On Wednesday 02 April 2025 10:30:03 pm wn4isx via groups.io wrote:

An informative review can be found at


Looks very impressive.

It does. But although they mention a $26 price in there, the links to buy one are at $40 or so.

And what's with the default to conical tips in so many cases? I notice in that review that they mention "chisel" and "bevel" as being the ones they found most useful, and I tend to favor a chisel tip myself, where you can use a corner, an edge, or a flat to control how much heat goes into what you're trying to solder. I can't see a way to do that with a conical tip.

My bench iron at this point is the kind where you can screw a heating element into an edison socket in the handle, and screw various tips on to the heating element. I have a few assorted heating elements, and a couple of different handles. One of those was purchased at Radio Shack, and the rubber where you grip it has gone wonky, typical of their products. I think the original brand was Ungar, but I think they got bought out by Weller? My favored tip is a PL-113 (iron plated). So a while back I wandered into a Radio Shack store (when we still had some around) looking for a new heating element, or something, and they no longer carried that kind of an iron. What they did have was every single iron in the store had a conical tip on it, which I didn't want. I ended up ordering one online from someplace, temperature controlled and a 3-wire cord so the tip is grounded, which my older iron ain't. I haven't used it a whole lot, and am not overly confident in its ability to handle this PL-259 I need to solder here. I'll probably break out my Weller gun to deal with that one...

--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin

On Wednesday 02 April 2025 10:24:42 pm wn4isx via groups.io wrote:

I am really tempted, the price is reasonable, the power requirements practical and it avoids the risks inherent with an open flame.

It does look tempting, but that 30 day warranty put me off...

Oh, can you crash the OS? I ask because my wife has killed everything from windup watches to laptops simply by touching or holding them.

And no I don't believe some people have odd magnetic fields or whatever because I can measure almost everything and tests show she is a normal person...who just kills even primitive tech. I often wondered how on earth she can drive a car with 5 CPUs, but it gave me a headache so I gave up wondering and wrote it off as one of those mysteries of life. After all, she does love and put up with me and has for 46 years.

My late lady was like that. When working at a call center in the area, she hit some key or combination of keys on the terminal she was using and not only took down the whole call center, but also the two other ones that William-Sonoma had running at the time. It took them a few hours to get things back up again.

One or another of the youtube channels I watch had a similar iron with oled display and all. I don't recall the brand, nor do I recall what specific channel that was. They seemed to do all right with it, but I'd look around for something other than that one.

--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin

On Wednesday 02 April 2025 02:19:32 pm Nuno T. wrote:

Looking for good recommendations on a battery powered soldering iron.

Precision work is a requirement, doesn't need to work for hours on end,

1/2 hour every now and then is enough.



Any recommendations from your experience?

I have a Wahl Isotip 60, so called because it'll charge up in one hour. It needs a battery, and the battery is no longer available, so I can't use it. When it did work, it worked well, but it's currently useless...

--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin

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V2 is turning the Q1 on very hard, such that it is in saturation, and Vc (product of Ic and R3) is quite large. If you don't want Vc to be so large, you have to reduce the base drive (V2/R1) of Q1 or divert some of that current away from the B-E junction.

What is this supposed to do?

Donald.

开云体育

After trying various battery powered ones (using 2xAA cells) I found one on eBay that uses a single 18650 rechargeable cell that is fine enough for my needs.

I found that 2xAA rechargeable cells were lower in voltage than 2xAA dry cells, I found that it didn't work too well on rechargeable AA's

The one that used a single 18650 works very well and the battery life is very good and it not really any bigger than the 2xAA ones. I use it for hand soldering 1206 SMD? components and i would buy some spare tips as they don't last forever.

I also have a mains unit and a gas powered unit - the gas unit is higher powered which is very useful but you have to be very careful as the flame in the tip can make surrounding components and wires hot and it is easy to singe cables etc

I have not tried the USB rechargeable irons ... but the battery is rather small and I guess may need frequent charges,

Dave

OK please consider I'm 73 and dislike any computer smaller then an HP netbook, and that includes my never to be damned enough Moto e6 'smart phone.'

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The specs mention a CPU, so does this iron have an "OS"?

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Can you simply connect it to an appropriate power supply and start soldering?

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Is it durable? I've been accused of being able to break and anvil as a child, while not quite as destructive, I'm not interested in anything as delicate as fine china (That's my wife's department. Though she will trust me to drink hot chocolate from a 17th century mug...on occasion.)

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Can you solder something like a PL/SO 259 "UHF" connector?

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I am really tempted, the price is reasonable, the power requirements practical and it avoids the risks inherent with an open flame.

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Oh, can you crash the OS? I ask because my wife has killed everything from windup watches to laptops simply by touching or holding them.

