How to improve your soldering iron

How to modify Chinese soldering irons

Chinese goods have long conquered the Russian market and are gradually displacing well-known electrical products from other manufacturers. However, due to the difference in standards and other features of Chinese production, the Russian user constantly has to make adjustments to the design of the purchased products.

Particularly pressing in recent years are the problems associated with the modification of Chinese soldering irons, taking into account all the shortcomings found in them (including the small temperature control range).

Disadvantages of devices with a power regulator

A modern Chinese soldering iron with a temperature controller has certain advantages, along with which it often has some shortcomings. The latter manifest themselves, as a rule, not only in the high cost of this product, but also in its fragility and insufficient accuracy in adjusting the main operating parameter - temperature.

Soldering irons from China with a power of over 40 watts are very rare, although it is often necessary to work with parts of non-standard sizes. Most users who want to purchase such devices at an affordable price are forced to put up with these shortcomings. On the other hand, any attempts to independently remake these devices encounter certain difficulties, which are especially noticeable in areas remote from regional centers.

In the simplest case, adjusting the temperature (and therefore the power) comes down to changing the supply voltage, which outside the city limits is not particularly stable anyway. That is why, if you want to modify Chinese products, you must act very carefully, trying not to disrupt the normal functioning of the soldering iron.

Elimination of tip overheating

Refinement of the power regulator

A homemade contact sensor is made from an old Soviet capacitor and balls from a bearing. The device is placed on the factory board without modifications to the case. When the soldering iron is placed on the stand with the tip up, the sensor opens the circuit and the heating temperature decreases. When we start soldering, the contacts inside close and the tip warms up to the set temperature in accordance with the position of the regulator.

Let's look at a few more examples of such modifications in relation to various models of soldering devices.

Conversion of the 60 Watt model

The classic Chinese-made model has a power of 60 Watts and is designed to operate from a standard household network of 220 Volts. The delivery set includes a very inconvenient adapter for a plug with flat contact legs (it always gets stuck in the recess of the sockets).

Therefore, many users begin modifying this model by changing the power cord (or at least its final part). After switching to a Russian standard plug, working with such a soldering iron becomes much more convenient.

A lot of complaints about this model are caused by the sting, which is not at all suitable for dismantling work. Its tip, coated with a protective compound, takes a very long time to heat up, and the sensor built into the soldering iron does not react to temperature, but temporarily and constantly turns off the device. Because of this, when soldering particularly difficult areas that require good heating of the surfaces, it is necessary to raise the temperature with some reserve.

However, such a soldering iron often overheats and often turns off. As a result, many craftsmen immediately after purchase replace the “native” tip with any other one they have in stock. When studying customer reviews, we often encounter complaints about poor quality of contact at the point where the power cord is connected to the heating element. In this regard, it is advisable to replace it with stasis after acquisition.

Modification of ZD-20U

A USB soldering iron with this name provides very fast heating of the tip, which ultimately turns into a disadvantage, since the soldering iron overheats greatly. Its design provides temperature control, which can be controlled by touching a sensor built into the body of the handle. If you hold such a Chinese soldering iron in your hand, the regulator maintains the set mode, and it continues to heat up.

After it is placed on the stand, the timer should disconnect the device from the network (after about 40-45 seconds). In fact, the following phenomena are observed:

• the built-in sensor is highly sensitive and very often triggers even before touching the handle (sometimes at a distance of about 10-15 cm);
• with the stated shutdown delay (45 seconds) and taking into account the very fast heating of the tip, the soldering iron is guaranteed to overheat, which can lead to its failure.

In this regard, immediately after purchasing a Chinese product, it is necessary to reduce the sensitivity of its sensor, and also try to reduce the time interval after which it disconnects from the network. This will require some reworking of the circuit.

Many people do not want to tinker with the device and ask the seller to send a replacement, explaining the problem.

Improving the gas soldering iron

Very often at home you have to repair small parts, which are most conveniently processed using low-power soldering devices. Miniature gas soldering irons are ideal for these purposes, which, however, need some modification. Its essence usually comes down to changes in design that reduce fuel consumption during the soldering process.

