl also sells a slide-on light/USB-charger type thing for those batteries. I replaced the led with a 5v relais to switch a direct battery connection. Now I can use the full 20v with the built in discharge protection and soft switch.
FYI the isolation on the screwdriver is not essentially aimed at avoiding you an electrical shock if you handle it by its metal part while it touch one live element, but protect you from making an accidental short circuit between 2 different live elements and getting blasted and severely burned in the process if the current and/or the voltage delivered by this short circuit is important, like when working in industrial machines panel command boxes, where you might have to act without cutting the main switches if you are an electrician.
Where I live, by regulation, those boxes - well the recently installed ones - should only contain equipment that cannot be short circuited with such a tiny length of metal (IP2X standard).
I've learned that just today from the instructor of one of those mandatory courses you need to take if you work in a place where anything electrical is done - not that it applies to me as a software engineer, but I started working in an electrical test labs environment recently (on electric vehicles charging stations firmware).
Have build mine myself for the Milwaukee battery platform. Its basically a chinese 12-24V kit and a 3D printed Housing with an Adapter plate and Low Voltage Cutoff and a Switch.
Its heating very quick(300C° in 13s) and has an LCD and a smal knob to adjust the temperature.
We just needed a nice soldering iron for soldering on the construction site with LED stripes getting more common every year.
This was the best review of a soldering iron ever made.
I've bought some Hakko clone soldering handles on EBay. Always wanted to make a portable setup like these. Now I can thanks to your teardown. Im going to use a 4.6 volt supervisor chip and a voltage divider for control, hope it works.
Not sure if it is same design... but here in US we have RYOBI rechargeable products. I have a RYOBI soldering station with variable temperature. It operates same as this one you tested (LED) and has multi-turn pot to adjust tip temperature. I like it a LOT more than my butane-gas powered mini-torch for soldering without extension cord.
These 20V Parkside tools are good value for money for light use but can be a little fragile. The first time I plugged my charger in it went pop and released the magic smoke, no problem on exchange in the shop and the replacement is still going. However the battery I use on the multitool isn't the most robust, I must have knocked it around one too many times and one of the blade terminals cracked inside the housing. I ended up soldering a link wire from the blade terminal to a solder pad on the board, there was just too much force on the terminals for a solder joint to survive on the crack itself.
I had multiple of the USB irons reviewed, and it's good to see more in these styles. I've seen a ~12-24V adjustable iron, and I never though of hooking it up to a cordless tool battery! Someone put 2 and 2 together and had a clever idea.
It'd be interesting to see a "joule thief" design, because the iron would not need to be voltage regulated. Could use a much larger range of supplies, and only need a little bit for a regulator.
Edit: You don't have to take the whole label off! Use an exacto / box cutter!!
Time to write a book on how to master electronics, if you already haven’t, a natural genius x
Interesting one, I like the battery system approach. What I don't like is the lack of temperature adjustment or even temperature indication. Nice PCB though, and fortunately it looks hackable with that shunted pads for the potentiometer.
PS. same heater as in my cheap-ass Repro 936 station I got from a local electronics service. These heaters are easy to get and cost a little, making them practical to replace if one fails.
To your point I could see a lot of mechanics using this. Most mechanics use butane soldering irons anyway. You don't always have an electrical outlet so you either have to run an extension cable set up your soldering iron inside the car because you can't really take the wiring harness out
Nice product 👌.
I recently purchased some Whia SlimFix VDE screwdrivers, having flush insulation with driver bit, I didn't know these were available, but just my regular change/replacement routine.
Great video, thanks for sharing
as much as I've been watching your videos especially on your video you show your examples of how to do soldiering and the difference in a good soldiering as to bad. also different types of soldiering irons and temperature adjustments and it help me as do all your clear videos you make. ty
As for the isolation of the screwdriver shaft: It protects not only against a clumsy human to touch the potentially live shaft of your driver, but also against connecting it to other components or the case. You might hold or rest your hand on the metal case of your junction box while screwing down live wires and the plastic protects you from shorting that to the case. Best case you pop a fuse or the GFI and the power goes out, but there was probably a reason you didnt cut the power to the terminals in the first place. So its not a completely stupid standard.
