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Anleitungen zur Reparatur und Fehlersuche bei der FixHub Power Series | Tragbaren Lötstation, bestehend aus Multifunktionaler Powerstation und Intelligentem Lötkolben. Erhältlich ab Mitte Oktober 2024.

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Some Soldering Station Suggestions for the Team

This is directed to the iFixit team:

Hey iFixit team!
I love the work you do and at this point have a severe case of brand loyalty. Unfortunately, I have a few glaring issues with the product I hope can be fixed in another iteration:
- Usage of Torx screws instead of Philips on the back of the battery pack
- Non-replaceable usb-c ports on both the battery pack and iron
- Closed source firmware
- Cannot use other soldering tips (perhaps you could create an adapter for other types?)
- Needing another tool to remove the battery connector
- Soldering iron cap has no insulation or heat changing paint
- No discharge balancer on the battery pack
- Removing the kickstand hurts the surrounding rubber and can scratch the battery pack shell easily
- Selector knob is soldered on instead of using a ribbon cable or press on connector
- Power button is soldered on instead of another connector style
- No plastic shell around battery cells to prevent puncture

Things I'd like to see but aren't major issues:
- Actnano waterproof coatings

Overall, I'm very proud of iFixit, but also hoping that these issues can be addressed. I've seen many of these concerns posted by other individuals elsewhere and this is a compilation of every concern I have found. My four biggest issues are the usage of Torx screws, the non-replaceable usb-c ports, the closed source software, and the single board design of the iron itself. The more modular and replaceable pieces are, the better.

Are any of these things we can look forward to in the future?

As a side note, I’m also wondering: is there’s any chance of another revision to the electric precision screwdriver with more torque and a rechargeable battery?

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I’ve forward your comments to the team.

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- Non-replaceable usb-c ports on both the battery pack and iron

- Selector knob is soldered on instead of using a ribbon cable or press on connector

- Power button is soldered on instead of another connector style

These are all great repairability points, and definitely parts that we'd like to modular-ize in future revisions. When designing a product, there is always a tradeoff between ease and complexity of assembly and the final cost of the product. Adding another board, mounting hardware, jumper cable to every USB-C port greatly increases the costs of assembly, and therefore of the final product. In this first revision, we prioritized ease of replaceability of the battery and display. The knob and the button are both on the same daughter-board, but that can be replaced without tools. We're working on some updates to the product for V2 that would move the USB-C ports off of the main board.

- Closed source firmware

All I can say about this is "Closed source for now".

- Cannot use other soldering tips (perhaps you could create an adapter for other types?)

An adapter is a cool idea, though there would have to be some way to mitigate the power that we feed to the tips. We did a pretty deep dive into the tip architecture in a blog post earlier this year. We've also open-sourced the design of these tips, so if you want to try your hand at some kind of adapter, that would be awesome!

- Soldering iron cap has no insulation or heat changing paint

The inside of the cap is made of stainless steel, and the outside of the cap is made from Glass-Filled nylon. There is an air-gap between them, but still pathways for heat to conduct from the outside. In my experience, the cap doesn't get hot as long as I have the idle timer on the iron set properly. If the iron just sits in the cap at 350C, it will get pretty hot on the outside.

- Removing the kickstand hurts the surrounding rubber and can scratch the battery pack shell easily

I added a note to the disassembly guide to put a piece of tape underneath the kickstand bushing before pulling the kickstand off. Standbügel

Things I'd like to see but aren't major issues:

- Actnano waterproof coatings

That would be awesome, we'll look into it with the vendor, but in the meantime, I have to ask to you to please don't not do any soldering in wet or damp environments!

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That makes sense, thank you for the explanation. Again, I truly love the work you all do and am grateful to have such a wonderful company to support. Glad to hear how much thought the team out into the product.

As for the electric screwdriver I actually have a few ideas for a second revision I’d love to see:

- Rechargeable and replaceable battery and usb-c port with a back cover that is a friction fit and can be pulled off

- Higher base torque with a small power control board to keep a consistent speed and light while the battery runs out

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@joshyacktman

First off, thank you for your support—it truly means a lot. Brand loyalty is something we never take for granted, and we want to make sure we keep up our end of the deal by constantly improving.

We know this first version isn’t perfect, and we’re actively working to make the next one better. Customer feedback is a huge part of that process, and detailed insights like yours help guide product development in the right direction. I’ll be passing this along directly to our engineering team so they can take a closer look.

If I get any updates or answers to your questions, I’ll be sure to post them here. Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts—we really appreciate it!

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Hi Josh, thanks for the feedback! Several of your points are related to the battery, so I'll address them here:

The Torx screws on the outside are the unfortunate side effect of regulatory agencies being really out of touch with the repair world. You've probably noticed that all the other screws on the device are Phillips and they're all the same size (no way to get them mixed up). However, when it came to compliance and safety certification, we were told that "batteries cannot be easily accessible by end users", and that T10 Torx screws are non-standard enough to count as Security Screws. This really bothers us, but rather than limit our available sales outlets (most online and retail sellers will not sell products if they don't meet UL safety certifications), we opted to give you the option to replace those rear case screws yourself. Here's a McMaster link to a Phillips screw that will fit that spot exactly: https://www.mcmaster.com/95836A205/ Additionally, I cant be too explicit, but if you look around the packaging for your Soldering Station or Soldering Toolkit, you may find some "liberating" accessories that help with this situation.

As far as the battery connector, we wanted to use both robust and standard connectors so that people could use our battery pack elsewhere (there are a surprising amount of uses for a 12V, 100W Li-Ion battery pack!). That's also why there is no discharge balancer, as that would require either adding considerable complexity and size to the battery pack, or additional wires onto the battery pack connection, which would make it much harder to use our pack in other applications. On the end of those two wires are standard Quick-Disconnect Spade fittings, held in that blue plastic piece for alignment and ease of removal. If you were to try and pull those connections off the board directly, it would be incredibly difficult, which why we put the leverage knobs on the housing, and we include a spudger (the tool those prying tabs were made for) in every power station and soldering toolkit.

The cells inside our battery pack are 18650 batteries, which each have a steel casing around them. The shrinkwrap exists to hold them together neatly and safely, but the risk of actually puncturing one of the cells is actually quite low (especially compared to soft-sided polymer packs). We opted for 18650s specifically for this safety reason and to try and increase the adoption of standard battery sizes.

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Josh Yacktman wird auf ewig dankbar sein.
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