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Is this the ultimate in soldering convenience? Solderpro 30W lithium-ion soldering iron Reviewed by Nicholas Vinen It’s a relatively inexpensive and light soldering iron that you can carry around with you. It’s ready to use within seconds and is capable of dealing with heavy wire and connectors with a minimum of fuss. And it recharges via just about any USB port, so it’s always at the ready. T his is a new product for Altronics, and we think it’s going to be a very popular one. You would be familiar with the mains-powered, temperature-controlled soldering irons that are widely used for assembly and repair work. They’re quick to come up to temperature, well-regulated and adjustable, and their interchangeable tips make them useful for a variety of jobs. But they have one major disadvantage, and it’s the cables. That includes the mains cord which limits where you can use the iron, and the cable from the base station to the pencil which always seems to get in the way when you’re using it. It also sometimes restricts how you can angle the pencil in tight spots. Gas (butane) and battery-powered soldering irons have neither of these problems. You can use them anywhere in your home or office, or out in the field. Inexpensive portable irons are usually gas-powered. The good news is that their internal gas supplies last for a while, and they’re quick (if fiddly) to recharge. But the temperature control is usually a bit crude, and they can take a while to warm up. They also have an open flame, limiting how you use them, and they cannot be used safely around flammable substances. Gas irons are still the cheapest use96 Silicon Chip ful portable irons, but this batterybased Iroda Solderpro is not all that much more expensive. And it’s just so convenient to use. You pull off the plastic cover, slide the switch from its locked position, grab the pencil and hold down the power button. Within about ten seconds, you’re ready to solder. It’s even quicker upon re-use. It also has an integrated LED light, which illuminates what you are working on whenever you’re pressing that button (ie, it’s automatic). It’s a brilliant feature – one of those things you don’t realise that you’re missing until you try it! Because it’s only consuming power while you’re actually soldering, the battery seems to last a long time. It never ran out when we were using it. The manufacturer states that it will last for 45 minutes of continuous use, which we would say means several hours of typical (intermittent) use. It would probably last all day if you aren’t using it too heavily. The recharge time is 3.5 hours, but we found it easiest to simply plug it in after each session to ‘top it up’ and that generally only took 30 minutes or so. If you do use it heavily one day, you can just plug it in to recharge overnight. The plastic case of the iron is moulded so that when you put it down, it Australia’s electronics magazine rests on the bench such that it keeps the hot tip away from the surface. So it’s easy to put down and pick up as needed. When you’ve finished, you just slide the switch back into the lock position and re-attach the cap, even if the iron is still hot. This prevents the hot iron from touching anything if you need to put it away right away. While it looks quite ‘chunky’ compared to a regular soldering pencil, we found it easy to hold and its relatively light 100g weight never presented a problem. Recharging is super-convenient as it has the same micro-USB socket as so many phones, tablets and other gadgets do. If you have an Android phone (and it doesn’t have a Type-C socket), then you will already have a suitable charger – but it can plug into virtually any PC USB port or supply to charge. A red LED illuminates as it’s charging, which changes to green when it’s finished. Temperature regulation Essentially, as you hold down the power button, the tip continues to heat up, only stopping at around 600°C. This means that you need to regulate the temperature yourself when working on smaller components. I asked Tim Blythman to try it out, and he commented that it was easy siliconchip.com.au The basic Iroda Solderpro 25L iron is powered by a rechargable litihium-ion battery giving up to 45 minutes continuous usage per charge (but much more with typical operation). It is supplied with a single conical tip. It looks “chunky” but is quite well balanced and feels good in the hand (Altronics Cat T2690A). to accidentally burn the board if you held the power switch on for so long! I did not run into that myself, probably because I tend to make solder joints relatively quickly, only holding power on for long enough to form the fillet. It then cools down slightly between each solder joint, but only takes a second or so to be ready for the next one. This iron is particularly well suited to such a usage pattern. The only complaint that I have is that the iron supplied for this review (Altronics Cat T2690A) only came with a single, large conical tip. While I found this fine for general-purpose and through-hole use, it is a little on the large side for working with many SMDs. For a little bit more money, you can purchase the Cat T2694A soldering iron kit. This includes a carry case, stand, cleaning sponge, some solder and (most importantly) a hot knife and a hot air blower. The hot air blower would definitely come in handy when soldering SMDs. eg, adding an extra capacitor or changing a resistor. Rather than unplugging everything and dragging it over to our workbench area, or unplugging a mains-powered iron and bringing it over to the test bench, we can just pick this iron up and make the change within seconds. And for those times when we may need to work on equipment ‘in situ’, having a portable iron on hand will be equally valuable. So I must give this product a thumbs-up. It brings soldering irons into the smartphone era; a time where you can carry everything you need around with you, in your pockets! The basic iron that we received (the one shown above), with one tip and the protective cover, is $110 including GST. It can be purchased from your local Altronics store (Cat T2690A), or their website via siliconchip.com.au/ link/aav3 The more comprehensive kit including more tips (shown below), which I am recommending (Cat T2694A), is $169 including GST and can be found here: siliconchip.com.au/link/aav4 SC Conclusion Altronics have given us the choice of returning the review sample or paying for it, and we will be keeping it because it’s just so handy for quick jobs. Quite often we have a piece of equipment on the test bench and want to make a small change to see its effect, siliconchip.com.au Here is the more comprehensive kit with two extra tips, stand, cleaning sponge, solder, etc. (Altronics Cat T2694A). Australia’s electronics magazine November 2019  97