TSS80P soldering pen

[mdc]

My 14 year old weller iron finally bit the dust the other night, which is a pretty good run for a $20 tool that I bought at radio shack.

I don't have a permanent work bench set up in my apartment, so a nice station isn't super convenient. After hearing some positive reviews on the forum about the TS100 I decided to try one of these newer USB-powered models out. The TS80P seems to be the latest iteration of the design, with a bit more power than the old TS80 and a bit slimmer than the TS100. Max temp is 400°F and it heats up in sub-10sec. The TS80P may not get to temp as quickly as the TS100, but 10sec is better than the 5min I'd usually wait after plugging in my old one, so here we are.

Anyway, it seems to work fine! It was about 5x the cost of my last soldering iron and though I'd be surprised if it lasts 1/5 as long as the last one did, it feels like a tool of decent quality and the stock fine-point tip seems well suited to PCB work. The buttons are a bit fussy, and you have to be a bit careful about it flipping over in your hand as you're likely to tap the buttons if the handle is upside down. The included USB-C cable is a bit too short to be particularly useful, so I'd suggest getting the iron only rather than the "package" and just buying a 12V USB-C charge base and whatever length cord you want.

Mostly, I find the size off-putting. It's very small!

 

[bowanderror]

I've had a TS-100 for 3-4 years and I love it. Super lightweight, heats up fast, easy to adjust settings, & runs on a generic laptop brick. I'm using some open-source firmware and it's miles better than the stock software. I have it set up to display the temperature at all times, and the buttons adjust +-10F with a single touch. The OS firmware also adds "touch wake", which uses an accelerometer to heat the tip back up from idle when you pick it up. The only issue I've had is that every once in a while the tip seems to become ungrounded & will give you a nice electron alarm clock through conductive materials. Re-seating the tip seems to fix it.

I've gone through 3-4 tips so far, which is pretty good considering I use it at least every other day.

 

[Feral Feline]

Next time I'm at my Sifu's atelier I'll see what his is. He got a new one that has a button that jumps the temp up to 400ºC nearly instantaneously — I thought it was a Hakko (it's blue), but I didn't see it on the Hakko website. This is all I found, the FX600 and FX601 :

HAKKO | HAKKO Corporation

www.hakko.com

HAKKO | HAKKO Corporation

www.hakko.com

 

[mdc]

I've had a TS-100 for 3-4 years and I love it. Super lightweight, heats up fast, easy to adjust settings, & runs on a generic laptop brick. I'm using some open-source firmware and it's miles better than the stock software. I have it set up to display the temperature at all times, and the buttons adjust +-10F with a single touch. The OS firmware also adds "touch wake", which uses an accelerometer to heat the tip back up from idle when you pick it up. The only issue I've had is that every once in a while the tip seems to become ungrounded & will give you a nice electron alarm clock through conductive materials. Re-seating the tip seems to fix it.

I've gone through 3-4 tips so far, which is pretty good considering I use it at least every other day.

it seems like the firmware that comes with this model has the changes to the old version as stock options. Temp always on, 10deg change per tap, etc. I havent' dug too deep but I think you can set what temp it idles at and how long it waits before it goes into low temp mode. Seems cool.

 

[finebyfine]

The only issue I've had is that every once in a while the tip seems to become ungrounded & will give you a nice electron alarm clock through conductive materials. Re-seating the tip seems to fix it

I used to have this happen more often with my TS-100 until I started tightening it like half to a full turn tighter than what felt right and haven't had it happen since for what it's worth.