Ha, good to know ( using 6s lipo as a source )

I know exactly how you feel. That’s why when I see PD bricks for $1 in the Salvation Army Store I pick them all up. Picked up a nice 100w one with the E cable. The cable alone is over $30. So now I think I’m going to order one of these Pinecils bc, why not.

I have a powerbank that can do that much haha

Yup, slightly lower resistance. The TS100-compatible tips are 8 ohms, the new shorter tips are 6.2 ohms! Also, the Pinecil V2 supports EPR PD3.1 (with a certified cable) at 28V 4.5A. 98W on the longer 8Ω tips, or 126W on the shoter 6.2Ω tips!

​@@Haulien the new V2 comes with a shorter 6.2 ohm tip. that number is not based on the older 8ohm long tip. There is an explaination in the Pinecil Wiki look for 88W in the wiki. tldr, to be conservative bc of manufacturing tolerances, use ohm calculator , plug in 6.5ohms, 24V, dc barrel charger, and you get the 88W printed on the side. google any ohm calculator. Technically that is theoretical max. however due to some resistance of PCB components & small amount from cable, and also a little resistance from tester itself, it will not reach that number exactly.

Hello, how do we verify if it's a genuine product? I don't live in the U.S. so I have to buy it from a local e commerce website that seems to be importing the soldering iron, and I'm a little concerned about the genuineness of the product.

@@lonewolfplays7664 I don't remember the website, but the manufacturer has a serial number validator. I just google searched for Pinecil check if counterfit, or something like that. Hope that helps!

@@lonewolfplays7664the link is in the pinecil wiki I think

I too!

when you see the Offset number in the calibration like 833 in video, the calibration is complete. it is important not to repeat calibration over and over as he does in video. calibration method, it is critical to read instructions on firmware website first and critical that both the tip and the handle /pcb internals are cold/ room temperature or calibration won't work . this means it should only be done at fresh boot of pinecil and not after it has been plugged in for 5 minutes as even that warms up the PCB. I'm also not sure people realize you have to unplug V2 between changing from long and short tips since it only does a resistance reading on boot up. and the short and long tips have very different temperature profiles used which could lead to wide difference in temperature reading if you don't do this.

The calibration was done whilst cool (it was cooled in water each time), but an offset was still there. Definitely something not right.

New 4-packs of the Short tips (6.2 ohm) will be at Pine Store in December 2022. but way things go it could be Jan 2023. short tips 6.2 ohms less than the 8 ohms longer tips is true they allow more power/watts for iron, per Ohm Calculator too.

@@sdgelectronics offset number will appear when doing calibration again. open ticket in Github IronOS, there is a temperature document there too that Ralim explains why calibration is not perfect. if you mean you believe offset # should go to 0 when you run Calibration an hour later, I don't think that is how firmware works. if I do calibration 6 times, leaving 30 min unplugged between each calibration for proper PCB colling, it always shows me Offset # on fresh boot calibration. Ralim suggested removing offset from view as it may be confusing.

Short tips are available on the store now.

I rushed to get one when the supplies came back, and they've been in stock since, looks like the supply is currently good. I won't be able to try it out until June sadly, but I got mine ready.

@@StereoBucket How is it?

not sure how it is even heating with only15w power bank. how many amps/volts is that port ? Can also see the volts on the right side of pinecil screen. for the conal tip included, I learned from Mr. Solderfix videos to hold the tip more like a steak knife touching aloing the side of the tip and not the tip. I no longer hold it vertically like a pen. Mr. solderfix videos he seems to use conical tip 99% of the time but he has a lot of practice. if you want an easier time you might consider the D24- wedge tip and the C4 bevel tip (large and good for desolder).

Conical tips are mostly useless except for certain PTH parts. We are discouraged from using them during IPC training, favouring chisel tips for higher thermal performance. You shouldn't have to change your soldering style and grip because of the tip choice.

Pro tip: old laptop power supplies are a good option for a high current 19V source. I'm using an old Sony one because it came with a nice flexible cable, which actually seems to put out 20V even though it's rated at 19V. Just chop the connector and solder a new 5.5 x 2.5 mm barrel jack.

