Build Your Own Clone Message Board

Are you an ambitious beginner? Are you an intermediate kit builder who’s low quality iron is on its last days?
Are you thinking of upgrading to a quality soldering station with digital temperature display?

Join me in suggesting that BYOC should make a build your own high end soldering station kit! (With optional, super cheap, basic straight to wall iron for those that are starting from scratch!)

I’m thinking a kit like this would be awesome. An on off switch, a knob to select wattage, and a digital display, plus whatever innards makes the thing work. You could provide a basic junction box type enclosure that could be housed in whatever super fancy home made housing diy’ers can dream up...

Anyone else think this is a great idea?

Jacobob

Uhm, don’t they already have a very inexpensive soldering iron?


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Pedal building is like the opposite of sex. All the fun stuff happens before you get in the box.

I think he means something like a BYO variac configured as a temperature control to plug a cheap iron into and turn it into a temp regulated iron. Not sure that would work without a temperature sensor in the iron tip, but it sounds like it would be a fun project.

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Yup! The bulk of the project is getting the temperature display feature. I figure someone must sell replacement tips with sensors.

With my current setup I can control my cheap iron “blind” using a box with an outlet regulated by a ceiling fan control. But I thought having a way to see the temperature would be nice.

The box I made is just a plug from the wall into a 2 bay plastic junction box, through a ceiling fan control let (Its rated for higher amperage then light dimmers) to an outlet. Power goes from the variac to the outlet so the voltage drops as you turn the knob. I made it to use with an old grinder that I found too aggressive at full speed. It works well so far with anything that doesn’t have digital circuits.

I thought, power from the wall to both an ac-dc converter (for the temperature circuit) and a variac. Then the power from the variac would go to the pins of the irons connector that need power. The dc circuit would read the sensors feedback, and display the temperature accordingly.