To do this, you can take a number of actions of the following nature:

• after purchasing a simple gas appliance (Jeldra Tool brand, for example), first of all you need to modify the gas supply unit through the membrane by drilling holes for air;
• In addition, it is recommended to supplement the “standard” set of nozzles with several homemade ones, which allow you to use fuel economically in the hot air gun mode.

After such modification, gas consumption is significantly reduced, especially when processing heat-shrinkable tubes.

To summarize what has been said, we note that modification of inexpensive Chinese products used for soldering at home can significantly improve their parameters. For a number of people who like to make things with their own hands, this activity turns into a kind of “hobby”.

Source: https://svaring.com/soldering/praktika/dorabotka-kitajskogo-pajalnika

Reworking the soldering iron

I decided to make the previously purchased soldering iron my main one. And if so, then you need to bring the soldering iron to a more adequate state. You can use it without modification, but there is already a ready-made scheme that can be improved with very little effort.

The first thing I did was remove the ground wire. For all its usefulness, without the presence of a house and land, there is no point in it at all. It turned out that the crocodile was not soldered, the wire was simply tied to it.

I also discovered that the heater leads are not actually soldered to the board. The assembler did not tin the wires, probably his working flux does not accept nichrome. I had a hard time with acid, but I managed to tin the ends, after which I soldered the leads back.

My first impression after the purchase that the soldering iron was well assembled turned out to be somewhat exaggerated. The case elements are also made unevenly, the holes for the screws do not exactly match anywhere, but this is only noticeable when disassembling. All the writing on the sticker was erased within a couple of days.

Scheme

This circuit is probably used in all similar soldering irons. If you see an LM358 (or analogue) and a triac on the board, but do not see a microcontroller, then most likely everything will be the same. I looked at all the transparent options in stores, and the assembly is older everywhere. In my version, everything that is possible is done by surface mounting.

In the diagram I highlighted conditionally separate blocks. I left the names of the elements original. The board model is designated as “LM5428M, Design: Liym”. The first photo of the board already has one of the improvements - a power-on indication.

R1 is the hottest part on the board; you can feel the heat even through the handle. I don’t know exactly the value of the zener diode WD, the voltage on it is 21-22 V. HEATER is a heater, TC is a thermocouple. The 220 V network input is designated as a pair of AC and GND. My improvements are marked in blue.

The entire circuit is under high voltage relative to ground, this must be taken into account when working with it. There is a ground path running through the entire board. but it is not used; instead, the assembler stretched a single wire from the base of the heater to the crocodile through the entire handle.

The rectifier and stabilizer unit generates a constant voltage of about 20 V, which is necessary to power the operational amplifiers (LM358) and the control unit.

The temperature control unit consists of a bunch of resistors that implement an adjustable voltage divider, the output of which generates a reference voltage of approximately 5-20 mV, with which the readings from the temperature sensor are compared.

The temperature sensor is included in the Schmitt trigger circuit (comparator with hysteresis) based on the first half of the LM358 with an offset specified by the adjustment unit. When the temperature drops, the voltage (thermo-emf) on the thermocouple TC drops, and the output of the amplifier is zero. As the temperature rises, the output turns out to be approximately +20 V. The trigger ensures smooth (bouncing-free) state switching due to the fact that the on level is higher than the off level.

The heater is connected via a triac. The second half of the LM358, connected according to the comparator circuit, generates a control signal for it based on a 50 Hz sinusoid from the network, see the divider on R6-R7, and the signal from the trigger.

If the temperature is too low, the output of the comparator is zero, after capacitor CD2 it is therefore also zero, the indicator does not light up, the triac is locked.

As soon as the temperature drops, a meander with the same phase is formed at the output of the comparator as the change at the conventional anode of the triac, which is a sufficient condition for its complete opening.

Diode D2 is needed not only to protect the LED from high reverse voltage, but also to pass the negative part of the control signal. The current is limited by the input resistance of the triac control electrode; according to the documentation, the current on it is no more than 3 mA.

Heater modification

Let's digress a little from the diagram and take a look at the heater, as well as how deep the tip goes into it.

Obviously, the spiral is located quite far away; it could have been placed closer to the sting. The tip is also not installed optimally, but you can’t push it deeper here, the thermocouple gets in the way, and it’s inconvenient to work with the short end.

