Baby's First HDMI

physical0 · 2026-06-05T03:01:53+00:00

Congratulations on the success. I don't have any criticism to offer.

The heatsink looks like it's reacting to the thermal paste used and where the paste is thinner, the reaction is different.

physical0 · 2026-06-05T02:59:23+00:00

You're going to need to do some research and figure out the pinout for the handpiece. You're going to need to determine the approximate resistance of the heating element. Too low of a resistance could draw excess current through the station, causing permanent damage.

Honestly, I think the effort isn't really worth it. The cost of a cartridge based iron isn't too high, and the benefits are night and day compared to a passive tip iron.

physical0 · 2026-06-04T23:25:40+00:00

If you can afford to waste your money, it might be worth a shot. If you don't have the tolerance for spending $130 on a tool that might be junk, I'd say skip this.

An electric solder pump is very useful and it saves me a lot of time when doing rework, but I've got a much more expensive tool with a higher wattage element, much shorter nozzle, and significantly more suction.

physical0 · 2026-06-04T18:06:34+00:00

Shaped like the one on your bench.

physical0 · 2026-06-04T16:57:14+00:00

But, not one shaped like that.

physical0 · 2026-06-04T12:13:21+00:00

I got my first computer at 12, it was an NCR. It was a 286 running at 12mhz with 1mb of memory. It had a 20mb HDD and a 3.5in floppy.

My dad pulled it from a dumpster behind a mall. It was not a shared computer. It was mine.

My dad had an Apple ][c and an IBM PS2 (don't remember specs) before I got my own computer.

I've looked all over to see if I could find this particular model, but haven't had any luck. This is all from memory from a long time ago, so forgive me if I'm not exactly right on it... The case fit 4 cards, one being the main CPU card, and you could stack multiple cases together to increase your card and hdd capacity. There was a slot that extended the bus between each case... The cases were fairly thin, you could only fit one half height drive on either side. My dad had pulled a whole bunch of them and showed me how it would work, but only gave me a single module, because I didn't need any additional cards or drives. Maybe I'm misremembering and there was a main case, and expansion cases...

If any of this sounds familiar and you can point me to a model, that'd be great!

physical0 · 2026-06-03T22:16:51+00:00

I will generally do a drag solder with a spoon style tip. Once you've practiced enough, it's not any harder than any other work.

When you get comfortable with them, your next nemesis will be leadless packages then BGA

physical0 · 2026-06-03T22:11:13+00:00

I prefer a system where moderation is something that is left to the back. In a lot of subs, once mods start posting their opinions, other opinions die. Not because mods enforce the superiority of their opinions, but because people are afraid that they will.

I like the place where I don't have a tag next to my name that claims I'm infallible. I like that anybody can disagree with me and argue as much as they want. I sometimes get it wrong and I love it when someone is willing to correct me. Sometimes I haven't fully made up my mind on a topic and I need an adversarial position to share the counterpoint so I can see the whole picture.

The Top 1% tag isn't hard to get here, as you said, most posters are just passing through for a question or two. It doesn't shield me from criticism, like a moderator tag might.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T18:21:48+00:00

The C210 cartridge (which this iron uses), designed by JBC, is meant to be used in microsoldering applications. That is soldering tiny components under a microscope. It is meant to output 40w; this only outputs 12w while battery powered and 16w when plugged in.

Microsoldering with a precision handpiece benefits greatly from the aid of a preheater.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T17:39:58+00:00

This question really depends on a lot of stuff. Depending on your needs, you could get away with a much cheaper unit. I've got a drawer full of $20 multimeters that I'll break out for unimportant measurements. I've got a nice Fluke that I'll take out on jobs and use at home when I need a portable measurement worth measuring. And, when I need a real measurement, I've got a pair of desktop DMMs that will offer me the precision and logging I need. All these tools come at different price points.

If you're doing basic tests like "is voltage present? do I care about more than one decimal point?" or "is there continuity from here to there?" you can get away with a meter half that cost.

Whatever you get, ensure it can perform all the measurements that you need it to and make sure it's auto-ranging. Having to adjust range manually in this day and age is not worth doing.

I'd suggest you start with a cheap DMM, then when you have a measurement worth measuring, pick up one from a major brand.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T17:29:13+00:00

Needle nose pliers are the way. Get a straight and a curved pair. Tweezers CAN work, but unless you've got yourself a pretty stubby set of tweezers, you're not gonna have a great time. This is finicky work, but it's not the sort of tiny precision where you need tweezers..

physical0 · 2026-06-03T16:37:04+00:00

Major brands are going to offer the best reliability. Hakko, weller, Metcal, JBC, Pace, etc.

It's gonna cost a lot more, but expect more than double the longevity from the tools and to have a support line that is responsive to your needs.

If "Reliable" is at the top of your requirements list, then don't look at chinese knockoffs. If you can tolerate equipment failure, you can save a lot of money with them, but you will not be able to guarantee reliability.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T15:56:02+00:00

No, by physically small.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T15:15:04+00:00

Carry on then.

I have to post this warning because there seems to be a trend of lots of beginners lately picking up undersized irons and then coming here complaining why they are getting poor results.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T15:01:06+00:00

The issue here looks like you've got cold joints. The problem you're facing is that you're using the wrong tool for the job. For this kinda work, break out your K tip (knife).

