Andrei Gabriel Anghel describes himself as a “simple man who loves electronics.” With his team at ELECTRONOOBS Anghel started on Instagram and has moved to a full website posting tutorials every day. His basic goal is to teach others how to use electronics, and with his new project the DIY portable soldering iron KIT he hopes to “give the opportunity to other DIYers to practice at the same time they watch” his YouTube tutorials. Anghel is running a Kickstarter funding campaign to finalize a production run of components, focusing on an injection molded case for the soldering iron and printed circuit board improvements.
The main selling point for the ELECTRONOOB soldering iron over a base hardware store model is the ability to control the point’s temperature with a digital readout, and the buzzers and vibration sensors included in the system. The system uses an ATMEGA328p-AU microcontroller, two buttons, and a notification buzzer to control the tip’s temperature. A Proportional Integral Derivative feedback mechanism controls the temperature by regulating how much power is supplied to the iron tip. The case is 3D printed from polylactic acid and curiously the campaign page says that during testing the base of the soldering does not melt through the case. Three different options are available, first is the Base Kit that requires the user to bring their own lithium polymer battery and do their own soldering. The Full Kit also includes an FTDI programmer for the system, but still requires the user to do his or her own soldering. The Premium Kit includes a secondary microcontroller chip and an extra printed circuit board in case any problems happen during assembly.
ELECTRONOOBS has a great sense of humor about himself, and even though there’s a slight language and accent barrier I enjoy his videos. Beyond demonstration videos of the three different levels of kits and demonstration of the system, there’s an alarmingly long nineteen minute campaign video demonstrating the soldering iron and talking about its components and possible end uses. Soldering irons remain an important part of the engineer's toolbox, and it's great to see them getting better and teaching electronics at the same time. The campaign is not yet successful and ends on June 10, 2019.