I can’t say that the heater and sensor are working poorly; there is no obvious reason to redo this part of the soldering iron. But there is a feeling that the tip of the tip warms up much longer than the tail, where the temperature sensor is located; you need to wait a couple of heating cycles to warm it up.

After some experience working with such a sting-needle, I decided to change it to at least a sharp one, but not so elongated. I would change it to a flat one (with a screwdriver), but I can’t find it at an adequate price. It is difficult to work at low temperatures, which are however sufficient to melt the solder, and at high temperatures the solder on the tip quickly oxidizes.

Power indicator

Added a power-on indicator, powered by the rectifier (VCC), which is always on as long as the soldering iron is connected to the network. The LED turned out to be super-bright even among diodes from the same batch; we had to install a resistor of a huge value (750 kOhm, the current was about 25 µA) to it.

The heat indicator operates on AC power, so it flickers noticeably. The power indicator operates on DC current, lights up evenly, the color is pleasant, and does not interfere. I soldered a pair of R100-LED100 to the legs of the capacitor CD1. In the photo above, the resistor value is 220 kOhm, and the photo with the glowing indicator was also taken at this value, but later the glow of the diode seemed too bright to me, and I replaced the resistor with a 750 kOhm one.

Reduced heating and cooling periods

The soldering iron maintains the set temperature with a wide range, so I wanted to reduce it. To do this, you need to shorten the heating and cooling period so that the soldering iron does not have time to cool down too much after heating.

In the diagram, the first half of the LM358, together with the temperature sensor, forms a Schmitt trigger circuit, which provides the necessary cycle of turning the heater on and off with hysteresis. Without hysteresis, constant heater switching would occur.

Ideally, this behavior would provide the most stable heater temperature, but in reality, due to imperfect components and circuitry, the switching frequency has to be reduced, although I do not think adequate switching times have been implemented here.

At a typical temperature (mine is 275), the heater runs for half a minute, then cools down for a minute. Theoretically, nothing prevents you from reducing this time by an order of magnitude within the same circuit.

Setting the hysteresis in the Schmitt trigger on the operational amplifier is done by selecting the values ​​of the resistors in the positive feedback, in this case these are R5 and R4 with a TC thermocouple. By increasing R5 and/or decreasing R4 we can reduce the voltage difference across the inputs at which the output switches from high to low and back. There is a thermocouple in the feedback loop, so simply changing the values ​​of R4 and R5 can also affect the temperature calibration.

I tried to replace R4 with 50 Ohm, and R5 up to 3.5 MOhm, first I changed one, then the other, I managed to reduce the heating time to 15 seconds (before the change it was 25 seconds) and the cooling time to 40 seconds (before the change - 65 s) , the soldering iron worked almost normally. With a further decrease in the heating period, the switching on and off times became unstable, but reducing the period by 40% is already good.

I don't have a suitable thermometer, but judging by the change in voltage on the thermocouple, with such a change the average temperature moves up, but the upper limit goes down. That is, such a modification is completely safe; additional calibration is not necessary.

You can try to perform calibration using the tuning resistor W2 already provided for this and, if necessary, changing the value of R2.

Judging by the narrowing of the range of changes in the EMF of the thermocouple, also assuming that there is a type K thermocouple here, previously at around 250 there was a spread of about 45°C, and after the rework it was about 25°C.

Even with a minimal change in parameters, for example, when changing only R4 to 50 Ohms, the circuit begins to work unstable, the switching moments become jerky, and the trigger works poorly. This is due to the relatively low voltage supplied by the thermocouple, about 10 mV at around 250), at which noise and interference begin to affect the circuit.

You can combat noise in a circuit where high frequencies are not needed at all using a low-pass filter. First you need to determine the source of the noise. A capacitor installed in parallel with the thermocouple did not help at all; I tried values ​​of 100 nF and 22 μF.

It turned out that the regulator unit was much noisier.

A 22 µF capacitor connected between the regulator output and ground almost completely eliminates unwanted switching, but the capacitor turned out to be too large, it does not fit into the soldering iron handle, and there were no small low-voltage ones at hand.

Assuming that some of the noise and interference appears even before the regulator, instead of the output, a capacitor can be placed at the input, and this is the output of the rectifier. We change the capacitor CD1 to 22 µF; a capacitor with a larger capacity does not fit into the handle. As is customary, we will also bypass it with ceramics, for example, a 100 nF SMD capacitor (C101 in the diagram). I don’t know how much this change affected the result, but it certainly doesn’t interfere.