I think I would fit a wee switch to the side to be able to flick it between the full 500C and, say, 375C, which is my favorite bit temperature.
Also looks like you could drill a small hole under the sponge tray to allow a trimmer tool to reach a small multiturn trimmer fitted on the PCB.
I've had my XS25 soldering iron for 15 years, its only had one tip replacement and I still use it.
I've had an Antex XS25 since I first bought myself a soldering iron, probably 25years ago, I had no idea what was good or bad, but I remember using the yellow Antex in school so knew they'd be robust, I control the tip temp with the wet soapy sponge, did away with the all plastic holder I bought and made my own solder/glue gun station which I prefer..
I also am lucky enough to still have a enough leaded solder to keep me going and have not had to struggle with lead free yet, I dread the day..
Using the comparator built in to the micro is a great way of providing a safety function. It can kill the power if the controller latches or the drive latches high,it takes the safety function away from the software. You an set it to also interrupt the MC so it can try to recover from the error. If you need a safety function its easier to do it in hardware than software, kill the fault then let the software recover if it can. Hardware is far easier to certifie than software.
U really have the best voice for listening while I sleep. Good stuff
I bought a Weller iron which too was very hot. Tips lasted 3 days ! so went back to my trusty Antex ER30 where tips last for years.
I do like how the stand fits the soldering iron handle so solidly.
I bought a pine pencil -based soldering iron and it didn't come with a stand, so I've been using my old FX-888D soldering iron stand. It kind-of works, but it's not really a great fit. They do sell a stand for it, but it's the shitty kind that you're meant to just lean the iron on. I'm not going to carefully place it down on the stand, I want to use muscle memory and shove it back into the hole without looking, but it's just not satisfying when it's not a good fit.
This is actually really cool, and I might actually look into how to get ahold of one of these in the US.
I think I might be inclined to, instead of having a fixed resistor or a trimmer pot, etc, actually add an external switch to allow switching between "high" (480-ish C) or "medium" (350-ish C) settings, which would probably cover most of my own needs pretty well (I do often want to solder things for which 450+ C would probably be just too hot, but it would be nice to have the option when working on things like (as you mentioned) automotive or house wiring type stuff)...
And I think the reason it's got such a complicated switching design, and it's got a separate "power on indicator" line and "shutdown" line is that it's actually carefully designed so that if _any_ component fails in any way, the MCU will be able to detect it and prevent any possible configuration where such a fault would cause the iron to be live when it's not supposed to be. If either of the initial "voltage converter" transistors fails in the "on" state somehow, for example, it will be able to detect that they have turned on the iron even though it didn't tell them to, and the separate shutdown signal can be applied to halt everything even if the normal power control line doesn't work as normal due to component failures. By my reading, the only possible way for the iron to be hot when the MCU doesn't intend it to be is if the main switching MOSFET actually fails shorted somehow (which is hard to protect against). Anything short of that is detectable/preventable due to the design, though...
The screwdriver insulated tip is not for your finger's safety, it's for when it's on top of one terminal, the body doesn't "touch" another terminal and connect them together. Especially common in cruddy wiring or the back of outlets. The idea is that only ~1cm of metal is exposed, which should be about the same size as most compliant clearances between terminals.
