TS 100 smart soldering iron

[cooder]

Disclaimer: I have no interest, shares or whatever in the company making this nor is my brother from another mother's cousin the CEO or anything like that. I didn't get one of those for free to plaster positive reviews anywhere, I just bought mine after getting interested.

So I stumbled on youtube on reviews of this ordering iron and coudln't resist getting it since my old iron got tired.
I also just got a chaep Chinese Hakko soldering station before which turned out ok even though the temperature display ain't accurate. It is ok and a good enough backup, that Hakko knock off, but this new one leaves it in the dust.

I bought mine on evilbay here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-Digital-OLED-Programmable-Soldering-Iron-Anti-static-Structure-Repair/112750155917?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

The TS100 is a smart iron that is programmable and performs really well in my opinion. I did a bit of smd practice soldering as well as normal through hole and also heavier stuff on modding a tube amp, soldering 18 gauge wire onto turrets etc.
As it has a boost button (if you install open source firmware, see below) which brings up temp to a pre determind higher temp for heavy connections it performed super on amp too.
I upgraded the firmware it came with to the open source one you can find here and that works even better and smarter:
https://github.com/Ralim/ts100

Iron looks and feels like a surgical instrument, sits well in the hand, performance and practicality is 11 out of 10 I think. It looks and feels well built, not at all like a toy.

The iron heats up in record time (about 30 sec to operating 320 degrees), you can adjust operating temp easily on handle in 10 degree steps up to 450 (with the updated firmware), display show actual tip temperature.
That is so exact that when the iron is off and fully cooled down it displays the room temperature!
Which you can also use to calibrate the settings! It displays the input voltage, shows the tip cooling down temperature after switching off, it shows sleep mode and when you move it it starts up again and displays the very swift rising tip temp. All super clever and practical.
You can change and adjust pretty much all the settings, for example the time it takes to go into sleep mode (set at present to 1 min), so when iron put down in stand it will cool down to sleep temp that you can pre determine and goes up as you move it. You can set the sensitivity of motion sensor too!  So that saves the tip from burning out unnecessarily, power too and fire risk. And it has auto switch off, so no more accidentally leaving on over night.

Performance is great, I did some practise smd soldering with tiny as stuff and I also worked on heavy stuff as I put in tube effetctsloop on Humphrey amp. As it has a boost button which brings up temp to a pre determind higher temp for heavy connections it performed super on amp too. Love it!

Only downside I can see is that it's so small (like a sharpie) that you could easily misplace it...
Other point to know is: it doesn't come with a power supply. Bummer. But wait, most old laptop supplies putting out around 18V or so will work great, so I git one from the local recycling centre, puts out 19.8 V 120W which is plenty and that works fine. The iron can also be powered by battery, for example quite suitably with a cordless drill 18V or so Li Ion battery. That can come in handy at times too me guesses.

So I'm a fan now.

There's a bunch of youtube reviews around, here's just a bunch.

alternative firmware, although the latest version is already more fancy than this: