* 5 secs to temp.
* Heat resistant, vented cap.
* User can change auto idle and sleep times.
Minus
* Need iFixit power station or computer to change temp and other settings.
* No temp indicator on the iron. No mention if the LED indicates it's reached set temp.
I'd love to keep a small, lightweight, high-quality portable iron in my tool bag ready for quick repairs. It needs to heat fast and be instantly capped and tossed back in the tool bag without waiting for cool down. However, I don't want to carry the iFixit power bank in my small tool bag. Yet without it, I'd need to pull out a laptop to change temp. And I do need to change temp enough for that to be annoying. Especially when there USB irons which have temp readouts and controls on the device. While cheap, those irons generally don't get to temp in 5 secs, have a well-thought out heat resistant cap and aren't high-quality.
How cultures are different across the globe, I would have used RED for hot, orange for heating and green for safe (instead of orange, purple and blue - love purple though!)
Interesting, I'm not sure that colorblindness can be severe enough for that to be a problem. I'm red/green colorblind, but I have no issue with stoplights or LEDs. Things onlystart to get hairy once the spectrum shifts closer to the browns such as forest green or burnished slate.
I was quoting from the article, which, admittedly, isn’t straight from the horses mouth. If there’s a discrepancy, one of them is wrong (I think I know which).
> While there’s no display, the illuminated ring behind the grip does provide a visual indicator of what the iron is doing: solid blue means it has power but the heating element is off, a pulsing blue indicates the iron is heating, and orange means it has reached the desired temperature. If you flick the heater switch off, the ring pulses purple until it cools back off and returns to blue.
I do have a TS100 which I use either with a battery pack or a wall charger.
For storing it, I am using a metal casing that is used for a single cigar. There's also room for a tiny metal cleaning brush which protects the tip during storage. Given that all of this is metal and that the soldering iron doesn't have that much thermal capacity, I can pack it up while the tip is still hot and the casing will only get mildly warm, but not to the point where it'd cause damage.
Plus
* 5 secs to temp. * Heat resistant, vented cap. * User can change auto idle and sleep times.
Minus
* Need iFixit power station or computer to change temp and other settings. * No temp indicator on the iron. No mention if the LED indicates it's reached set temp.
I'd love to keep a small, lightweight, high-quality portable iron in my tool bag ready for quick repairs. It needs to heat fast and be instantly capped and tossed back in the tool bag without waiting for cool down. However, I don't want to carry the iFixit power bank in my small tool bag. Yet without it, I'd need to pull out a laptop to change temp. And I do need to change temp enough for that to be annoying. Especially when there USB irons which have temp readouts and controls on the device. While cheap, those irons generally don't get to temp in 5 secs, have a well-thought out heat resistant cap and aren't high-quality.