I’ve bought Pine64 products before (pinephone and recently the pinetime) but I’ve heard Zach Freedman (void star labs) mention this before and rave about it. I wanted to hear from the ergo community what they thought about it before I bought one to start my keyboard building journey.
In addition, if I should buy one, what tips do you recommend be purchased? It looks like I can buy long/short versions of fine/gross tips. What’s best for keyboard building? Here’s a link to their pinecil products.
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I really love mine. It’s just a great little iron and really affordable. Highly recommend.
All the recent keyboard work I have done with the Pinecil and it’s great. I use both a pointed tip and a chisel tip. The pointed tip is nice for most PCB work, the chisel for things like hand wiring.
Is this just a rebranding of the TS-100? Looks exactly the same. I’ve been using a TS-100 for years and it’s amazing for keyboards. Not sure what tip I have.
No, it is a separate thing but heavily inspired by the ts100 and uses the same tips. More like an open-source clone rather than a “rebrand”.
Pinecil has a few more features, can handle more wattage, and costs a lot less but they are similar in many regards
Oh it is definitely a marvelous thing; I’m never getting another soldering iron. I also have the fine tips and they are great too.
I love it. Highly recommend it. You must get a good 20V or 24V adapter, but worth it.
It’s a great iron for a hobby like this.
Put me down as a pinecil lover. These things are great. I had a TS100 before, and while it was very nice, the pinecil is superior
I’ve been wondering the same thing - sounds like people really like it. The only thing that gives me pause is sorting out a charger - I don’t want to accidentally melt my (kinda expensive) laptop charger
Edit: hadn’t noticed that pine64 sell a temperature resistant usb c cable specifically to address this
It’s a great little iron. Unfortunately it only comes with a pointy tip, which is fine for soldering switches directly to PCBs, but bad for everything else.
You’ll definitely want a flat tip for SMD stuff. Too fine and it won’t work with hotswap sockets, so I’d go with the gross pack. Or any TS100 tips, those fit the pinecil too.
It’s a fantastic tool!
The price is frankly almost unbelievable for the value you get
I don’t really use my far more expensive soldering station anymore, the Pinecil works for everything I do and it runs off the same battery I use as a backup for my phone/laptop
absolutely recommend. i use the fine bevel (cone truncated at an angle) and regular? chisel tips. i don’t really like rounded cone tips, not enough surface contact.
do get the silicone usb cable, so you can solder with a (65W for full output) USB-C battery pack or charger.
there are some great 3D printable carrying cases too.
only caveat is the thing is so light, bumping the cable can knock it loose from a stand if its not enclosed.
also, don’t listen to peeps who say they don’t even tighten the screw when swapping tips. really bad idea.
It’s okay, but I prefer the ts100. The pinecil is a bit unresponsive in waking up from idle.
