Poor man's soldering iron regulator, and etching tutorial PART1

MarioMaster said:

What he's saying is that normal regulated irons use overpowered heating elements so they can heat up quickly and maintain heat when doing a lot of soldering. Using this approach, you cannot get the heating element any hotter than it did before or make it heat up any faster, you can only lower the temperature.

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Indeed.. the regulation is nice because you're soldering kit will be at working temperature in record time, and will supply additional power when you're trying to solder something large (a heatsink flange, copper-clad boards to eachother etc).

I suppose circuits like these are still good if you have an iron that runs too hot for your liking as it is.

@ Benm & MarioMaster
So basically what you are saying is that waiting 3 minutes instead of one for iron to heat up is a problem?!
Easier to buy xxx$ station then?
No sir no can't do!
@HIMNL9
I see that you have expensive stations, however you mentioned doing modifications yourself... Now that is what i like. DIY.
Thank you for your support.

I will see into it that I make the testing and firing up my Well-ed station next weekend and document everything with Olympus - top priority.
(Anyone has better parody name for makeshift station ? )
Seems that I made unexpeted fuss around here with my little project, I was expecting some advices, however i got rep points

However, I'm little puzzled. On reversed template (top view with components marked ) there is clearly indicated which is phase, and which zero input output. WTF?
I know that it acctually doesn't matter in AC, however there was a couple devices few years back, that had clearly indicated phase and zero, and you had to plug it correctly always... This is not one of those is it? As far as I can see on the schematic, it does not matter, however, why is it so clearly indicated on top view template?
I'm sorry but I do not have picture of top view template, magazine and camera are back home, I just arrived at the dorm.

No, it's not a problem, but this mod doesn't turn your iron into one like you'd get with an expensive station. Those irons can heat fast and maintain heat while soldering, while this cannot as the heating element is limited to not blow up when run continuously (as it was designed to do)

MarioMaster said:

No, it's not a problem, but this mod doesn't turn your iron into one like you'd get with an expensive station. Those irons can heat fast and maintain heat while soldering, while this cannot as the heating element is limited to not blow up when run continuously (as it was designed to do)

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Please take your "buy it" advices somewhere else... preferably another dimension...

Title clearly says Poor man's regulator...
Part for 10$ plus your own work and you get your very own homemade soldering station. It is many times more fun soldering with the station you have created, saved some money which you can spend on laser components...

I cannot stand such people, saying : Don't make it buy it, only because you can solder on heatsinks and it heats up 2 minutes faster.
Same thing when i was asking around about my bluray project before i started building it. I listed everythig i planned to make, and somewhere I mentioned that i will use 1117 based driver and 2 lithiums.
And OFC one of THOSE people comes up and says : Buy flexdrive.

I would acctualy try to understand, if I didn't cleary make notice that I cannot afford 15$ ARC glass lenses. But OFC somebody said buy 24$ driver.

Hellooo?! Some of us do not plan on buying LPM, or 8X bluray, or flexdrive, or GAS LASER, or SOLDERING STATIONS! Guess why!
I'm spending enourmos amount of time reading on this forum, informing myself about lasers (although I have 4 years of experience building them).
I'm amazed. 2x 10440 ~ 5$, 1117 regulator is about dollar a piece on ebay (w/ shipping) and misc resistors and caps found under your shoeplate.
Flex= 23$.

If you an afford flexdrive, go for it. I cannot!
Cannot you people understand EVERYTHING can be homemade for less money? I cannot afford not to investigate every single possiblity about thing i build. I have to take cheapest route.

Now to conclude my propaganda with the beggining:
Please take your "buy it" advices somewhere else... preferably another dimension...


Now, all of you normal people who actually supported me (or at least did not try to discourage me only because i won't be able to solder on heatsinks):
What do you think of the schematic itself?
I should make clear: Faza = Phase
Nula = zero
Uzemljenje = grounding
What else was there... Oh yes, under the schematic, very bottom of the picture
Caution! Many part on PCB are conducting 220V AC! Take every precaution not to make short or touch the PCB.

Hey hey hey - I'm telling the limitations of the modification, not trying to put down your efforts.

You've done an excellent job with the resist pen in making your own PCB, but doing this offers none of the advantages of a more expensive soldering iron. All it does is allow you to regulate temperature below the normal conditions, which would only be good if your iron was too hot for a specific soldering job.

MarioMaster said:

Hey hey hey - I'm telling the limitations of the modification, not trying to put down your efforts.

You've done an excellent job with the resist pen in making your own PCB, but doing this offers none of the advantages of a more expensive soldering iron. All it does is allow you to regulate temperature below the normal conditions, which would only be good if your iron was too hot for a specific soldering job.

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Unregulated soldering irons temp is 400°centigrade. Way too much.
Now this is my 10$ project. Now take into account the ratio of invested/returned qualities.
10$ makeshift = regulation of temperature, however still low power.
100-200$ weller= regulation of temperature with high power.
now is only the power worth 90-190$? It is not even when not taking into account I'm only soldering small drivers and laser diodes.
Please, I'm not trying to offend anyone, but i snap when along all "good project, waiting for results" replies, i found one that says "there is a downside woo buy expensive station".
If lasersbee has shown interest in the project (and everyone knows his speciality), billg519, HMike and others, you think it is not worth building?
"but doing this offers none of the advantages of a more expensive soldering iron" If it did, no one would sell expensive soldering irons. That is why it is called homemade, DIY, poor man's regulator...

Nice project!!!!

I should probably consider it. My 25W $10 iron totally sucks lol

Tabish said:

Nice project!!!!

I should probably consider it. My 25W $10 iron totally sucks lol

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Make sure you read the table for your power correctly.
Your R3 is 100ohms, and R8 is 680ohms.

Hi everyone,

I found this thread just immediately when I googled about how to protect my brand new, original Chinese soldering iron 30w with ceramic heater, stand, and five different peaks for about 3euro (3,5$), awesome!!! :wave: )))

I know that some of these Chinese soldering irons for about 1-2-3$ can not heat at all, but many can be hot like crazy for about one minute, and not only that. I used sometime them even for years without any problem, by the time when they still die. So what in general was problem with them, than how to regulate temperature when is no need too hot, and on same way to save heater from breaking much longer time.

So, all congratulations to Eudaimonium for this small circuit, but ingenious DIY project.

This case with Chinese soldering irons is appropriate also for many ordinary commercial, and when I found here these posts with criticism how soldering stations can very fast overheat because need of larger soldering, I saw how these people can not see what is obvious. I suppose, soldering stations have probably additional heater for such jobs, or I don't know. But if you need to solder so, just find ordinary stronger soldering iron 60-100w which run hot fast, then you can soldering all day yours heatsinks if you need, then after just set lower temperature with this circuit ... Here I saw Chinese soldering irons 100-200w for 1$ you can solder gutters with it!!! ))

So Eudaimonium, you know it is not bad to remember and mention - Nikola Tesla was somewhere from our places, isn't?!? ) I am joking, ingenious people can be everywhere, but it is all of us should not be lazy to research for solutions to live DIY life's.

The best regards to all!

Are you aware that this thread is 3,5 years old?



Yes, he did a great job...

Just like that!

I THOUGHT my soldering iron was OK- but a vet showed my what a POS it really was- I got a good deal on a used pro iron and have never regretted that move- New and cheap means POS.