kwiens

I guess 2018. I learned about them relatively recently and IMHO they're doing a pretty darn good job.

He's not in this to sell books. Stewart is investigating a way of life, and a means of keeping things working a long time. And he's documenting it thoroughly.

https://longnow.org/clock/

I was fortunate to read a preprint of Brand's latest. It's magnificent.

How and why do things fail? What are the cultures that lead to long-lasting products?

The undercurrent here is that Brand is behind the 10,000 year clock and has a vested interest in making things last a long time.

This book is an exploration of the world of things, how they break, and how people fix them. It's a huge effort, and Part One is right. He's been posting further work on Twitter from Part Two.

He included some sword fighting manuals that I sent that we think are the earliest written instruction guide.

We loved writing them, too! Traffic to the photo teardowns dropped and has been replaced by video. If you can help us figure out how to get people to pay attention to long-form articles again, we're all ears!

Thanks for the feedback! Fellow Tennessean here so I'm a bit embarrassed. I fixed the Make your voice heard embed (we removed a CallPower integration).

I'm working on fixing the letter now.

We built this tech when having five or six states with bills was exciting. Now, 50 states times two chambers times sometimes two or three bills has become a whole thing to keep track of it all.

Keeping all of these bills up to date across 50 states that change every year is quite the project. It's a pretty manual process right now, alas. I'd love to automate it.

Everyone else: please thread any bill year mismatch / other issues you find here, and I'll fix them!

The Toyota Sienna is the only minivan with all-wheel drive, which matters in cold climates or for the more adventerous families. It's built on the same chassis as the Highlander.

Yes. https://github.com/rashiq/mcbroken-archive

Hot tweezers is a fun idea we've been talking about. How would you like to see it implemented?

Yes, we really love the cap. It instantly safes the iron when you're done.

We'll post more documentation on the serial interface, it's pretty straightforward. A temperature control program would be no problem.

Thanks for the feedback! The storage cap indeed makes a huge difference when you have to do something quickly and then put the iron away.

In our testing, we rarely need to change temperatures. I think our algorithm does a better job of responding to the power load and flowing heat into the material than other irons. Of course, if you're changing solder then you'll need to change the temperature setting.

We built the web interface with mobile in mind. We just need a mobile browser that supports web serial. Someone else posted a WebUSB polyfill, and I'm going to check that out tomorrow.

The cap has a magnet on it that auto-homes so that really isn't a risk.

The Power Station has a 55 Watt Hour battery, which is where most of the cost comes from. It doubles as a battery bank for your phone or laptop, or any other USB-C devices in your life.

I agree with you. We wanted to use individual 18650 cells so badly! We designed the whole thing that way. We did exactly what you proposed, and built cell balancing circuitry and code. It worked great! Then we went to the safety certification bodies and they said, absolutely not, there is no way you can sell that.

We tried so many avenues to persuade them, from proposing 18650s with built-in safety circuitry to showing the safety system that we designed into the pack. No dice.

There are a variety of safety standards to blame, but the primary one is UL 1642. It needs to change. I'm planning to join the standards body to see if I can shift things.

Our pack is a set of six 18650s welded together with a standard connector. https://valkyrie.cdn.ifixit.com/media/2024/09/10113528/iFixi...

We'll sell replacement battery packs. Or you can make your own.

We're talking with Digikey! Stay tuned.

Preorders start today and will ship on October 15.

Good questions!

Tips we'll have at launch: Cone, Bevel 1.5, Wedge 1.5, Point, Bevel 2.6, Knife 2.5, Knife 1.4.

They'll be on sale in our store on October 15. https://www.ifixit.com/Tools/Soldering_and_Wiring

We will also be selling a complete line of replacement parts.

I'm working right now on our distribution partners, but we'll have a variety of local and online distributors who you can also buy the system through.

Rather than designing it to change tips on the fly, we set up the Power Station to handle two irons, with two USB ports and a mounting socket on both sides.

We didn't lock down the firmware on the Power Station, so go right ahead!

I completely agree and love buttons and knobs. In this case, we didn't think the setting was necessary at all. It's very rare that you need to change the soldering temperature. We found that most of the reasons that people historically change their setting is because their iron isn't responsive enough to the actual workload.

