Sonoff power for Soldering iron

[jcallaghan]

Objective

Build a smart switch to operate my soldering iron, fan, and workbench light. Inspired by Jonathan Oxer after watching an episode of Super House.

Ideas

• Alexa, turn on the soldering iron.
• [x] Flash a Sonoff POWR2 (#58) and DUALR2 (#65) with ESPHome (jcallaghan/esphome-config/pull/20)
• [x] Home Assistant utility_meter for energy monitoring.
• Auto shut off timer and automation (use energy data to detect if the iron has been idle for x period).
• [x] Include a work lamp with magnifying glass and fan to help blow soldering smoke away. The fan should be on the same circuit as the soldering iron so they on together.
• Add a countertop power extension on the same circuit as the light.
• The light would also be a great place to add ESP32Cam to capture activity at workbench stream.
• Add a buzzer to Sonoff via the gpio pins to provide an audio indication the soldering iron has been left on and will turn off soon.

Ingredients

• Sonoff POWR2 for monitoring energy
• Sonoff DUALR2 to split power between soldering iron and workbench. This will allow me to have the light on without the soldering iron on.
• Buzzer
• Zigbee Aqara button - short press toggles light state, long press toggles soldering iron, hold toggle everything on/off.
• 2 x extension lead with USB
• 1 x tabletop extension lead
• 1 x soldering iron
• 1 x USB fan
• 1 x USB work light with a magnifying glass

[jcallaghan]

Note: Need to research how to integrate a buzzer and relay using the GPIO. These components may also need a 3D printed case. The GPIO pins aren't accessible on the POWR2 and DUAL2 from what I could see.

[jcallaghan]

Research

Useful ESPHome and Sonoff guides and samples.

• Sonoff R2 on ESPHome
• Basic example
• Example using GPIO pins.
• Flashing Sonoff
• Tasmota
• ESPHome fake button for relay on/off

[jcallaghan]

Wiring plan

[jcallaghan]

Build and install

[jcallaghan]

Lovelace configuration

I will mostly use voice to turn on/off my workstation light and soldering iron but I have created a couple of cards in a Lovelace panel to give me insight into the two Sonoffs. The energy graph will help me identify what power the soldering iron draws when idling. I will then use this to trigger an automation to turn off the soldering iron relay.

I think the material design icons rock!

[jcallaghan]

Energy data in Grafana

To help me create an automation that turns the soldering relay off I wanted to understand and study the power consumption for a few scenarios. For this, I took off to Grafana.

Scenario	Watts	Amps
LED light on, USB fan on max power, soldering iron at 480°C	40	0.30
All on, soldering iron on idle	14.5	0.11
Soldering circuit off, LED on	4.2	0.05
All off	0.8	0.04

[jcallaghan]

Next level soldering automation

I thought I was 21st century with a smart switch for my soldering iron but this person has taken soldering automation to the next level and added an automatic window opener when using their soldering iron.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2707808076112047/permalink/3253109544915228/