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Ralim / IronOS

Open Source Soldering Iron firmware
https://ralim.github.io/IronOS/
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Voltage requirements are too strict #1277

Closed yueduz closed 2 years ago

yueduz commented 2 years ago

photo_2022-04-19_16-20-51 Every time I turn it on, it prompts: "Undervoltage", and it needs to press the "-" key twice to start working. And I measured the input voltage with a multimeter to be 4.966 V. I think he is too strict about the voltage requirements. And I wish this prompt could be turned off.

Ralim commented 2 years ago

Operation at 5V is generally not supported. It will let you if you wait out the timeout, but it wants you to wait for voltage negotiation to complete before starting soldering.

What power supply and firmware version are you using? (The information you cut out of the template).

Most likely you either have (a) a slow PSU (Quick charge takes time to negotiate), (b) you are trying to run off 5V

yueduz commented 2 years ago

photo_2022-04-19_20-00-45 photo_2022-04-19_20-00-48

Ralim commented 2 years ago

Aha, so that that looks like its a Quick Charge power adapter which is not recommended as soldering at 9V is very slow. As Quick Charge takes a minimum of 1.5 seconds to negotiate; trying to start soldering before the negotiation has finished will indeed return the error that you are trying to solder on too low of a voltage. That is by design; as soldering on 5V is not recommended.

yueduz commented 2 years ago

My charger can support up to 12V. Then he should wait until the negotiation is completed before starting welding,And I have set the PD timeout value to 50， why does he automatically start when the negotiation is not completed?

Ralim commented 2 years ago

It will start if either you have turned on auto-start mode in the settings or you press the button at the front of the device to start soldering.

yueduz commented 2 years ago

After I turned off the auto start, I looked at the time from 5V to 12V, and he was almost exactly 5 seconds. So can PD timeout provide a longer timeout value?

Ralim commented 2 years ago

QC does not start until PD has timed out. If you are going to only use the older QC standard then you can set the PD timeout to 0 to start QC earlier

yueduz commented 2 years ago

I set it to automatically start welding mode on power up and set the PD timeout value to 1. I no longer get the undervoltage prompt and everything works fine. But I don't know why. Set a longer timeout value and get an undervoltage prompt instead.

Ralim commented 2 years ago

With a PD timeout set to be short you will negotiate QC fast enough to not run into the issue.

yueduz commented 2 years ago

With a PD timeout set to be short you will negotiate QC fast enough to not run into the issue.

But when I set the pd timeout to 0, he starts at 5V, then after a while he says the heating is out of control. He doesn't seem to negotiate QC.

You might think this is not a problem. But I think he should only prompt for undervoltage when both PD and QC negotiation fails.

If you think this is not a bug, you can close the issue.

River-Mochi commented 2 years ago

This looks like a Clone Pinecil. where did you get this Pinecil was it from AliExpress and not official Pine64.com or pine64 official reseller? was it Black color to begin with but you switched to Red? all authentic Pinecil come in Black color not all red (which can be purchased as separate case).

haarp commented 2 years ago

Is it possible or sensible to actually allow operation at 5V? I'm aware that this would result in only 3W of power output. Can it reach soldering temps with that power? Would be nice to have that option in an emergency (i.e. broken power bank, all you have with you is a shitty phone charger)

River-Mochi commented 2 years ago

need at least 3amps to get most out of Pinecil. 12v is on the low end of supported for Pinecil. also I think you might have a fake/clone pinecil. if you are a member of Pine64 Discord at all, look in Pins of Pinecil channel. I put list of different power paramenters that work best for pinecil and other helpful links for power supply questions.

You can not use a Phone charger 5V to operate Pinecil. this is only good enough for maybe updating firmware on Phone connection or PC usb-c connection. people have been able to do use their phone to update pinecil firmware.

Google something like "usb-c laptop charger" will find powerful USB-C chargers that are made to power small Laptops and things like Pinecil. PD65W is keyword to look for but people also have pinecil working on PD45W (just not as well).

River-Mochi commented 2 years ago

Ways to Power Pinecil & get Maximum Performance

● Usb-C port - usb-c cable to charger that is labeled PD 65W or greater, minimum 3amps.