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And no I don't believe some people have odd magnetic fields or whatever because I can measure almost everything and tests show she is a normal person...who just kills even primitive tech. I often wondered how on earth she can drive a car with 5 CPUs, but it gave me a headache so I gave up wondering and wrote it off as one of those mysteries of life. After all, she does love and put up with me and has for 46 years.

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I am dangerously attracted to this soldering iron, I'm going to bed so I won't place an order tonight.

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Tomorrow is another day, unless of course the severe weather blows us to Oz. We are under severe thunderstorm warning, a tornado watch and probably "look out for meteors."

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I've got the weather radio by the bed with a 2M HT just in case. It looks really nasty on weather radar 250 miles to our west.

For small work, my rig is a Pinecil running off a Dewalt battery & usb-c adapter which has a belt clip.



--
Mike Turner
MP-Z35

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--

On Saturday 29 March 2025 07:03:12 pm wn4isx via groups.io wrote:

FWIW, the NEC now requires the grounding connector be placed on top "where practicable." This reduces the risk of a metallic object falling in the outlet and getting welded between hot and neutral. Don't laugh, I've seen it happen 3 times in my life, all involved coins.

The problem with that is right-angle plugs. Instead of the wire trailing down the wall on its way to wherever it's going, you end up with the wire exiting the plug in an upward direction, which can be awkward.

Worse yet is trying to use two of those in one outlet. We had that situation in the laundry room downstairs, where two right angle plugs just wasn't gonna work. Our solution is to use one of those adapters meant for connecting a 3-promg plug to a 2-prong outlet, just to space the plug away from the outlet a bit. If the appliance makers hadn't used right angle plugs this wouldn't have been a problem...


--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin

What amazes me is ignition systems like the 1998 ZX2 with one "plug pack' for each of the 2 pairs of spark plugs, the high voltage winding wasn't grounded and one end fed each spark plug.

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So one spark plug of each pair was fed the wrong polarity and the engine had still had oodles of power. Clearly if you use enough voltage the wrong polarity doesn't matter.

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A friend raced dune buggies, VW bugs with chopped body, souped up engine, non stock exhaust. They also modified the carbs so idle was a lot leaner because the engines ran so hot and would over heat with VW's wonderful air cooling system just sitting there with the engine running. Even with an external oil cooler, sitting there wasn't good because the external oil cooler didn't have an auxiliary fan.

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There are valid arguments for adding a fan and for relying on the air stream when moving. The fan would restrict airflow at high speed when you need all the cooling you can get. [The VW had a dinky oil pump too]

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So back to lean, it requires a higher voltage to ignite a lean mix compared to a rich mix. Even at red line, the rich mix ignited easier. And that's with point bounce.

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They also didn't use boosted ignition systems, I offered to build a CD system or even a simple transistor switch for my friend and he looked at me like I'd taken a leak in the Baptismal Font.

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I never got it, you change everything but the !@#$$ poor stock ignition system?

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[The bored the engine block to accept larger cylinders, typically doubled the horsepower.]

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I used a circuit very similar to the one shown in this PDF on my Honda CB350 and later on? the CB360 (It was easy to move from one bike to another.)

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https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~wkahan/TransIgn.pdf

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Although this poor sod was doomed because he improved the ignition system with a Lucas coil.

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Lucas, Lucas oh lord of darkness.....er excuse me I was having flashbacks to the time I was conned into helping a friend rebuilt a Triumph. [May he roost in a certain hot place for all eternity.]

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My stock CB350 would do 97 MPH with a 140 pound driver [me] laying prone with the stock ignition, it would do over 110 (pegged the speedo) with the transistor ignition. The points bounced too bad long before you reached red line with the stock ignition system for optimal performance.

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The transistorized system closed on the first contact and ignored contact bounce.

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I think I referred to a normal ignition system as supplying the center conductor of a spark plug as supplying positive, oh how I needed to stop and think. The center pin is negative just like the cathode of a vacuum tube.

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The ZX2, and ignition systems that used similar high voltage transformers, treat one spark plug as a normal cathode, but treat the other spark plug center pin as a plate. With enough voltage clearly the wrong polarity doesn't matter.

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I'm not sure how the ECU monitors the ignition system but it will throw an error if a plug fouls. One plug was fouled with oil and the ECU in a ZX2 tripped the check engine light and a code reader returned P030x with X being the problem cylinder. We removed that plug and the plug had burned oil. The owner used one of "spark plug non-fouler extenders" and drove the car another 5 years.