Hi Clive, great video as always. I'd just like to tell you about my ALDI soldering iron which is a FERREX which is ALDIS version of tools. It is mains powered and cost me £9 it comes with two tips, a stand and a small tub of flux.The tips are ready available from ebay/amazon for pennies. Its a 30w with the tip that's held in with a screw ( if you know what I mean) don't know what temp it gets to but it's fine for me and seems to do the job nicely for what I use it for. ( mainly repairing and building my own through hole circuit boards) anyway the main reason I'm messaging you is that I have had this iron now for about 2 years and no issues at all I have only put two tips in it over that time and believe me it's done a lot of work so far ( I do keep the tip very clean and well tinned after every use) sorry I'm digressing 🤣 . I last used this iron last Saturday it is now Friday ( 6 days later) and have just come into my shed (which is my little workshop) to grab a beer out of the fridge after what seems a very long week at work. ( beer fridge in the shed is essential 🍺🤣) and realised that I left the iron switched on, I thought well that's it that heating element must be burnt out by now and the tip completely cooked to death, but to my absolute surprise it was still hot and running but the tip looked a bit sorry for itself, anyway I re tinned the tip and gave it a quick clean and it's like I never left it switched on. For a very cheap iron I'm absolutely gob smacked that it's still running and as for the tip that's surprised me too. Sorry for the essay but I'm so surprised by this if it had of burnt out I would have just bought another one for less than a tenner who cares anyway 🤣 . I did mean to add that this iron is not temperature controlled, just wondering why it didn't burn out any ideas or have I just been lucky.
I sometimes left my Antex soldering iron on accidentally for days at a time, and on one instance weeks while I was away from home. It was fine. These elements usually run at a temperature that isn't particularly degrading to the materials involved.
@@bigclivedotcom this was £9 and is made in China so was not expecting to last very long anyway, so for it to last two years so far with the amount of work it's done and for me to leave it running for nearly a week has very much h surprised me. Keep up the good work clive. 👍
I used to use Ungar for everything, and I have several of their desoldering stations, some of the best ever made. Their old 115 V irons had easily changed tips, where they had a female thread, and they were hot, which, like you said, allows one to fly when soldering. I carried those in my service and tube caddies.
Weller bought them out in the end.
Funny that you mention that today. Yesterday I used my old Ungar 777 iron to repair a Weller TCP unit. Both are around 50 years old.
@@tubastuff I carried a 777 in my tool caddy as well, which has been copied by several manufacturers now, but in the shop I have the automatic pistol type 4024 stations. As long as you keep fresh cotton in the glass tube, plus, don't break the tube, and keep the tip clean, it works wonders.
@@craxd1 I used to use the old Weller DS801 desoldering iron that ran off of plant air. I screwed down the aspirator and hooked it up to a carbon-vane vacuum pump with a small (about 1 gal.) tank. When you hit the foot pedal, the vacuum inside the tank would suck the dickens out of anything you used. The iron had the same glass tube stuffed wtih glass wool as your Ungar unit. It was a pain to use--I got rid of it and reverted to my old Soldapullt. Now I see there seem to be some pistol-type desoldering irons made in China for not a lot of money. I'm seriously tempted to see if they're better than the big Soldapullt and solder-wick braid.
There is a calibration mode for this soldering iron:
1) power it on, let it turn solid green
2.a) to reduce the temperature press and hold power until it turn solid red
2.b) to increase the temperature press and hold power until it turn blinking green
3) short press power to increase or decrease the temperature (3 clicks around 10 degrees change)
4) to end the calibration, press and hold power button until it turns solid green
slimmed down, without the holes for a potentiometer, neither this calibration mode works for the B2 version.
You can remove the DS pin on the pcb and put a 10k resistor between B- and DS to activate the circuit, everything works except low battery cut-off. BTW for those interested I have just tested it at 12v, it dose work, start up around 3.5 amp and drops to around 2.4 amp when up to temp.
Many Thanks. Was using another 18V battery and stuck with flashing green LED and no heat until 10k resistor added.
Lidl are currently selling a different model with battery integrated into the iron (bulky pen style). The specs say it has a 30s heat up, 60 minute run time, and Max temp of 470°C. it's priced at £14.99 and available now (mid April 2023). It appears to come with a handy stand including a sponge, plus a usb A to usb c charging cable.
