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
It’s a great iron for a hobby like this.
I love it. Highly recommend it. You must get a good 20V or 24V adapter, but worth it.
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
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.
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
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 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
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.