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For a while there were about a dozen of ZX2 owners who'd meet once a month to discuss the car. The biggest problem was the !@#$ trunk leaked. That was a nightmare to fix. Water came in via the tail lights, water 'gutters' on the top and both sides. Permatex makes a flowable silicon designed to seal windshields, it was perfect for flowing into all the rain gutter leaks, a silicon sealant dam above the tail light assembly stopped that.

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On Sunday 23 March 2025 08:58:28 am wn4isx via groups.io wrote:

Too bad this isn't 1960 and the Ed Sullivan show was on Sunday nights because the presenter is a much better comedian then engineer. His escapades would go over quite well with dancing bears and guys who spin plates on poles.

I remember spinning plates, not any bear. Could never see the point of them. 1960 was quite the year, but I'd rather not go back there...

However, he'd be tossed out of, and banned, from any university electronics laboratory for his foolishness.

Suggesting using a resistor divider to reduce direct AC mains to feed a microcontroller is downright stupid verging on criminal.

Lots of stupid stuff out there on the 'net. YT doesn't seem to care.

The way you measure ultra high DC voltages is with a electrostatic voltmeter.

In my real early days of messing with TVs the accepted practice was to arc the HV to the chassis, and see if you got a decent spark. Later on this was frowned upon. Somewhere back there I bought a Polaris branded HV probe, a big long thing with a pointy bit on one end, a wire with a clip on the other to ground it, and a meter. You also had a couple of terminals on either side of the meter which you could use to measure the cathode current of your horizontal output tube. I haven't used it a lot, but I've used it some. Still works well, even though the plastic packaging that wrapped around the box has yellowed and started to self-destruct.

(...)

I've seen this in Honda CB350s, 1968 and 1969 stock VW bugs. The ignition coils in the Honda twins was located where they were heated by the engine, I never had a hard failure but I could tell when it was time to replace one when the power dropped way off and the engine sounded funny, both ignition coils never failed at the same time so the power was really imbalanced between the cylinders. I limped home from Mason Ohio [near Kings Island] to Lexington one night sweating "Will I make it home...."

VW coils just failed for the fun of it. West German manufacture wasn't quite as perfect as they'd have liked for you to believe.

We had a VW bug of around that vintage. It had a blown head gasket, another blown gasket at the base of a different cylinder, and the battery had a shorted cell and wouldn't start it, so we had to push start the thing. Good thing we were up on a hill... We stopped driving that thing when it wouldn't pass inspection any more because it was basically rusting out. My brother was a bit of a VW nut and owned several of them including that little bitty pickup truck, but these days he's driving a Chevy. I guess he's disappointed in "german engineering" or something?

(...)

VW transporter van with Porsche engine

My brother worked at a dealership at one point, and the parts for those two brands are exactly the same. With different prices.

I did have the ignition coil fail on a Plymath Omni, about a month before the engine decided to emulate a grenade. [Way too exciting at 80MPH on the Mountain Parkway at 3:00AM. You've never lived until you have parts of the engine come through the hood right before your windshield is covered in oil and coolant. Loads of unfun.]

You have had more excitement than I have, for the most part. Though I did have a couple of episodes of a wheel departing the vehicle...

(...)

--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin

开云体育

1 - I agree that suggesting connecting mains through a resistive divider to an MCU input is nearly criminal. But I also remember, as a young lad, connecting the line voltage through a diode bridge to a dropping resistor to power some piece of gear I had created. The smoke escaped and I learned something without losing eyes, fingers, or life.

2 - The Paschen curve is representative for smooth (non-sharp) surfaces separated by 0.100in. Spark plug electrodes are sharp-edged, which reduces the breakdown voltage by up to 10x; are spaced 0.025in to 0.030in (reducing the breakdown voltage by another factor of 3x to 4x; and the temperature of the most-negative electrode (since that is where the electrons first get "launched" into the arc) in a spark plug is quite high, further reducing the initiating voltage by another 2x or so. Back to the Paschen curve - it can be extrapolated above 1ktorr because it becomes basically linear on log-log plots; 70kV at 720torr can be extrapolated to (pretty closely) 700kV at 7200torr - but with the sharp edges, the spacing of the electrodes, and high temperature of the center electrode, we can estimate spark plug breakdown voltage as 700kV/(10*3*2) = 11.7kV - reasonably close to my experience: 25kV for a typical auto engine.

Typical ignition voltages (back when I was actively working on them in the late '70s/early '80s) ranged from 25kV to 35kV. The higher voltages were for older plugs with rounded center- or side-electrodes, or for high-performance engines with very high compression ratios.

Fouled plugs can show "good" breakdown and adequate current draw, but with no spark in the gap - all the energy went down the fouled surfaces. The only way we were able to discern good vs. bad plugs without removing them from the engine was to monitor the spark voltage and current waveforms simultaneously.

Donald.