PINECIL One Month Later…

A month ago I posted about the PINECIL portable solder iron, and the high-output 65W PD battery bank I had to buy to power it:

https://dc540.org/xxx/2021/08/pinecil-soldering-iron-for-the-win/

So it’s been a month, and no exaggeration here, I have soldered over 10,000 joints since then, and I have zero complaints. It’s my new old-reliable. In fact, during a recent solder party, when my battery bank was depleted (the failure was 100% mine in forgetting it needed to be charged), I gave up soldering for the evening rather than revert to my wired unit or my TS-80. The PINECIL outperforms the others by that much.

Some details:

1) ONCE, it thought it was at temp but had cooled down. Reset it, it went back to normal.

2) Behavior differences:

The TS-80, when left alone for a while, stops pulling power, which causes the old ZeroLemon ToughJuice Battery to shut down. In fact, sometimes it would stop while soldering. This was annoying.

The PINECIL, by contrast, when put down, goes into visible sleep mode, putting z’s on the screen to let you know what it’s doing, and then begins to cool down, reporting the temp as it does so. When you pick it up again, it immediately starts heating back to your preset temp (for me, for what I’m doing, I keep it at 320 C).

The EasyLonger battery (as this is about the combo, not just about the PINECIL) also has better functionality, in my opinion. The ToughJuice would require you to press the on button to start powering objects connected to it. And then shut down when it detected low draw. The EasyLonger powers the object as soon as it’s plugged in, which means it keeps my PINECIL running as long as I have it plugged in. Safety violation, are you wondering? No, because the accelerometer in the PINECIL tells it to go to sleep.

It’s been a month, and I’m using the shit out of the PINECIL and the EasyLonger, and I couldn’t be happier.

In fact, last week I ordered accessories direct from PINE: A fine tip set, a mini stand, a transparent shell, a break-out board, and yes, a second spare PINECIL. They also have a very nice desktop power supply that I will probably go back and order, now that I think about it.