A petition to bring us back the knob!? A complaint to modern soldering stations

[helius]

Unless special measures are taken, encoders are "endless" and not repeatable between power cycles. So you need to watch the feedback from the display instead of just aiming the knob dot at a point on the scale.

[bitseeker]

Ah, yes. That is a downside for being able to set a level without looking. A pot with a tactile position indicator on the knob can easily be set by touch.

[zapta]

As a Metcal use I suggest to change the petition to 'eliminate the buttons', rather than 'give us knobs'. 

[GEuser]

When i first got the ATTEN i was contemplating a sleep button then that changed to a preset button , then back to the sleep button but as there is no room behind the front cover (the pcb is in the way) i have let it slide to the back-burner ..

[Cyberdragon]

  Thats it! I'm going to build a soldering station that runs on tubes, relays, and magnetic amplifiers to control the current. (I will too if I get the parts, just because I like being different) And it will most certainly have knobs, lots of knobs, and big clunky switches.

"We don't need no digitization! Teacher leave our knobs alone!"

[GEuser]

Thats it! I'm going to build a soldering station that runs on tubes, relays, and magnetic amplifiers to control the current. (I will too if I get the parts, just because I like being different) And it will most certainly have knobs, lots of knobs, and big clunky switches.

"We don't need no digitization! Teacher leave our knobs alone!"

Why did not someone make a Tube soldering station? , at night it'd look Cool , not run cool but looking at a rectifier would be nice , then a voltage regulator and Nixie display for temp .

A good thought Cyberdragon , the never was a Wall imo .

[Cyberdragon]

Just vent the heat from the tubes through a hose to make a hot glue melter thingy. Because why don't soldering stations have these, the smd air gun would just burn the glue.

[Kilrah]

And it will most certainly have knobs, lots of knobs, and big clunky switches.

"We don't need no digitization! Teacher leave our knobs alone!"

What's wrong with making it digital, that can have lots of switches too!
Manually loading the temperature regulation program into memory at each power up is as sophisticated as it could get! Once loaded you can easily set the temperature straight on the switches, in binary of course!

[eKretz]

Unless special measures are taken, encoders are "endless" and not repeatable between power cycles. So you need to watch the feedback from the display instead of just aiming the knob dot at a point on the scale.

Not sure why that would be a negative - Ersa at least uses an encoder with a momentary push switch and I love mine. There's no need to worry about power cycles - the station remembers where it was set when powered off and returns to the same setting when it's powered back on. Aside from that, it auto-sleeps after a selectable time to a selectable temperature, resuming the set soldering temperature again when the iron is lifted from the stand within 2 or 3 seconds. I rarely change temp at all - only when I need to use some lead-free solder. Even for heavy ground plane work the iron doesn't need to have the temp adjusted - Ersa and also JBC I believe are rated 80W continuous and 150W for up to 30 second surges. If you can't already tell, yes I love my soldering station, lol.

[tooki]

LOL! Does no one study interaction design anymore? I guess penny pinching and speed to market are more important.

The perplexing thing is that until fairly recently, interaction design wasn't widely available as a field of study. It's only recently that there's been a boom in it!

The thing is, digital controls are cheaper to make, but most people intuitively consider them to be more high-tech. (That's why, for example, only entry-level washing machines ever use mechanical timers any more, even though the mechanical ones are more expensive and more reliable than the digital controls.) A couple of tactile buttons cost far less than a quality potentiometer, for example. The problem is that most gadgets these days are made in countries who have little-to-no interest in usability, so they just let the engineers do whatever and never, ever engage the services of a usability professional.


As for Rossman's video asking about why you need a key to change temp: I guess he's never heard of industrial process control, where you don't want assembly line workers autonomously changing process parameters.

[Zero999]

Unless special measures are taken, encoders are "endless" and not repeatable between power cycles. So you need to watch the feedback from the display instead of just aiming the knob dot at a point on the scale.

Yes, I agree.

"We don't need no digitization! Teacher leave our knobs alone!"

I have no problem with digitisation. I'd like a solder station with a digital display which displays the set and actual temperature in 5^oC increments and a potentiometer to adjust the temperature.

[KL27x]

Absolute encoders are a possibility. But I think they defeat the KISS principle and they are very expensive, to boot.

Re Hakko, I was appalled by the 888D UI. I still use my analog version. And I "fixed" my digital version, somewhat. I still have to look up instructions if I need to adjust it beyond the 5 presets. 

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/hakko-888d-interface-fixed/msg875006/#msg875006

[k_sze]

It's why I bought a (new original) Hakko 936.

Where do you even find a new original Hakko 936?!

[amyk]

It's why I bought a (new original) Hakko 936.

Where do you even find a new original Hakko 936?!

Probably NOS.

[k_sze]

It's why I bought a (new original) Hakko 936.

Where do you even find a new original Hakko 936?!

Probably NOS.