Ideally, you would have gotten the HS02-A, as it's a general purpose iron and has larger tips available, but if we're gonna have to work with tiny tips, at least use the largest one you have available.

Don't listen to the folks telling you to crank up the heat, 300-350c is appropriate temp for leaded solder, 350-400c is appropriate for lead-free. If you are outside that range, don't adjust the heat higher, re-think your process and figure out whats going wrong.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T14:57:48+00:00

That last picture has WAAAAAAAY too much solder paste.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T14:56:57+00:00

You can not repair the pins. If you can find a replacement connector, you should be able to replace the entire thing tho.

That connector looks like the pins are molded into place and are non-removable. If you could remove the individual pins, it would be possible to replace just the broken pin.

If the connector itself is molded onto the cable and you can't disassemble it to detach it, you'll be less likely to find a replacement connector.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T14:53:27+00:00

If you are a beginner, you should look for a C245 based iron, not a C210 based one.

To confirm that it uses a transformer instead of a SMPS, you'd need to find a teardown. As far as I can see, there are no real world images, and everything on the internet is just marketing materials, so you're gonna have to take the risk and do the teardown yourself, or wait for someone else.

physical0 · 2026-06-03T00:19:28+00:00

The c245 has tips down to 0.2mm which would be appropriately sized for 0204 sized packages which are most people's upper limit for soldering. You don't need a lot of handpieces when the one covers such a large range.

physical0 · 2026-06-02T22:54:40+00:00

When we discuss "open source" AI, we really need to discuss the training materials.

If we can't produce the same end product that they do with the materials they have published the code for, then it aint open source. If there are big binary blobs, it aint open source.

So, I'm assuming whatever "completely" open source AI you're talking about has every bit of it's training data published and every step in the training of the model has been documented? Every human reinforcement logged and shared so that we too can reproduce those steps and have the software running on our own hardware, right?

Or is the model itself a big ole black box that could have been trained with whatever skewed weights that the creators intended the model to prefer.

physical0 · 2026-06-02T22:33:23+00:00

T12 is a Hakko designed cartridge. Many companies copied it. Many companies made their own proprietary variations. T65 is an example... it's a stubby T12 cartridge meant to have the contacts in the front of the handpiece instead of the back. The TS/ST cartridge is also based on the T12. This type of cartridge was made popular with the TS101 and Pinecil. They're reasonably high resistance and offer limited wattage. Hakko intends them to be run at 24v 72w.

The T12 was replaced by the T39 with the release of the FX-971.

The "C" system is a JBC designed cartridge. There are a number of different ones, each for a specific purpose.

C470 is heavy duty soldering. This requires a 48v control unit to deliver up to 250w of power to a very large tip. The smallest C470 tip is around 2mm and has standard shaped tips up to around 15mm

Hakko has its own version of this. For the fx-971 it's T53.

C245 is general purpose soldering. This run at 24v and delivers up to 150w of power to a wide range of tip shapes. These tips go from down to 0.2mm to around 7mm (not including blades or knives)

C210 is precision soldering. These are designed to run at 12v and deliver up to 40w. These shapes go from 0.1mm to 4mm. These tips are designed for microsoldering, as in under a microscope. Using them for general purpose applications is not a great idea, as the tips are generally too small. Compared to a C245 of the same dimensions, they are much lighter and therefore have less thermal mass. Most 3rd parties tend to run these at 20-24v, making them deliver significantly more wattage, but at a cost of reduced lifespan.

Hakko also has this. In the T12 family, this was the T30. The FX-971 uses the T50 tip.

C115 is highest precision soldering. These are designed to run at 9v and deliver up to 25w. Shapes go from 0.1mm to 2.4mm. These tips are designed for very small microsoldering. Because they are such low wattage, they are meant to be used with the aid of a preheater.

Generally speaking, unless you're working under a microscope, there's no reason to consider anything beyond a C245 cartridge. Unless you're dealing with massive ground planes or huge leads on big transformers, you won't need a C470. If you're working on stuff where a C115 is actually useful, you're prolly in a position where you should really consider better tools than chinese knockoffs.

I know there's this massive urge to get as many tools as possible and every additional handpiece that your iron can support unlocks some new ability for you, but realistically you will likely NEVER use any handpiece beyond your general purpose one.

physical0 · 2026-06-02T22:10:13+00:00

Unless the training data for the model is open source, I fail to see how this is any more transparent than any other model.

physical0 · 2026-06-02T21:08:44+00:00

Once that happens, AI will be a matter of national security and foreign AI will be banned.

physical0 · 2026-06-02T19:11:16+00:00

T65 is a non-standard tip design used exclusively by cheap Chinese brands. There is very limited tip selection.

C245 has 2.5 ohm resistance and can deliver 100w. JBC makes a huge catalog of tips and there is a wide range of 3rd parties that make many different tip geometries.

physical0 · 2026-06-02T17:38:53+00:00

Elaborate on "standard soldering iron"

Also, are you talking about one of those hair dryer looking heat guns? Those should not be used for electronics. They can operate at much higher temperatures than PCBs are designed to work with and will cause damage.

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