For DC barrel jack - Check Polarity, some chargers have it reversed on the jack which could damage your device ● DC5525 port - old laptop charger on back 18v-21v, min. 65W+, min 3amps + . if it doesn't have a DC 5.5mm/2.5 jack, can often buy adaptor to convert ● DC5525 port - variable voltage laptop charger 24V 3A , min. 65W or more, has dial to change voltage, set to 21V until you do the special MOD (after mod of cutting trace on PCB, you can crank to 24V safely) ● DC5525 port - any 18V-21V tool battery, make your own adaptor to the battery or simply buy 'Power Wheels' adaptor for your brand battery, splice DC5525 jack to it, works great & portable. ● Pinecil Wiki - https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil#Power_Supply_Compatibility , it will work at lower voltages but takes more time rise to Temp & maintain temperature. see Wiki for examples of lower power adaptors that work but slower, such as ones for Switch gaming device. ● How to measure DC jack - https://www.digikey.com/en/blog/barrel-connector-measurement-tricks (edited)

River-Mochi commented 2 years ago

Is it possible or sensible to actually allow operation at 5V? I'm aware that this would result in only 3W of power output. Can it reach soldering temps with that power? Would be nice to have that option in an emergency (i.e. broken power bank, all you have with you is a shitty phone charger)

if you want an alternative that is not listed in the Pine64 Pinecil wiki, just experiment and you will see. but also one of the best emergency alternative is using the 18v-21v tool batteries that people have around and splicing it into DC 5525 jack . Can use Power Wheels adapter made for specific brands of tool batteries and a DC 5525 jack. 18V tool batteries like Ryobi/Rigid heat up very fast and work well - plenty of Power Wheel adaptors on Amazon/Ebay to convert it to use for Pinecil or make your own adapter, BigClive has a video on how to make your own adapter.

River-Mochi commented 2 years ago

Also, Clone/fake Pinecil are not supported by Pine64. the hardware is made from unknown source and suspect. Clone/fake makers have copied all Pine64 and Pinecone logos, they even have pinecone symbol on the fake clones PCB board.

River-Mochi commented 2 years ago

photo_2022-04-19_16-20-51 Every time I turn it on, it prompts: "Undervoltage", and it needs to press the "-" key twice to start working. And I measured the input voltage with a multimeter to be 4.966 V. I think he is too strict about the voltage requirements. And I wish this prompt could be turned off.

The Minimum voltage on official Pine64 for the Pinecil device is 12V. see the Pine64 wiki for this. This is a soldering iron that needs to actively keep temperature up and not a device like a phone battery that you could wait for hours to charge up. Therefore getting a charger that can support as close to 21V as possible is ideal but at minimum, 12V usb is doable but painful because every time you touch the solder the temperature will drop and you have to wait for temp to go back up slower. the reason it will display screen at 5V is it is designed to use low power PC usb ports or phones to do Firmware updates only.

The reason your 5V charger does not work is that it is not the correct device for Pinecil. There are many USB chargers out there and generally, those small tiny phone chargers are not made for Pinecil. However , USB-C laptop chargers generally are made with right power look for ones that say PD 65w (and 3amp or 3.25 amp). The PD protocol is important (PD = Power delivery protocol). https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinecil#Power_Supply_Compatibility

Pine64 pinecil was never intended to work with weak 5V phone charger supplies because they can not pump out enough power per second to keep up with demands of soldering iron. It would be like asking why does my car not run on a 9V battery - because car is not rated for 9v , and many cars can not even run on most 12V batteries, you have to get a battery that is rated for the size of the car and some 12V batteries are more powerful than others.

Pinecil is Rated to run on 12V -21V (aiming for 3amps or more if possible). if you experiment and get it somehow working with anything less, that would be hobbling the pinecil and not supported but certainly fun to try out.

If you want even more powerful Pinecil - the Pinecil will also work with 24V DC chargers if you first make a small modification to the PCB - this is detailed in the Feb 2022 Pine64 Newsletter.

yueduz commented 2 years ago

i buy here ：https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.0.0.29ba2e8dZmoRCn&id=633955322505&_u=n2cvdot5990

River-Mochi commented 2 years ago

i buy here ：https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.0.0.29ba2e8dZmoRCn&id=633955322505&_u=n2cvdot5990

pretty sure that is fake clone Pinecil. all real authentic Pinecil are only made in Black color with blue finger grip.
Discussion section of Github, see article I wrote about fake pinecil. link here

there are no authorized resellers of Pinecil on Aliexpress or those types of places. if you are in china then you could order directly from Pine64.com since it ships from hong kong I believe. The Fake Clone sellers are now all over place. I stopped counting but last I checked over 25 places were selling clone fakes.