Yes, that's what I thought, too. But where?

[Whales]

While we're here: monitors.  I use my computer in a room with natural light.  That is, light that is not constant.

On my last monitor I had to go through the menu system to change the brightness (this took many keypresses).  I'm very glad that my current one has presets that I can cycle through with a single button.  But I'd much prefer a physical control.

My first ever monitor (a CRT) had a brightness wheel.  No software, no OSD system.  I have a 1993-4 era computing magazine with an ad for a CRT monitor that required a Windows utility to change its settings -- and a review about how great it was.  Little did they know of the doom this would bring upon monitorkind. 

My old thinkpad 600, now long gone, had a physical slider under the screen to change the brightness.  This was amazing.

I prefer not having to control screen brightness through software.  It means I can change it when I'm anywhere and doing anything: in the BIOS or whilst the computer is booting, for example, which does not seem that important until you have to do it at FULL BRIGHTNESS IN A PITCH BLACK ROOM or at minimum brightness in broad day.  It also means that it's physically impossible for the brightness value to be forgotten by the computer from one session to the next.  For similar reasons I love having a physical volume knob to play with. 

Alas, buttons are what the world wants.  Or I should spend more money to get a better monitor (or a room with less thermal resistance and more thermal mass).

[bitseeker]

Alas, buttons are what the world wants.

Buttons are what the world perceives to be "better", "high value", or "high-tech" without understanding when they're appropriate or how best to interact with them. As a result, buttons generate more profit for products that have them and they become prevalent.

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would've said faster horses." -- Henry Ford

[KL27x]

This is what marketers have decided that we will perceive as better.

Capacitive touch control is next. It requires more software. But once the development is done, it is cheap to mass produce.

Encoders are not without their own trouble. I have a radio that goes down in volume smooth as butter. Trying to turn it back up takes a few minutes trying to find exactly the right speed where the encoder debounce routine happens to be right. Then after you succeed and let go just right to not bounce it right back to zero, you can carefully adjust the volume down to where u want it.

[eKretz]

Maybe clean the encoder? DeOxit shines for this. How old is the radio BTW? I had an old Kenwood that did similar after 20 years. Cleaning fixed it right up.

[Muxr]

When I switched to Metcal I thought I was going to miss the temperature setting. It works like a charm with no temp setting whatsoever.

[SteveyG]

As a Metcal use I suggest to change the petition to 'eliminate the buttons', rather than 'give us knobs'. 

Agree! Just turn it on and get soldering. 

[k_sze]

I'm not sure if Hakko or Weller read this forum, or even find this thread.

I think we need to be more pro-active.

How about organizing a cross-forum effort? I know eevblog isn't the only electronics forum on the web, you guys must know other popular ones.

Here is what I propose:

• Find out who has the last word about design decisions at each of these companies;
• Find out how to contact them - phone, snail-mail, e-mail, fax, you name it;
• Get the word out at other forums, maybe make a video if you have your own YouTube channel;
• Organize across forums and start sending them our messages, individually, in concert; tell them whichever company brings back the knob will win back our heart (and business). Link them to the multitude of complaints about the knobless interfaces - e.g. this thread, among others, and that YouTube video by Louis Rossmann (https://youtu.be/WgoGhnlJHas?list=PLkVbIsAWN2lvK9wLg2pwcXJLut_-_P9G4&t=2618)

What do you guys say?

[aronake]

I just sent below mail to Weller. Lets see what they say

---------------
Dear Weller,

I am here representing the eevblog forum, which is one of the leading electronics engineering and design forums on Internet.

One topic we have been discussing is the user interface on soldering stations and how we generally find them very unpleasant to work with. You can read the thread here:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/a-petition-to-bring-us-back-the-knob!-a-complaint-to-modern-soldering-stations/

The thread now have 2865 views.

In my case, I just bought a WX2 with a couple of different irons recently. Its a wonderful solder station and nice piece of engineering in true German fashion. It ticks all the boxes, save for one area, the user interface! Me, and many other users find this "turn around touch pad" very inconvenient, slow and unprecise to work with.

We in the forum would want to know more about how and why this user interface was chosen. It looks nice and I could think the marketing department had a say, but after all we want something which is good to work with.

Could you provide some insight in this matter?

In all fairness its not only you who fail when it comes to user interfaces, quite some of the other major manufacturer have went along the same route.

I dont have answers on how a good user interface should be, but trust you have experts to look into this matter. I would also be happy to provide views and feedback on what ideas you may have.

Yours,
Aron
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[Smokey]

Soo...
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WwOrUmIqcpc/URm3tRhvk4I/AAAAAAAAAyU/CoML0IwUkF0/s1600/Photo+Feb+11,+10+31+10+PM.jpg

Is that the new forum-approved soldering iron with all of it's knobby goodness... or an old mixer... can't tell....

[helius]

That looks like a soldering station to you?