@@sdgelectronics I prefer the BC2 or BC3 bevel hoof tips. people have been asking Pine store to please change default tip from Conical. the Conical requires you to hold tip horizontally so side of it touches the leg to solder. would also be nice if a D16 smaller Chisel tip was made in ts100 styl since it only exist for T12-d16.

I read that Pine store will have all short tips packs in mid -December. For now though I am using both my long 8ohm and shorter 6.2ohm tips. I would highly avoid using QC charger that is only 15W on V2 pinecil as you will not get good soldering result and it will maybe shut off a lot. You may even get "thermal runaway" or "undervoltage" messages sometimes when it's trying to draw more power than the small weak charger can give. Highly recommend getting at least usb-C PD (Power Delivery protocol) charger that is minimum PD65W, 20V, 3-3.25 amps on Ama zn they are so cheap now $10-$25 only. see Pinecil Wiki for list and links to some of these on Ama zn.

The Pinecil is based on the same design concept as the TS101. It all started when an alternative firmware was developed for the TS100 and became so popular that they decided to build their own iron as well. I have a v1 Pinecil and absolutely love it. For all my small through hole and SMD work it’s perfect. I have larger irons but they supply too much power and sometimes are not suitable due to nearby plastic melts or components overheating. This is ideal for small electronics work. It’s not suitable or desirable for welding up your gutters and that suits me fine. It’s super small and fits in the toolbox beautifully. Make sure you grab one of their silicon red USB-C cables. They are floppy and smooth and work really well.

@@wizdude I’m looking to get the Pinecil soldering kit for portable/station , which tips set you recommend get short tip gross or fine they also have the 120w desktop power supply on sale $37.99 im mainly going to use for fpv drone builds and in the field quick repair , I’ve never solder and will be my first time “newbie”

Noted on all points. The calibration still seemed out after trying this again today.

It is a big mistake for them to release it while the extra tips that were designed for it are still not yet ready for retail.

@@sdgelectronics try calibration with the Short tip that it came with. see if that is different. of course if stuck open Issue ticket on Github Ralim's IronOS, he usually has a good idea what to do since he wrote the firmware. he sometimes gives people beta debug tester firmware to expose certain problems so they can be fixed. we have a flasher for V2 now that can be used to upload the betas.

How is the documentation lacking? You literally have tons of documentation, all of the schematics, open source firmware etc... Really don't get your comment.

Yes, always turned off before swapping cartridges.

You can overcome this with the boost temperature setting, no reason to be dissaapointed it's the best soldering iron for the price. Also the more expensive irons may have better engineered tips or may just be compensating in software and I don't know if ironOS does it -thermal resistance from tip to thermocouple is constant, so temperature error is proportional to the power draw-

The aixun is flawed in a few ways that this tester doesn't appear to investigate though (at least if he had discovered them it's strange that'd he'd still include its performance side by side with other products) It's premise seems to be a £400 soldering station for £40 (or whatever) which sounds like you should be looking for the catch (and the reviewers / users who do, find it) - JBC do cheaper soldering irons I'd suggest you'd be better with one of them if you don't want to spend £400. Although I think the miniware and pinecil are probably as good - because they're not trying to be cheap. The performance may be less but you have to ask yourself how much soldering you're doing on coins or big pads. If it's none then you'd be much better with a cheaper JBC or the pinecil / miniware than you would be with some tat from aliexpress / amazon that is likely to electrocute you if you don't open it up and fix it - and if you do need the performance get the JBC or other reputable brand. The bottom line is : the cheap one isn't the same product but cheaper - dumping power into a tip will give you an impressive heat up time for a video but there's more to a soldering station than that.

I've tested the suggestions, but no change in the end result. I may follow up just for completeness.

It only did draw around 10 to 20W in the test. Maybe because it was powered with QuickCharge 3 which is not recommended? It should be able to draw more than 100W with QC or barrel connector supply. I would not write off the iron because of this.