Next, we add a low-pass filter to the trigger in the form of capacitive negative feedback. I only needed a 0.1uF capacitor to get about the same effect as 22uF at the regulator output. In the final version, I installed a 1 µF capacitor (I simply couldn’t find a larger small capacitor), which completely eliminated the chatter even with an even greater reduction in the value of R4 to 22 Ohms.

Let's look at the result. Before the alterations at 275 degrees, the heating period was 111 s (heating 30 s, cooling 81 s), after the alteration - 71 s (heating 20 s, cooling 51 s). At around 350 it was 85 s (heating 48 s, cooling 37 s), it became 57 s (heating 34 s, cooling 23 s). The values ​​before the modification differ from those given earlier, since the adjustment knob is too coarse to accurately set it to exactly the same value as before.

The result was a 30-40% reduction in period at my typical operating temperatures. It has already been shown earlier that such a reduction reduces the temperature spread at the beginning of heating and after it even more strongly (in percentage). Not ideal, of course, but almost halving the spread with a small intervention in the circuit is a good result.

Below are the improvements on the board. Capacitor C100 is soldered to the legs of LM358, the LED and the resistor for it are held in place by soldering. I poured sealant under the capacitors so that they would not hang in the air. C101 is conveniently soldered from the bottom to the pads for CD1.

What's next

I'll definitely change the tip. Even if this is fine for installation, it is very inconvenient for dismantling. The tip of this tip warms up for a long time, and the temperature sensor does not see this and turns off the soldering iron too early when it first warms up. When soldering even thick traces, not just polygons, you have to raise the temperature, otherwise the tip will stick.

You can try to further reduce the heating period by increasing R5 and decreasing R4 even more, but so far I am satisfied with this result; the problem with the sting is more pressing. A significant reduction in the heating period in this scheme requires additional measures to reduce noise.

The first candidate for modification is the adjustment unit; we need to make it make a lot less noise. You can also install a less noisy op-amp. It would be nice to redesign the rectifier circuit to remove hot R1 from it; the heating handle of the soldering iron in an atypical place is distracting.

The heater control could be entrusted to a simple microcontroller with a program that more effectively suppresses noise, and the trigger logic could be made more advanced. Most likely, this is exactly what is done in more expensive soldering irons and soldering stations; I see this as the only correct development of the idea of ​​such a device.

Source: https://skubr.ru/2015/01/soldering-iron-upgrade.html

How to increase the power of a soldering iron - All about electricity

Any person who has ever done repairs has at least once used a soldering iron or used a soldering procedure. A more or less experienced user can boast that he can easily solder any parts. The same article will be devoted to soldering and can serve as useful material for inexperienced users who have not previously encountered this procedure or have simply never tried it.

It cannot be said that soldering is easy or, conversely, very difficult. In principle, if you do it at least a couple of times, taking into account all the necessary steps that are used for the soldering process, then you can do it all almost automatically.

Below will be presented types of soldering devices , a description of the soldering procedure, as well as some tips for novice users.

Soldering irons

Before you get acquainted directly with soldering, you should first go over in detail the information presented regarding the types of soldering irons. This will help a novice user who does not yet understand the wide variety of devices existing on the market.

Soldering irons are different . They vary in size and power. Different soldering devices are used for different soldering jobs. For example, lower power soldering irons are suitable for soldering smaller parts, while more powerful devices can be used for soldering large parts.

Types of soldering irons by heating method

Soldering irons can be classified according to heating method. If we use this principle to distinguish between devices, we can define several types of soldering irons:

• electric soldering irons, also called "regular" ones. In principle, such soldering irons are most often found among users. These devices are equipped with a spiral or ceramic heater
• There are also gas soldering irons. The structure of such devices can be deduced from the name itself. They are equipped with a gas burner
• hot air soldering irons. The operating principle of such soldering irons is that heat is transferred by a directed air flow
• induction

Soldering irons with different power

The main parameter by which soldering irons are selected is their power. Power is the parameter that determines the amount of heat flux that will subsequently be transferred to the soldered parts. Its use depends on the power of the soldering iron.