Doesn't look to have temperature or output power control either, looks to be single button operation and work the same as those instant/cold heat soldering iron guns. Looks to come with a single needle tip which I think is the same type as on the model Clive has his way with here.
I suspect what Clive has labelled "Heater control" is just enabling the pull-up for the MOSFET gate, which can be switched off to minimise standby current draw. The "On" signal is likely going into an ADC for battery voltage monitoring, and the current draw through this divider would also be stopped by "Heater control".labelled
I recently bought the Dremel versatip for my occasional outside soldering needs, I just keep a can of butane gas around, and it works surprisingly well for soldering. The price is also surprisingly okay for a dremel product.
Open flame soldering is only for items that can survive the flame. A hot iron puts the heat precisely where it touches, in particular the old old school ones that you heat over an open furnace then move to the item to be soldered.
@@johndododoe1411 It has a tip holder for soldering that covers the flame
@@johndododoe1411 as has been said before, it is a soldering iron with a proper soldering tip, it's just heated by gas instead of electricity. The hot air is vented away from the working area.
If you're really adventurous, you might try Zinc wire welding.
Zinc melts around 420C and you could solder aluminum wires or thin strips of different meatls.
They sell low temp aluminum brazing rods like "Blue demon" @ 387°C, which are mostly Zinc with a flux core.
Winter is slowly ariving on the island, Clive has his gingham lumber jacket on. ❤
Great video 2x👍
The "trick" underpowered irons use by going extremely hot, can work for some applications, but I would caution against using it on small and especially SMD solder joints. Because upon initial contact, it can be hot enough to break down the adhesive securing the solder pads to the substrate/board. Meaning you risk detaching pads from the board. And if that pad is attached to a via straight underneath it, there might not be an available surface trace for you to attach a jumper wire to, and you're gonna have a really bad day.
I recently got myself the Hakko FX-901 to replace a Analog stick on my Xbox Controller, worked like a treat!
in northern europe lidl sold an adjustable soldering iron (100-500 degrees) the design is very different from the one shown in this video (even the handle and type of tips they use are different). It also comes with solder/an extra soldering tip/cleaner for the tip and storage for all of the mentioned. very interesting to see another variant in the UK.
ah, the mains powered one.
I bought a, to all appearances, brand new vacuum sealer in a charity shop. Since it was getting a bit too hot I took it apart to see if there was any solution inside. I was quite surprised by the complexity. It might be worth a look.
Hello Clive, I’ve only recently stumbled upon your videos (probably due to you tubes algorithms from once watching something entirely unrelated) and just wanted to say they are superb, subscribed of course please keep up the good work.
Your videos have taught me so much about electronics. Thank you!
Hi Clive, is it possible for you to take a look at the Erbauer 20v range. It would be handy to know where the smarts are located, in the battery or the charger or both. Pinouts would be great too. Thanks in advance, great content.
I have one and for outdoor work especially in wind and it still gets the jobs done that I need it too. Would definitely replace it if it broke but most my Parkside electrical tools seem incredibly reliable.
The soldering irons I use at work are set at 800F. They heat up in about a minute and can solder larger components fast but sensitive components can be damaged with them if you arent careful.
I wonder if it's running full-power at max temp for parts count reasons. As you pointed out, the board has space for a trimpot and in lieu of that, it just has a zero-ohm resistor. It also has an unpopulated pad for a second MOSFET. Could it be that at max power, the MOSFET is being pushed into saturation in the 'max power' config, requiring little power dissipation (enough to be handled by one device), whereas if the controller were adjusted to a lower temp, the MOSFET would slip into the linear region, which would increase power dissipation, requiring two MOSFETs to handle the load?
Small Tip
A friend bought some extra Parkside batteries for his equipment.
Now one of them showed defect whilst charging.
The problem was that it was below a certain threshold.