@@kwinzman 20W seems quite efficient for its output

there are so many errors and misunderstandings in this video I'm smh.

You would likely need your own battery, possibly from a pack of LiPo cells in series. It might be possible to use a power tool battery, though most are around the 18V point.

The V2 with the short tip is the BL-706. The original version is no longer made or sold. The primary reason for the switch was supply shortages of the GD32. Also the short tip is the more powerful one (6.2 ohm tip instead of 8 ohm TS100 standard tips). So far the tip provided with the iron is the only such tip available.

@@NusaCat Wait, I am confused. Does the new MiniWare TS101 still use the old TS100 8 ohm tips or the new 6.2 ohm tip? If it uses the old one then why does Steve state that the TS101 seems to work better than the Pinecil V2?

Are the new tips that terribly botched?

@@kwinzman The 6.2 ohm tip is a Pinecil ONLY thing at this time. The firmware to support it is also a Pinecil thing. I'm not aware that MiniWare has done any tip changes, so I guess you are confused. Steve has some basic facts wrong, like when he called the longer tips more powerful....in this case the opposite is true.

​@@NusaCat He claims that there is a problem with those tips, maybe the temperature regulation not working or the heater cartridge being too far from the tip or something. Only 10 or 20W being delivered @ 17:30

QC chargers with a Pinecil are pretty sad. This is how you test the speed of a Pinecil V2 heating up. Less than 3 seconds to 300c using a 140W PD charger. ukposts.info/have/v-deo/poR0YZefa5xhyZs.html

Unfortunately, lowering the impedance is the only alternative to raising the voltage, which is currently rather maxed out.

How are they still only delivering 11w though?

@@nidusa1 Jump to around 12:00 and look at the amount of power being drawn - only some 11W is actually being drawn by the iron even then it is should be ramping up to full power... so something is clearly wrong here - possibly the tip calibration is really out due to tip swapping (although he does say he always powered down before swapping tips in reply to another comment), not calibrated when handpiece cold, etc, etc, so it's just not really trying to heat up - although I would have thought Steve would have verified the temp temperature after the calibration.

@@pfeerick I see this - good for Ralim to look at this if SDG opens a Github IronOS ticket otherwise ralim won't know about it this problem or be able to work with SDG to diagnose.

@@neo256mb I'm more inclined to think he needs to get in contact with pine64 and see if they are having issues with tip cartridge quality. But it also won't hurt to find out what is going on with the tip calibration ... if only to suggest it needs to be made more intuitive... RTFM really should not apply for a tool like this... it should be mostly usable by anyone familar with this type of equipment.

@@pfeerick thanks. yes something is wrong there. there were some issues i read about with with brand new ts100 tips where just wiping them down with IPA isopropal alcohol before using them new helped with temperatures. they can come from factory with dirty contact or residue. people reported fluctuating and flickering temperatures which went away immediately after cleaning or wiping off all the tips. in some cases just using the iron a few days where the rubbing from inserting the tip several times magically made contacts better and the bizarre temperature readings went away. this may have been because they rubbed off any residue. This happend to enough people, it is in the pinecil Wiki to wipe off all new tips before using. It happened to me on one tip too but after i wiped it with dry towel the fluctuating temperatures went away.

It read 20V on the display, so this charger must be QC and PD.

@@sdgelectronics Thanks for the followup! I only mentioned this because you said you used CQ in the video. I am not really sure that the display showing 20V implies it must have used PD. I have conflicting sources here. Some claim QC3 can also go up to 20V or even 22V. Some claim QC3 is limited to 18W others state 36W. Some claim 1.5A max, others say it's 2.6A/4.6A max. Not sure if just most QC3 phones had that constraint or if that's a technical QC3 charger limitation. Sorry I can't post source links on UKposts, it would get banned. The successor QC4 seems to be a quote on quote superset of PD3.0. Even though USB IF forbidds proprietary extensions so not actually.

@@kwinzman I checked, the adaptor I'm using supports 65W at 20V, compliant with PD, so I think it's okay.

