PINECIL – Smart Mini Portable Soldering Iron, Small

I've seen the Pinecil around for a while and decided to upgrade to upgrade from my Weller WLC100. Holy smokes is this thing amazing! I always thought that my Weller was a great iron because of all the rave reviews and I was just inept at soldering. The very first time I used the Pinecil I was blown away and how nice and easy soldering went. I can never go back.PROS:* Heats up in seconds* Very comfortable to use* The small size makes soldering in small spaces a breeze* You can power it with a all kinds of different power supplies* Works with TS-100 tipsCONS:* The included tip isn't the best for general soldering. I ended up getting a TS-D24 tip and now it's about perfect.* The tension screw that keeps in the tip requires a tiny screwdriver that's not included and is annoying to deal with. I just replaced it with a M2x4mm thumb screw and it works great.It's completely bare bones and requires you to have your own power supply, but I absolutely love it. I've told all my friends that they need to get one.

I was thoroughly impressed with this thing, it is very high quality, heats insanely fast, it’s comfortable, and it has a TON of features. Such as settings and tubing it to your liking. It even has a built in gyro sensor that recognizes orientation and will cool off when set down for extended time, only to heat back up lightning fast as soon as you pick it up. Theres also lots of support for it on pine64’s website and other places. I highly recommend this thing it easily exceeds any iron I’ve used before, especially at this price.

This soldering iron is an absolute game-changer. I've used a fair number of different soldering irons over the years - electric and butane - and this is simply the best one.First I love that it runs off of USB-C PD at about 65W, which works perfectly with all my various laptop chargers, giving me convenient access to soldering wherever I need it. This also means I'm not limited to the piddly cords on most soldering irons and have a lot better range of motion with it.The heatup is absolutely mindblowing. My previous electric irons often took 10+ minutes to heat up. The Pinecil is at full temperature in 3 seconds. Not even an exaggeration, 3 seconds. Even the butane ones can't compete with that.The temperature control is a breeze and very intuitive, and I love the quick-boost feature (hold down +) for those quick bursts of extra heat when first contacting a metal part for instance. I get perfect joints every time.But more than anything, this iron has made me *want* to solder more. Lots of times in the past, I'd take a quicker option (e.g. twisting wires and covering with electrical tape) because of how inconvenient my previous irons were. But with the Pinecil, it's so quick and easy that I find myself soldering things I never would have bothered to before. From wire splices in DC power supplies to structural solder elements, everything is easy with it.And the price! At just $40 USD at purchase, this thing is a steal. For comparison the terrible electric iron I used previously (that took 10 minutes to heat up at "40W") was almost $50 CAD, which with current exchange rates is 92% of the cost. The extra $3 was well worth it.

I got this to replace a cheap 6W USB Soldering iron I had bought years ago. This will not work if you don't have a decent power source connected to it (think old cell phone charger/power bank) as it will quickly try to pull more power than the old USB chargers can provide. I connected it to a QC3 charger and it works perfectly, same with a QC2 charger, this iron heats up super quick, I haven't set to heat up to 666° F and it reaches that in about 45 seconds, it can go higher however I do not need it to go higher for what I do as that could burn a PCB especially if your not great at soldering. When I'm done soldering I'll unplug the iron then plug it back in so I can monitor the temperature as it cools down, and it cools down from my temps in about 2 minutes. I would recommend this iron if you want something that is portable and can be used with a decent battery bank that can provide QC2 voltages. It is not going to make.you the world's best soldering tech overnight, but this is a great iron to help you get there, or help you get those soldering tasks done as I have not had any issues, the only thing I have that will heat a wire up faster is my soldering gun but that will burn a PCB if I try to use it.