In order to solder electronic components and parts, you should use soldering irons whose power does not exceed 40 W. Parts whose walls are no thicker than one millimeter require power in the range from 80 to 100 W.

For parts with walls thicker than 2 mm, soldering irons with a power higher than 100 W should be used.

In cases with thick-walled parts, electric hammer soldering irons are often used, which have a power of up to 250 W and higher. The most energy-intensive soldering irons of this type include the Ersa Hammer 550 model, whose power is 550 W. This unit is capable of reaching temperatures of up to 600 degrees Celsius and is designed for complex soldering jobs that involve particularly massive and large parts , such as radiators and car parts.

But with all its qualities, there is also a significant drawback, which is its cost. Many will even consider this price for an electric hammer soldering iron to be inadequate, which is undoubtedly a significant disadvantage of this model. So it’s better to look for copies on the market with a more reasonable price.

The required soldering iron power is affected not only by the massiveness of the parts. Thick walls of soldered elements are not the only and not the main factor influencing the choice of a soldering iron based on power. The thermal conductivity of the metal involved in soldering should also be taken into account.

As this value increases, it is necessary to increase the power of the soldering iron and its heating temperature. You should be aware that when soldering copper parts, the soldering iron must be heated more than when soldering a part of similar size, but made of steel .

By the way, due to the high thermal conductivity of copper, there are often cases when, during the soldering process, places that were previously sealed diverge.

There are also large industrial soldering irons with very high power, but the average user certainly won’t need them, as they are used to connect calibration cables or chassis.

Solder

Now we should move on to the next issue, which concerns soldering. This issue is the choice of solder.

In order for the soldering process to be successful, you should select the solder that will be used to solder the parts . For different parts, you should choose a certain type of solder. For example, in the case of soldering electrical devices, you can choose only certain types of solder that are suitable specifically for parts of this type.

In order to solder the contacts of speakers or the motherboard, you should resort to using rosin. For copper wires, small contacts and thin connections, acid is ideal. If you use rosin when soldering electronic parts, the acid will simply destroy the contacts, which will cause serious damage to the circuit.

In some cases lead or tin are used . Pure tin is suitable for soldering food utensils. Many users avoid using lead due to its toxic properties that can affect health. But in favor of this solder is the fact that the quality of soldering when using lead as a solder is much better than in cases where lead-free solders are used for soldering.

It should be remembered that any solder during the soldering process is subject to temperature effects, as a result of which various compounds are released into the air. Therefore, it is highly recommended to work in areas with good air circulation . In addition, gloves should be used to avoid contact of hot toxic solder with the skin of your hands.

Fluxes

Masters divide almost all metals into those that can be soldered well and those that can be soldered poorly. You can even make a list, dividing some metals into three groups according to the degree of their solderability:

1. Good soldering: lead, tin, bronze, brass, nickel silver, silver, gold, copper;
2. Satisfactory: nickel, zinc, low-alloy and carbon steels;
3. Bad: High alloy steels, stainless steels, aluminum and aluminum bronze, titanium, magnesium, cast iron and chrome.

Undoubtedly, they are right, given the fact that indeed each metal is soldered in its own way , since each of them has different properties and structure. But many ridicule these claims, arguing that there are no metals that are difficult to solder, since there are factors such as: the correct temperature conditions, the correct flux and good preparation of the part.

Before the soldering process, you should definitely choose the right flux. This can solve all the problems that inexperienced users most often encounter when soldering. The quality of the flux determines the solderability of the metal, the difficulty or ease of the process itself, and the strength of the connection.

Effective fluxes for soldering steel can be called: an aqueous solution of zinc chloride , as well as soldering acids, the basis of which is this solution.

You should also know that in the case of soldering cast iron, it is necessary to use very high heating temperatures, which means that using an electric soldering iron for such a procedure is impractical.

For galvanized iron, craftsmen sometimes use a solution whose composition is as follows: ethyl alcohol, rosin, zinc chloride and ammonium chloride. This flux is called LK-2. It is not difficult to find at the market or in stores that provide repair products.

Preparing the soldering iron for use

Before you begin the soldering procedure, you should remember that you need to prepare the device for operation.

When you turn on the soldering device for the first time, it may start to smoke. You shouldn’t be afraid of this, since this is a fairly common phenomenon that occurs when the oils that were used to preserve the soldering iron burn out. If this happens, you should simply ventilate the room.