@@sdgelectronics check the other port maybe?

Yep

There are lower resistance tips available, which he's probably not aware

@@alexstone691 Where? The only one is the conical tip supplied with the iron, at around 6 Ohms. There are no other low resistance tips at the moment unless you have a secret source?

Wasn't the TS-100 released in 2017? And already in need to replace it? That's a waste of money.

@@ricardoferreira2811 I wanted it because of the USB C power delivery, but I see now that it's inferior to the 24 volt that I'm currently using. I mostly use my KSGER T12 anyways.

@@AndreaAustoni my bad, it turns out the 6 ohms are the low resistance tips, and many people seem to have a problem with them as they are probably crap quality

it is confusing process see the open Issue ticket in Github Ralim's IronOS. maybe you could add your experience there so that steps in firmware could be reconsidered for clarity and programmed differently so it's more clear. there are also several searchable docs in github explaining more on the calibration process. it's designed to be done when you have really have temperature off issue but not every day thing. Since calibration is considered an Advanced option highly recommended to look at instructions or ask in Live community chat if run into trouble or confusion with it . links to community live chat all in pinecil-wiki

Picoscope 5000 with an R&S power meter

The calibration is performed incorrectly in this video is part of the problem. Also I'm not sure if SDG knows but you have to unplug and replug it in when changing Tips, because Firmware does a Resistance reading at boot-up to be able to tell if it's a Short or a long tip. It is better, look at my speed video. also there is a mistake in this video the new shorter tip is the higher performance at 6.2ohm versus the older longer ts100 style tips which is 8ohms. using an ohm calculater, 6.2 ohm with 20V usb-c charger gives max of ~64w whereas using the longer tip change calculator to 8 ohm and you get max of 50w.

@@neo256mb He said in reply to another comment that "Yes, always turned off before swapping cartridges.". Also, the pine64 store listings for this aren't the best - it only describes the extra tips as Fine and Gross - no mention of tip resistance, that they are slower to heat up than the stock tip, etc. Would have expected better from them after some of the previous mistakes made with the store listings.

@@pfeerick yes I understand. Pine Store should list more details on Tips and also on Pinecil. I don't understand their resistance to adding more info. EVen just a photo showing all 4 ways to power it would prevent people accidentally buying Pinecil thinking there is a mini battery inside. I like miniware photos on ts101. it shows Exactly the iron plugged into 4 different types of power. why Pine store doesn't have this similar photo I have no idea. It only helps to have more organized information on sale page or At Minimum, Put a Link to Pinecil Wiki if they aren't going to add any instructions on Pine Store page.

I will get some of the new tips soon and re-test.

@@sdgelectronics thank you so much. I'm looking forward to DC5525 24V5A test.

I recommend getting any USB-C charger they are much safer than DC barrel supply as they auto-negotiate (smart chargers). Also the cables on DC supplies is stiff hard to solder. if you get a USB-C power supply that is at least PD65W 20V 3-3.25 amps , then you will have plenty of speed of heating and bonus is there are Silicone USB-C cables that are much easier to use when soldering(flexible).

There is a breakout board for it. you could write software for it. But yeah, surely not necessary.

It does crypto mining while in the stand.

It's so in future the manufacturer can offer subscription based power output, customisable skins and DLC.

My Commodore 64 is crying in the corner with its 1mhz CPU 🤣🤣

To play Minecraft dummy!

My TS100 does exactly the same showcased in the video here. Eevblog also shows this in his review. During initial heatup everything is fine, but not under load. Would be interesting to know how you overcame this.

I had to order it from overseas

I’m looking to get the Pinecil soldering kit for portable/station , which tips set you recommend get short tip gross or fine or normal tip gross or fine they also have the 120w desktop power supply on sale $37.99 im mainly going to use for fpv drone builds and in the field quick repair , I’ve never solder and will be my first time “newbie

8 Ohms probably comes from original Hakko t12 spec. They probably targeted a 24V internal supply, that will lend at 72W which is exactly the power rating of Hakko soldering stations.

