Pine64 Pinecil V2

It's strangely good. I also haven't used my Weller since getting the Pinecil.

It's amazing, both in general, and especially for its price. I have four of them (not exactly Pinecils, but two Pinecils, a TS-100, a TS-80, etc). I love it.

I had basically the same experience. Got a Pinecil and built a keyboard. Love the thing, and would highly recommend it. Has also been great for modding and repairing Game Boys, Xbox 360s, GameCubes, etc. The default tip on the Pinecil v1 is my most-used, and very capable, but I've also gotten a lot of use from the finer tip cone as well as the chisel tip. I got the v2 iron as well, but still mostly use my v1. Still works great, and I guess I built up some trust with it that makes me reach for it first.

I use Weller stations at work, and have a Pinecil V2 at home. Have to admit haven't use it so heavily, nor attempted to solder SMTs with it, but it seems good enough for through hole devices.

Their Pinecil soldering iron is an awesome piece of kit. I just bought the v2 the other day to replace my v1. It's honestly head to head with the Hakko irons in the lab in terms of power and temperature control, and the v2 has support for the USB PD 3.1 28v profile which lets it hit 128w on a beta firmware with the Apple 140w charger. Pretty nuts for an iron barely bigger than a Pilot G2.

I hated it too because I had a shitty soldering iron. Could have used a ironing iron instead, so shitty was it. Use this, stop complaining: https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/07/29/pinecil-v2-soldering... Pinecil RISC-V soldering iron with the Pinecil V2 featuring a new Bouffalo Lab BL706 RISC-V microcontroller with Bluetooth LE connectivity, optimizations for higher power levels, as well as tentative support for the new USB PD EPR standard (Extended Power Range) working at up to 28V.

Starting with soldering, I find these 200$+ recommendations (regardless of which tool) hard to justify. # Soldering iron I'd recommend the Pinecil V2 with IronOS. https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS # Solder fume extraction I've built a simple fume extraction with an old plastic case, a 120mm fan and a sheet of carbon filter attached to a 120mm dryer / air conditioning hose. Around 15$ and good enough for soldering from time to time. # "Microscope" I simply use a strong (10x) magnifier glass with a LED ring (around 15$ on Amazon). I can't tell you how often I also used this thing for other purposes. # Desoldering Pump Because I needed it (beginners won't) I bought a ZD-8965 for 100 bucks and I'm very happy with this thing. I have whole list of cheap beginner to intermediate equipment, that'll do until you solder (semi) professionally.

I second this comment and it really should have been higher in the hierarchy - WTF are you going to do with an expensive setup that a lit magnifier and controllable iron (with interchangeable tips) can't? If you need a reflow oven, that's a different thing altogether, and you should probably repurpose an old toaster oven. I delivered production boards (small run) that looked and worked great using a non-adjustable $10 30w iron (interchangeble tips, though) and a desklamp with the builtin magnifying glass. You can't really tell the difference between a cheap setup and the expensive solder station I used in a previous employment.

Honestly a pinecil is more than enought to deal with small electronics