#pinecil

[pleasant-turtle-student]

I made a guitar pedal!!!

it's so epic and cool

it's called the bazzfuss

Here's a stoopid little dinky demo I made with my bass

[dvdmerwe]

This is an IronOS open-source software portable soldering iron with temperature control, auto sleep, and auto shut-off based on movement. It costs around US$36-$45 depending on where you buy it. It can be powered off USB-C (even via a battery) or the 12V barrel DC jack.

The hardware board schematics as well as software are all open-source. Pine64 encourages you to experiment with the software, and seeing its bootloader is safely in the ROM, this is reasonably safe to do.

I hear there are some AliExpress knock-offs, so you should probably consult their Wiki page to ensure you are sourcing an original device.

Watch https://youtu.be/Gbc0koEhKGA

[definitivelydrivel]

I just successfully soldered new shoulder buttons onto a broken steam deck I got to repair and give to my sister.

The middle soldering pad came off on one but I managed to repair it with an itty bitty piece of wire. I have only soldered like, a couple times before this week. I just hit so far above my weight class with this repair it isn't even funny.

Hell.

Fucking.

Yeah.

I'm a godsdamned wizard.

[foone]

Imagine a butch who dates robotgirls and she's got the belt and carabiner "ready for business" look down, but all the stuff hanging from it is reverse-engineering tools.

A full set of screwdriver bits (including security torx and those weird tri-wing Nintendo ones), assorted spuders, those little rubber suction-cups you use to remove LCDs, a line flashlight, macro lenses, IPA wipes, chip pullers, portable hot air rework gun and a pinecil soldering iron, desoldering braid, a wide variety of ESD-safe tweezers, and one of those anti-stack wristbands but on a retractable lead like it's for walking a dog.

She left her backpack at home but it's got a stereo inspection station, a full set of lockpicks (including those tubular lock impresioning ones), and an aging ThinkPad with a bunch of USB adapters: every memory card format you can imagine, all the major hard drive interfaces, and even 3.5"/5.25" floppy disks thanks to a 3D printed enclosure with a greaseweazle flux imager (the Applesauce stays at home connected to her Mac Mini). A USB optical drive that can read and burn all the cd formats, and a as small plastic case of some blank CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and Blu-rays. A bunch of USB flash drives, some blank, some preflashed with assorted tools and marked with little keychain labels: some linuxes, a warezed all-in-one windows installer, live distros for tails and kali and partionmagic and DBAN.

She's ready for anything.

[modestbirdwizard]

Fix your shit, or make it better anyway!

Everyone has had that little something in their life that was just perfect in everyone, suited to it's task, purpose, and the user's personal preference… and everyone has also had that thing break on them, followed by years of white whaling for a better replacement. Learning to fix your shit is essential in an era that lives and breathes e-waste and demands us to be connected, and while the vast majority of cellphones are hard to fix and difficult to even open, there ARE plenty of other devices in our lives simple enough to engage with that the layman stands a chance.

Tools, example projects and places to look for guides under the jump:

Fixing old ipods, restoring butchered record players, game controller customization (or fixing joystick drift), turning your favorite headphones into a cable-swappable gaming headset , or making the perfect version of a computer keyboard are all possible with a relatively small set of tools and a small investment of your time. For almost any given tech project, you only need a few tools to get into, out of, and through the guts of any electronic device.

Tools of the trade:

A soldering iron (A pinecil or a TS100 are great choices for those who need something small. You will see even cheaper irons that look like they plug directly into the wall, but these are NOT soldering irons, they are the end component of a soldering station, a much larger kind of iron for more serious users. They do not have heat control and are DANGEROUS if not used with a soldering station.)

A set of spudgers, picks, and pry tools (Not the cheap plastic ones that come with every single tech repair component, though you'll need those too, they are basically free in the quanitity that you'll need them.)

Most important of all, a solid multi-bit screwdriver set for this purpose. (The ifixit mako kit is the golden god here, but don't be fooled: this array of bits in these sizes can be had for as little as 12 bucks. That said, investing in your tools is an investment in yourself.)

A set of precision tweezers

A bottle of 99% Isopropyl Alcohol And for the more complex jobs:

A basic multimeter (This is mostly used for diagnosis, looking for broken circuits and finding the voltages of various components.)

A Heatgun/hair dryer (More useful for specific tasks, such as removing Surface Mount components which tend to be very, very small.

With these tools, the world is yours. A word about soldering: People act like this is an insane skill to possess, something best left only to the most dedicated techno-wizard and warlocks, but that's simply not the case. It's actually as simple as using hot glue safely. I'll defer to Big Clive for better instructions than I could write. It's pronounced saw-dur, by the way.

I'd also recommend his account for the great resource that it is generally. While he doesn't get into the specifics of repairing any device, Clive does tear downs that show the general techniques you'll use to get inside of different gadgets. Extremely good second screen background noise.

For specific instructions for your device, you should check out ifixit. They have the largest database of tech repair guides online, though something tells me that an open, wiki-style option would be a fantastic idea. They also sell parts and specific tools you may need for a given task.

Sometimes, repairing your tech is as simple as cracking the case and swapping a hidden microSD card for a much larger one, or actually just unplugging one battery and installing a new one (kind of makes you wonder why they say they can't be repaired and glue them down). While I'd argue that most tech can be fixed, there are sadly some things that are just beyond the dedicated hobbyist. Chief among those are airpods and other small devices of that type. While they can certainly be opened and repaired, it's just incredibly fine work and I wouldn't recommend it. If a task seems too daunting for you, try checking with local phone shops to see if they offer repair. The cost of a replacement is usually much greater than the cost of a fix.