If the soldering iron is powerful enough, there is no need to adjust the temperature to solder large planes. Boosting the temperature is a means to temporarily add more energy to a mass to overcome limited power delivery. By doing this transferring a small amount of additional thermal energy stored in the cartridge to the power plane, but then you're back to the limited power delivery. If you look at the professional irons I've reviewed, they can deliver the power effortlessly

In boost mode mine delivers over 40W with a 65W charger. It's much more powerful then. It's definitely not designed for high power situations or PCBs with large heat sinks. I use it to build guitar pedals on simple PCBs with THT so it's fine.

if you go to pinecil wiki, you will see that "quick charge" qc which is what he said he used is not recommended. not sure why he did not just use a PD (power delivery ) usb-c charger. he also may not know that you have to unplug/reboot when changing between long and short tips since Pinecil takes a resistance reading on boot up so it can use the correct profiles since there is a huge difference between short 6.2 ohm and long 8ohm tips. there are several mistakes in this video that then lead to potential incorrect information and incorrect calibration.

@@neo256mb Steve said he used a QC 3 compatible power source. The wiki, in different places says that it doesn''t recommend QC 12V, nor QC 2.x, nor QC 3.0 _if lower than 3A_. If the problem was low power input, the tip temperature reading would be conspicuously low with a heavy thermal load, whereas in the video the reading remained high, as though the iron thinks it is maintaining a good tip temperature. Regardless, you have suggested a few points that maybe Steve could clarify.

@@neo256mb No doubt you make good points, and users should just use a PD power supply or barrel jack supply of adequate voltage and current rating. However you did not answer my point that if power input was an issue, then you would expect the tip temperature reading to be conspicuously low. And if the iron doesn't work with a wide spectrum of QC sources, then maybe the associated materials should not promote that it does. Or include in the firmware some detection and indication that the iron is being limited by the available input power. Finally, "the 833 offset number, that means it is done/complete " -- given that this iron has a 32-bit MCU and a graphical display and is quite happy to show nice text messages for most other situations, a display "833" means "oops, we forgot to put in a sensible message here, please report a bug". I'm sure lots of sincere and valuable work has gone into this product and the associated community effort and deserves crediting, but purchasers of a soldering iron mostly expect a functioning appliance that requires no reading of the source code to figure out how to use it, so it's unsurprising when a review such as Steve's goes somewhat astray.

The unit was powered down between swapping tips since I wrecked the TS80 by hot swapping!

@@neo256mb Steve is pretty sharp. I'm sure he'll read some of the comments and do more experimentation. I hope the manufacturer reads this too and can make improvements to the tips. I haven't used one of these type of portable irons yet. I prefer bench model soldering stations like Metcal, Hakko and Pace whenever possible.

