Soldering Kit

Portable battery powered soldering kit

Updated: 10 Jul 2025

Soldering Kit

At home I've got a soldering station. It's great, iron holder, easy to adjust the temperature, place to store different tips, little OLED screen etc. In the garage I've got a bigger iron in a holder, a whopper gun and a gas powered one. You sometimes need a portable iron; maybe one of your pals has a soldering job that isn't portable. This little kit answers that need.

It's a 3D printed case with a pair of 3D printed inserts. The hinges and latches are held on/together with zip ties. At some point I'll swap them out for stainless steel fixings, but as I'm sure I've said somewhere else, my projects are very rarely fully finished. The case is a bit rough too, it needs reprinting with lower layer heights, this was a test pring that never got it's final print! But it worked so well I've yet to redo it and use proper fixings instead of zip ties.

Inside the kit is a Pinecil mini iron, spool of solder, tip cleaner, cable and iron holder. There's slots for two spare tips, which need to be replaced. The has a USB C port and a barrel port. The barrel needs 12-24v, the USB C is PD and QC compatible and needs 12-20v. The iron runs on IronOS (no, really it's called IronOS) opensource software. The idea of a soldering iron needing software was once a distant dream, now it's a USB C powered reality.

The iron holder (also missing a fixing) stows away when not in use, and slips into a groove at the left side of the kit. It holds the iron when you're not using it or for hands free operation. Again the print is a bit rough, I'd love to reprint it all in ultra smooth finish and to sand & seal each part, but there's so many other projects to part finish! The iron heats quickly (assuming you can give it 20v @ 3A) and maintains a steady temperature after a short period.

The tip cleaner is one of those brillo pad style ones that collects bits of solder when you use it. There's a space for a little tip of tip cleaner paste, but that's MIA.

The iron has got a little OLED screen and a couple of buttons to navigate and set the temperature. The silicone sleeve is a nice material to hold when soldering and it does a decent job of moving your fingers away from the heat at that end of the iron. The tips that came with the iron became grotty quite quickly, the one on it is the third one. It takes standard B2 86mm tips.