If your tech is unusable and in to be replaced, trying to fix it cannot possibly break it more. Give it a go!

[salvationrepair]

Pinecil V2 Teardown

Duration: 45 minutes Steps: 6 Steps Meet the Pinecil V2, your go-to soldering iron that’s ready for action wherever you go! In this teardown, we’ll show you the ropes on how to crack it open for upgrades or to fix those pesky components. Step 1 – Gently pull the tip of the Pinecil out. Step 2 – Unscrew the Phillips head screws holding the cartridge at the bottom—give ’em a good turn and keep…

[brunz]

im gonna order the pinecil soldering iron im gonna finally have a soldering iron that works. using a 2 pound wood burning gun to solder is a fools errand but i really tried

[doityourshrimp]

Welcome to the sideblog

loss of knowledge is a top ten things that keep me up at night, so i thought I would document my diy projects, particularly those that i’m finding little to no information o how to do, in the hopes that if someone out there wants to do the same thing, now they have the info! also i have nowhere else to put these things and that’s sad cause i love them

uhhhhhh i’ll figure out organization at some point👍

knob values in posts are from 0-10

Resources and tools I use below the cut

Resources:

Tagboard Effects: Stripboard layouts for guitar pedal circuits (alternative)

Tayda: Great place for all electronic necessities(most common transistors, diodes, and ICs can be found here)

for rarer parts, particularly germanium parts, I'd recommend smallbear and stompbox parts

Guitar amplification and effects: a course by Professor Aaron Lanterman over at Georgia Tech, he's got plenty of great videos to go down the music tech rabbit hole but this course in specific has been very interesting, highly recommend

AMZ fx: a great resource to learn about pedal circuits and how to modify them, would highly recommend their articles on various kinds of clipping/saturation controls

ESP audio pages: a GOLDMINE of information, particularly when it comes to straddling the line between the nerdy electronics theory behind circuits and practical/understandable(relatively) knowledge. everything is explained in enough depth for you to be able to get hands on and know what to tweak and why. they have great articles on circuit sections/theory, and plenty of incredibly useful projects

Tools I use:

Soldering iron: pinecil v2

Solder: rosin-core kester 63/37 .8mm

Wire: small bear tinned solid core stranded

[weaseltotheface]

the problem i have with things that i want is that they're often too expensive for a christmas present type situation lol

like i want a stream deck because i like macros and i have a lot of programs that take advantage of hot keys and it would be very helpful for me to just have a button and not try to remember all the combos with my terrible brain but that shit is too expensive for a christmas present

i'd LIKE a small 3d printer for small things around the house like organization and storage and that kind of thing but that's EXPENSIVE

i want to set up a pihole or adguard thing with a raspberry pi but i don't wanna wait til december for that so i'm probably just gonna buy a raspberry pi for myself lmao

i could ask for new bluetooth headphones but i'm really picky about headphones and i don't want to have to return a gift cuz that makes me feel bad lol

MOST likely i'll end up asking for a compact soldering iron like the pinecil so i can start doing electronics work if i want or like dedicated controller for my pc games so i don't have to use my ps4 controllers but ughhhhh idk

[zvaigzdelasas]

PMOS CE pinephone available now for preorder

Also available is "convergence package" pinephone with RAM upgraded from 2->3GB and flash from 16->32GB, as well as a USB-C dock for $200

Tempered glass screen protectors & pinephone battery charger dock available now for $5 each

"Pinecil" upgraded ts100 Soldering Iron in production, will be available for $25, has a RISC-V processor, full USB-C capabilities (incl power), will be able to play tetris (prototype below, final is metal w comfortable grip)

Pinetime smart watch to start shipping soon with community-created firmware!

Pinecube open source IP camera will be in production soon for real this time for $25. More info next month

Other bits & bobs (pinephone Mainboard upgrading talks, upgrading kit for pinebook->~pinebook pro, pinephone has too good encryption to be shipped into Russia or India, software updates, etc)

[mosswg]

omg I love you’re keyboard design it’s so cool :3

how’d you design it and what soldering iron did you use?

thanks! :3 i used kicad for the design but it doesn't like anything at an angle so for the next version im using solvespace to design the size and shape then importing that into kicad for the rest. im not really sure what soldering iron i have but i know its from circuit specialists. although if you want to know what to get ive heard good things about the pinecil. I also made a v2 keyboard which i dont think i ever updated anything to show:

[mk1rie]

yall should get a pinecil

omg i've been trying to remove the solder joints from a dualshock 4 joystick for half an hour and it doesn't work and idk if it's because the wick i just bought sucks or if my iron sucks or if it's a skill issue or if it's the curse. come on. do like the tutorial please.

[effemimaniac]

wehhh I wish I knew where my pinecil soldering iron disappeared to. I lost it ages ago but I'm still sad abt that. I bought it because I couldn't find my old one (cheapo jaycar soldering station) but since buying it I found that old one, so I don't really have an excuse to buy another pinecil

[carharttlesbian]

should i splurge on the ts80p, get the slightly less nice+cheaper ts100, or go budget and get the pinecil for soldering purposes?

[wunthyll]

So, some stuff might be a direct swap. Easy to find and do yourself with just a tri-wing screw driver. Some stuff may need soldering, and you can get started with soldering for like $50 by getting some cheap solder, flux, and a Pinecil. The Pinecil is a $25 USB-C powered soldering iron with a vibrant modding community and is a good tool to just have around.

My brother found my gameboy, and I had my carriage. Alas the game doesn’t work when I put batteries in the on off switch is busted

😔

I have look up see if anyone repairs old game consoles

[hackernewsrobot]

Show HN: PineTool – An iOS Companion for the Pinecil

https://lachy.io/articles/introducing-pinetool Comments