​@@acoustic61 hope so :). What I would fault Pine Store for is that they should put a link from Pinecil to both "Pinecil Wiki" page and the "GH Ralim's IRonOS." there are no instructions to how to use it on Sale page so at least they should link to the wiki (which has links to Ralim's IronOS) and /or give links to IronOS. Other huge resource people don't know about is all the volunteers in the open source community in Pine64 dis cord that help on a daily basis when people need clarification on how Firmware/software works. looking at this video I'm not sure there is a manufacturer (Pine Store) problem. Pine store makes only the hardware part, any software or firmware is FOSS ( free open source software community). here it's GH Ralim's IronOS which has tons of documentation online about how to properly do calibration. There is also an Issue ticket system in GH so if people have some misunderstanding of calibration they can open an Issue there or ask in discussion. Ralim's IronOS is used on Pinecil exclusively, but also on over 155,000 people have downloaded it to use on Miniware devices as well like TS100, TS80P, etc.. There is also a community run Pinecil Wiki which has links to live Pinecil chat where people get these kinds of questions resolved in minutes if they don't understand or are new to the firmware. would have been better had SDG asked first how to do calibration either on GH or in live pinecil chat before publishing that firmware wasn't working. from what I saw it worked great and he missed it and just kept pressing more buttons without needing too. when calibration completes, it gives you offset number, in this case for him it was 833, and then he simply needed to press minus a couple times to get to the main screen. IronOS does not say the words "Done" or complete. and there is nothing the manufactuerer can do about that. I opened a GH IronOS ticket with Ralim to see if there is room in the firmware for for it to say something more like " 833 offset, Done" or "833 offset, Complete" on the screen instead of just "833". again this is for the community and open source firmware people to fix and Pine Store (manufacturer) is not involved on that end of it. It is odd he was off by 15 degress so I would have asked him to do a couple tests on the tip first and also made sure to clean contact back area of the tip with some IPA because we have seen that can interfere with correct Cold Junction Calibration voltage reading (since it's such a small difference , factory residue on tip can make a problem). Usually in the dis cord live chat if someone wants to calibrate, the volunteers make sure they follow correct set up first. maybe there is a problem with the tip he got but maybe there isn't . What if before the calibration he booted with long tip and then swapped tip without rebooting, or vice versa. I'm not sure what exact steps were done, but it was clear from the video that some basic things about the V2 are not understood which led to several misteps (especially believing that the longer tips are higher performance with it's the opposite). way too many variables here and I don't have enough details from the video. if he came into the live Pinecil chat channel (link in wiki) we could have sorted this and helped him in just a couple minutes to resolve this confusion. If anything, as volunteers in Pinecil live chat who see people come in for help everyday or question on how to use the firmware or the hidden debug menus in the firmware, we usually find it is a tweak of the open source firmware and not the manufacturer/Pine64 hardware issue. for example do we know if SDG followed the correct steps when switching from long to short tip and back? it can not be done with pinecil plugged in. you have to unplug it because the long tip is 8 ohm and short tip is 6.2 ohm. V2 measures the tip resistance at bootup only. if you swap again you need to unplug. measurement is a toggle since the short tip is all new with the V2 and did not exist before. Ralim of Ralim's IronOS said that he coded it so if reading is close to ~6.2 ohms, it goes with that temperature profile, and if it's close to ~8 ohms it goes with that. in 2.19 Beta firmware for V2 this was further tweaked because it was discovered that some people with Long tips could have as low as 7.6 ohms. after that, Ralim tweaks the firmware further. Ralim is a volunteer, all firmware for Pinecil is open source IronOS. Pine64 only provides and makes the hardware, and the FOSS community makes the firmware. I've used it for so long that I take it for granted that I have to reboot if I swap tips and I know that very specific steps need to be strictly followed to get the correct calibration. and if I have a problem with firmware and I can't find answer in the copious documents in GH IronOS, I open an issue ticket. Finally, I also fault Pine Store for the tiny paper user manual they include in the box with Pinecil with super mini font. they should have on 1st page in huge letters, links to Pinecil wiki and GH IronOS. then people would have a fighting chance to go to links, see there are instructions for Calibration, and many other important details, and be less lost and confused on how to use the firmware. sometimes where people think there is a problem, it's a misunderstanding of how to use the firmware. there are also two hidden debug menus people do not even know about until they go to GH IronOS documents.

@@neo256mb Shouldn't Pinecil V2 be capable of performace similar to a genuine Hakko FX-951 station? I mean it can use higher voltage power supply and the tip resistance is lower? It's been requested many times in the Pine reddit group that Pinecil should let the buyer chose the default tip that ships with the iron. The conical tip is virtually useless. And they should also sell additional tips separately instead of a 4-pack. Hopefully they will correct the issues and have better performance.

I bought a pinecil v2 to solder the grounding fix for the T12 KSGER station I got 🤣

@@user-cl3re8xi7y I never have bought a product were you only get 30 days, and yeah that makes it a $h!tty company. And i will because of that NEVER again buy stuff from them, i rather go to Miniware were you still get warranty after there warranty. I do not care it only cost $24,99 USD when i bought it, and that the Miniware TS100 cost $48,05 USD back then, i got a new one long after the warranty, and that tels me that Miniware then that the costumers are king, and PINE64 don't gives a F about there customers .