Before using a soldering iron, you must prepare its tip. This process depends on the original type of soldering iron tip. The fact is that if it is made of unplated copper, then in this case a screwdriver is used to forge its tip. This will give the copper increased wear resistance, and will also compact it.

You can also simply sharpen the tip using well-known tools such as emery or a file. In some cases, the soldering iron tip may be plated with nickel to prevent oxidation of the copper. In this case, it is strongly recommended not to sharpen or forge the tip as this may adversely affect its finish.

  Calculation of the power of an electric boiler for heating a house

Soldering procedure

After the tool is ready for use, you should begin the soldering process itself. The following will describe step-by-step instructions that will help novice users become familiar with the actions during soldering.

1. Tinning the sting . Tinning is the process of coating a soldering iron tip with a thin layer of solder. This procedure helps to clean the working tip of the soldering iron, and tinning also promotes heat exchange between the solder and the processing material.
2. Warming up . At this stage, you should warm up the soldering iron thoroughly. It is necessary to control the heating of the working solder, its quality and temperature. If you ignore this rule, the soldering iron runs the risk of becoming corroded.
3. Preparation of the workplace . Before you start soldering, you need to prepare your work area. Next to you should be a sponge soaked in water, a piece of cardboard or thick paper. This will help if solder drips during the soldering process.
4. Lubrication . Before work, you should thoroughly lubricate the soldering iron tip with solder. You need to check the coating, so the entire surface should be covered with lubricant. If there is too much grease, the user can easily eliminate this defect by using cardboard to remove excess solder.
5. Cleaning the nozzle . The top should be coated with solder, then the tip of the soldering iron should be wiped with a cloth to remove any remaining flux. Work must be done quickly to avoid solder hardening.
6. Soldering. We have come to a description of the soldering process itself. Soldering should be done by first applying a small amount of solder to the soldering iron tip and the soldering area. This improves the conductivity of the metal. The part that needs to be soldered should be held for several seconds during the thermal treatment process with a soldering device so that the soldered elements heat up sufficiently and connect. It is imperative to monitor the soldering process, since if you hold the soldering iron on the part for too long, it will simply melt.

Some tips

• The soldering iron tip must be kept clean. A clean tip ensures a stronger connection.
• It is recommended to start soldering with the smallest parts (thin connections, wires). The fact is that it is at the beginning of soldering that the tip is thinnest and most accurate.
• Sensitive parts should be installed last.

• Nikolay Ivanovich Matveev

Source: https://contur-sb.com/kak-uvelichit-moschnost-payalnika/

5 Tips to Improve Your Website in 2020 – WordPress Website Development

Your website should always look new and modern. Comfortable and fresh.

Whether you are tech-savvy or not, it is your responsibility to make sure that you keep up with the latest web designs, trends and apply development changes to create that striking fresh look on your website.
Improving your website can have a positive impact on your brand. Although there are elements that will always be classic, we must follow the fast pace of technology that is evolving enormously in web design.

Design

Website design includes the use of color, texture, and shading that can mimic the appearance. This is a design language that was introduced by Google in 2014 and they also use design elements for their software package.

SSL Certificate

It is mandatory to have security measures on the site. Secure Socket Layer (SSL) must be installed on your site for two main purposes:

• Website Authentication Identification: There are many websites today and users need to recognize the fake types. Adding an identity to your site gives your users peace of mind that they are safe on your site.
• Data encryption; It ensures your user's privacy during conversations that may occur between the site and visitors. Encoding prevents unauthorized access to data.

Thumb-friendly mobility

When you integrate your website with mobile apps, the responsiveness of your website will be very fast. This is because the number of people using mobile phones for smartphones nowadays is very large. If you look carefully at how you hold the phone, you will realize that you are using your thumb. Mobile app developers place most of the navigation bar menus where your finger can easily reach to improve your user experience.

Playing with color

It is known that color has a psychological effect on human behavior and feelings. Marketers have used this to help them sell more and has proven to be effective as it evokes the user's mood and works like a charm. Using color consciously continues to be a big thing in 2020, even though it's been going on for centuries.

Source: https://ravechnost.ru/5-sovetov-kak-uluchshit-vash-sajt-v-2020-godu/