When I heard that iFixit was going to sell their own soldering iron, I was excited. iFixit had a good reputation for really knowing what their customers need and paying detail to their tool’s designs. When I saw what their soldering iron would look like, it was an instant buy for me. The immediate hint that this iron was built for people who actually solders is that it doesn’t have a screen on it. So I preordered it, and after I received it, it’s become more than just a secondary soldering iron for me, it’s a battery powered primary soldering iron.
For context, I got my first good soldering iron right after the first day of my first engineering job, a Weller WES51, then I got a Hakko FX-888D, which I still have to this day (the Weller was donated to a bunch of teenagers). I keep the FX-888D at work, where I also have access to a Metcal MX-5000. My workload includes small circuits with SMD components to actual BattleBots, I frequently travel to volunteer with my tools and to robotics competitions. I am the perfect customer for a battery powered soldering iron, I need the performance of my FX-888D but on the go.
The iFixit soldering iron is a 60W soldering iron, this is perfectly fine. I’ve soldered large XT-90 connectors and 10 AWG wires with it and it averages only 20W while keeping solder melted on that size of a load.
The XT-90 is pushing its limits, the XT-30 was a breeze. It is very responsive for 90% what I do. I’ve been using it for a few months now and it has never disappointed me. This means the thermal control is good and the tip has a good sensor with good sensor placement.
It has all the fancy automatic sleep and motion activated wakeup like all the other modern irons, and it wakes up very quickly. One criticism is that the LED on it isn’t very indicative. It’s just purple when it’s colder than the temperature you’ve set, and orange when it’s hot at the temperature you’ve set, there’s no “sleep” LED colour or animation. I have a few Hakko FX-601 and those at least blink the LED at different pulse-widths according to how much power it needs.
Its ergonomics is perfect. The grip is textured rubber, it’s the perfect size, and the triangular shape means it won’t roll away if you set it down on a table. It comes with a magnetic cap that is fantastic, it is satisfying to use and it is great for when you don’t have a proper iron stand. However, if you don’t let the iron actually sleep and keep it in the cap, the cap can get very very hot!
The optional battery that turns the iron into a station is very well built and the capacity is definitely more than enough. It can handle hours of continuous use and that actually means I only need to recharge it right before travelling.
The iFixit soldering iron’s design shows that the designers and engineers behind it put real thought into creating an actually good tool. One of the most important characteristic is that this soldering iron gives a feeling of confidence, the user trusts it to be reliable. It’s in stark contrast to something like the Pinecil, which I own, and I never use, because it doesn’t give me that same feeling of confidence. The screen and buttons on the Pinecil are useless features that are just another failure point to me. The USB port doesn’t have any way of supporting the connector. People I’ve argued with pointed out that Pinecil sells replacement ports… well how about you design it so that it just never breaks?! Everything about the Pinecil and all the other USB-C soldering irons makes me not want to use it. This is what just one photo of the iFixit soldering iron made me so excited to get one, just from the photo, no screen, a locking USB-C port, it meant that somebody actually knows what a good tool is.
The Pinecil is a soldering iron made by people who think that having an operating system inside it is a selling point, a product where the opening line of the product page talk about the microcontroller inside is a 32 bit RISC-V.
The iFixit iron tips are also better, they are just a bit chonkier, meaning more strength and more thermal mass. People have complained that it’s “yet another (tip) standard” but this is fine because the previous standards sucked. The Pinecil ones look like it will snap in comparison, remember what I said about “confidence”.
Because I preordered and iFixit released new soldering iron tips before my order shipped, I asked their customer service if I can buy some iron tips and combine the shipping. They told me no because the logistics at the warehouse doesn’t allow for it, but they did give me a coupon code, very nice of them!
The iFixit soldering iron is about $80 for just the iron without the battery, which is a bit on the expensive side. But to me, it’s competing toe to toe with my FX-888D, it’s not competing in the same class as all the other USB-C irons.
I have not used it’s “web” user interface, or it’s serial terminal. I don’t need to, I never will. There’s a reason why people would spend several hundred dollars on a Metcal soldering iron with no temperature adjustments. YOU DON’T NEED IT. You set the temperature right once and then you leave it alone! You leave it alone probably for the lifetime of the soldering iron, if it’s good. When I was on a volunteer team that I lent my WES51 to, there was a stubborn team member who kept twisting the temperature knob as high as possible all the time and that costed me several iron tips. Luckily the WES51 had a magnetic lock-out feature that locks the temperature and ignores the dial, and that saved my sanity.
I love this soldering iron enough that I want to make it into something even more suitable as a primary soldering iron. The original design already featured attachment points so that the magnetic cap can be used as a stand, but this wasn’t good enough for me, I’m very used to having my brass wool right at the stand to clean my iron tip. And thanks to iFixit releasing the 3D CAD model of everything, I 3D printed an attachment to the cap and to the battery.
My attachment does three things:
- one attachment point at a fixed angle so it functions as a stand
- a second attachment point, horizontal, for storage (the iFixit design had the nub way too far back, using it for storage took up too much footprint)
- protects the temperature knob from accidental touches
I can’t share my 3D print files, sorry, not because I don’t want to, but because I sort of lost the actual good copy and the current copy is slightly different and not actually good.