Dilshan R Jayakody’s Web Log

HAKKO 907 is popular and commonly available soldering iron in the electronics field. To drive those soldering irons user needs to have HAKKO or any other compatible soldering station. The biggest problems with those soldering stations are there higher price tags and limited availability in the local market. Because of those problems, we decided to create our own soldering station, and for that, we choose " Chinese " version of HAKKO 907 soldering handle. Now Chinese versions of 907 compatible irons are available on eBay for less than 5USD. As per our observations, those Chinese versions of soldering irons look and perform almost similar to genuine HAKKO 907 iron(s). To keep it simple we choose LM358 dual operational amplifier IC to monitor the 907's thermocouple and drive the TRIAC. The entire control circuit of this soldering station is powered by single rail 5V DC power supply. To drive both handle and station we use 12V-0-12V 8A step-down transformer. Interna...

Nichrome-Wire Cutter is an essential tool for model aircraft constructions. We mainly use Nichrome-Wire Cutters to fabricate model aircraft wing assemblies, other than that Nichrom-Wire Cutters are used to cut wax, polystyrene materials and other similar kind of materials. In this project we construct electronically Controlled Nichrome-Wire Cutter. The main feature of this cutter is its (non mechanical) variable temperature controller. The temperature of the Nichrome-Wire is controlled using TL494 PWM controller. In this design TL494 is oscillated with fixed frequency and only varying factor is its duty cycle, in this given design R2 is used to control the duty cycle of the frequency. Duty cycle variation with R2 potentiometer This Nichrome-Wire Cutter requires 8V to 20V – 3A DC power source and 16.5V – 3A is recommended supply for this system. When constructing this system makes sure to solder and connect all the components properly, improper connections may cause oscillatio...