4 ms·
>We've all accidentally left the soldering iron on, sometime in our decades. The sensors in the iron lets it shut off and not burn your house down. Specificall
by osamagirl69 6y ago
>We've all accidentally left the soldering iron on, sometime in our decades. The sensors in the iron lets it shut off and not burn your house down.
Specifically for the Metacal irons, all of the ones I have used have a magnet in the stand that causes the tip to idle at a reduced temperature using some sort of feromagnetic magic. The great thing about those irons is they have such fast thermal control that it heats up in the time it takes you to lift the iron from its stand to your work. They also have a deep sleep they go into if they detect the tip is idle for more than a few minutes which can be disabled in a production environment. And for some absurd reason, it is all implemented in hardware...
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoThe older Metcals don't have a sensor. They auto-off after a timeout.
- osamagirl69 6y agoThey do not need a sensor--that is the magic of it! It is a fundamental property of the induction heating process that a magnetic field reduces the operating temperature of the tip.
- zaarn 6y agoI have a T100 with auto-off firmware. I don't have to put it on a stand, literally anywhere on my desk will do. Once I pick it up it'll be at temp before the tip touches the PCB in almost all cases. The great thing about doing it in software is that I can change the timeouts and the idle temperature if I wanted. For most soldering my idle is 130°C so it can go quickly to target but when I'm experimenting I leave it at 80°C to reduce burn risks.