With 100 Watts of power and an ultra-fast response time, you can flow the joules that you actually need into the material at the temperature you set.

Give it a try! If you still feel like you need a temperature knob, we'll refund your purchase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30LOTlQ3Cc8

Here are some other reviews! We'll be shipping on October 15 and you can try it out for yourself.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/ifixit-new-soldering-iron-power-s...

https://www.tomshardware.com/maker-stem/ifixit-fixhub-portab...

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242497/ifixit-fixhub-us...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30LOTlQ3Cc8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IRP2LCswHs

We considered having a sensor to detect when the cap is installed, but found that the accelerometer met that need. The default sleep timer is 30 seconds, but I set mine to 5 seconds and it works great.

All of the settings, including the temperature setting, are available in the web interface for free. The settings persist permanently on the iron so you can use it with any USB-C PD power source that you've already got. We worked hard to make sure that the iron works well standalone from the power station. https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub/console

Schematics are table stakes!

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iFixit_Soldering

Our goal here was to provide workstation-level performance in a portable form factor.

Phone configuration: I agree, that would be nice. If we can find a way to do it from a web browser on a phone, that's our preference. Otherwise we'll take a look at a native wrapper.

Agree. It's kind of like a chef's knife: a better tool makes you a better chef.

A sharp knife is also quite a bit safer than a dull knife. By heating to operating temperature in 5 seconds and rapidly pouring heat into the material, you don't have to hold the hot iron as long. As soon as you're done, pop on the safety cap and instantly shield the hot metal.

Soldering isn't remotely mainstream, and part of that is the quality of tools. We set out to streamline the entire process to make soldering as accessible as possible.

We use a TRS connector between the tip and the iron. And yes, it's a lot of amps!

It's amazing how versatile a well designed analog connector can be.

The LED on the iron turns orange once it reaches your target temperature. It glows purple while it's heating, and blue when it's safe to touch.

We designed the system to work for people at a variety of price points.

If you just buy the iron, you have access to all the settings in our web console: https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub/console

The iron persists settings when you unplug it. You can change the sleep timer and timeout, set target temperatures, calibrate the accelerometer, and more.

The Power Station is nice to have, but you don't lose any functionality without it.

Google depends on it for firmware updates and repairs on the Pixel lineup. https://pixelrepair.withgoogle.com

Thanks! It cost more but I think the outcome was worth it.

We really pushed the envelope on every aspect of the hardware to max out the joules we could push into the material. The trick is being really responsive to the load so that you don't overshoot the target temperature too much.

With the Power Station plugged into the wall and a full charge on the batteries, you can get about 104 Watts into the iron.

We are, too! It didn't seem fair for us to rate it ourselves. Hackaday took theirs apart and seemed to like it.

We're posting full service information and schematics here: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iFixit_Soldering

We'll be selling spare parts starting October 15.

Very interesting, I will check that out!

And yes, if it seems like mobile browsers don't plan to add support then we'll have to look at wrapping it in a native app.

I'm hopeful that smartphones will start supporting higher power output from their USB-C ports. The iPhone does 4.5W right now, which is (barely) enough to melt solder, but not enough to do anything with.

Yes! You need a way to pull the iron out and put it away quickly.

Our cap is just a game changer there. You handle it more like a Sharpie than a soldering iron. Put the cap on and stick it back in your bag. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GXR8kMVbgAEeRgd?format=jpg&name=...

I set the motion timer on mine to 5 seconds. It heats up so quickly when you pick it back up that there's no reason to bother with the power switch. By the time I have it back at the joint, it's at temperature ready to go.

You can set the temperature on the iron with our web console, which uses Web Serial: https://www.ifixit.com/fixhub/console

Once you set the temperature, the iron remembers it and you can use any power source.

We've spent a lot of time talking to engineers and makers who solder all day, and it turns out that most people rarely change the temperature. Pick a temperature you like and leave it there.

Our heating algorithm detects and dynamically responds to load, so you don't need to turn the temperature up for larger thermal masses: it'll add as many joules as required to get it to temperature.

Yes, the thermistor is inside the tip. That's essential to getting good performance out of the algorithm.

The instant that the iron detects that it's under load, it pours power into the heating element. That makes it feel and perform like a much more powerful iron. We're dynamically responding to the power load and flowing heat into the material.