Soldering Station

Personal project · Custom station for Hakko FX-8801 iron · 200–500 °C adjustable

A custom soldering station built to drive a soldering iron with accurate, adjustable temperature control. I wanted something more robust and repairable than a cheap off-the-shelf station, so I designed my own control electronics, enclosure, and user interface around a standard Hakko iron.

TECH: Temperature sensing and calibration, PID control, AC power electronics, Fusion360 CAD

Gallery

Completed soldering station interior wiring.

Control PCB driving the heater and reading the temperature sensor.

First test--accidentally blew up a buck converter :(

Hakko FX-8801 iron.

Description

I designed the electronics to safely deliver power to the iron while monitoring tip temperature and maintaining a setpoint between roughly 200 °C and 500 °C. This involved emperically measuring a resitance/temp curve (there was very little existing documentation), designing the power stage to switch the heater (selected a large mains transformer), and implementing PID control to stabalize the temperature. A considerable amount of time was spent tuning the PID parameters to get fast response.

I also built the user interface: a simple front panel with controls and a display that shows the current and target temperature. The 3D printed enclosure was designed for easy access to the internals, so I can repair or modify the station as my needs change.