I connected it with a good and 100% charged battery (+ to + and - to -) for a while and then tried to charge it and it was OKAY !!
You do a great impersonation of the safety officers Clive... Be careful though - its a slippery slope towards becoming one! 🙂 Thank you for a great video!
Lidl US occasionally has Parkside gadgets. Will have to keep my eyes out for this, but I won't buy their battery just for that one device. I have two other 20v battery systems from power tools. If one of them is not compatible, I will make it compatible. What could go wrong?
Very nice analysis, as always. Thanks for that!
I am a bit confused by the ForceOff function. The ForceOff can only help in case something in the control electronics would fail. In my experience in a circuit like this the (by far) highest risk of failure is the Power MOSFET. These fail typically by shorting out drain and source, which means the soldering iron is fully powered and something else (probably the heating element) would need to suffer a painful death. In that case the ForceOff circuit does not help at all.
Why spending so much effort in a ForceOff logic, but not investing in a second FET to cut of the current in case of failure? Or is there maybe any trick to command the battery switching off its supply current? Do you know how the soldering iron behaves if the FET is shorted?
Low battery safety off maybe?
@@bennopuetz206 Using the switch within the battery pack would make sense, but then this 'ForceOff' needs to go to the battery connector and the battery needs to have this functionality to be switched off by an external signal. I am not sure if these Parkside batteries support this.
AFAIK Parkside is Lidl's house brand of... stuff...
It's one of the few things I like about shopping at Lidl. They have a few isles of things you really don't expect to find in a superstore. At times I've found things such as chainsaws, shop compressors, pneumatic tools, power tools and sewing machines. Now they don't seem to match inventory to the area where the store is located, so the chainsaws I found in a store in the middle of the city where really no one needs one. You never know just what they will have this week as they rotate the inventory regularly. Almost all tools will be branded Parkside and the prices seems to be on the low side. I have no idea about general quality but I kind of expect it to match the prices. So not really high quality but not quite Alibaba cheep crap either. The sewing machine however was a Zinger so that's at least a well known brand.
I bought a corded one. Tip lasted a week before it ate through the nickel plate.
Made a solid nickel tip from a chunk used for plating . Hard stuff to machine!
There is a calibration mode for this soldering iron:
1) power it on, let it turn solid green
2.a) to reduce the temperature press and hold power until it turn solid red
2.b) to increase the temperature press and hold power until it turn blinking green
3) short press power to increase or decrease the temperature (3 clicks around 10 degrees change)
4) to end the calibration press and hold power button until it turns solid green
I didn't know that. I'll check that out.
This looks like just the thing i could use in my garage. Well it would be if it wasnt for a crazy thing. I left my lovely old Weller tcp iron untended, the thermostat shorted & damaged the heater. Decades of soldering iron love was over i thought. But no, i found a replacement & the damaged one with a short in the heater works well enough on 12 volts dc 🙂 My Weller iron continues.
Handy tools to have.VDE compliance causes issues !I still have my low voltage Ungar from the 80s .have gone through a few tips but .it still works .Ozone has started to attack the rubber strain reliefs but it keeps on working.They have pt 100/1000 as tiny as 1mmx.5mm as a tiny chip with 2 tiny wires on it .Amazing to see .8 should send you a photo of one .It was in a 1/4 inch stainless tube probe
Modern SWD (and JTAG) programmers usually have a voltage sense input so they can automagically adapt to programming 5V, 3V3, 1V8 or whatever systems.
That might be what's going on with the PRG1 header.
That looks nice and is a decent price ino. I've been using my TS100 plugged into a m18 or 2 m12 batteries when I need to travel. There's 3d printed battery connectors that go nice with 3d printed stands that are nice, a plus so you can stay with your chosen ecosystem of tools
When working outside on a vehicle even the faintest breeze will cool your iron.I have a really old 100W iron for those big terminals/connections, its got a massive copper tip.