Repair company iFixit has introduced its own take on the idea of truly “fixing it,” i.e. your USB-C, yourself. It claims the iFixit FixHub Smart Soldering Iron is powerful enough for pros and easier for beginners than any others that have come before it.
As The Verge reports, for starters, the $80 iron comes with a heat-resistant magnetic storage cap so you can safely put it away at a moment’s notice, an LED warning light that tells you if it’s blistering hot, motion sensors to automatically shut it off if you set it down for a while or it falls from your hand, and a triangular grip to keep it from rolling across a surface.
You can also turn it off with a dedicated power switch on the handle, instead of having to yank the plug like my old Miniware TS80, and it’s far harder to accidentally yank that plug since it has a locking USB-C cable.
If you spend money for iFixit’s $250 kit, it’ll come with an iFixit-designed 55 watt-hour battery that helps turn the iron into a portable soldering station. Its two USB-C outputs provide 100W of power, more than enough to hit the melting point of lead-free solder in four seconds, and its beefy metal temperature dial feels great. Attachment points turn the soldering iron’s cap into an infinitely adjustable holster that lets you put the iron away fast.
While it’s sheathed, it’ll stay at your programmable idle temperature; when you draw it out, it powers right back up to full temp, instantly ready for work.
If you’re not using two irons simultaneously, the battery’s ports can also charge your phone, thin laptop, or other USB-C gadgets and iFixit tells you when it has other USB-powered tools of its own currently in development. Plus, as expected from iFixit, the entire power station is easily repairable.
Just remove the backplate with the included Torx screwdriver (iFixit also includes Phillips screws in the box), pop off the shielded battery connector with a spudger, slide out the innards, and it’s just four more screws to disassemble the rest. iFixit will sell you the battery that goes inside for $80, should you ever need to replace it.
However, The Verge’s reviewer did find a couple of small drawbacks. First, the purple LED that means “iron is cooling down” was initially a bit hard to distinguish from the blue LED that means “safe to touch.” The magnets on the cap are maybe too strong, as your soldering tip sometimes gets pulled toward them instead of going straight into the sheath, and sometimes you could accidentally drag the entire battery pack an inch across the table when you unsheathe it again.
It’s also a slight shame iFixit didn’t adopt the same interchangeable tips as the popular Pinecil and / or Miniware USB-C soldering irons. Even though they plug in roughly the same way and my old Miniware TS80 tips are a perfect fit, they’re not cross-compatible. iFixit will sell its own additional tips for $20 each, which is actually less than you would pay for a good TS80 tip. (Unlike normal soldering iron tips, USB-C ones have heater cores and temperature sensors inside.)
As great as this new gadget is, when you consider that the Pinecil is a $26 open-source soldering iron that’s so inexpensive and easy to use, nearly every nerd might want one in a drawer. It’s harder to say that about an $80–$250 product, particularly when the $80 option needs to be plugged into a computer to set its temperature, which is cool but not as convenient as its competitors’ built-in screen.
But iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens thinks he can attract a new audience to soldering that would’ve been scared to try it before by eliminating lots of typical pain points. He states that he wants iFixit to do “everything we can to make sure people want to be able to solder, instead of just being afraid of waving around a hot stick.” He says he’s “on a new mission to teach the world to solder,” calling solder “the glue of the modern age,” and he says iFixit plans to stock more products to help that happen.
iFixit started shipping to the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe on October 15th, with additional soldering tips including cone, bevel, wedge, point, and knife edge varieties. Additionally, iFixit is also selling a $300 Portable Soldering Toolkit that fits the iron and battery station into a custom tool roll filled with a laundry list of other common soldering needs or “nice-to-haves,” including a flush cutter, wire stripper, tip cleaner, and soldering splint.
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