Pinecil/TS100/TS101 short tips details

[gwideman]

This post is primarily to provide some previously-scarce information on the Pinecil short tips for Pinecil and TS100/TS101 soldering irons.

Owners of Pinecil to TS100 and TS101 may find that the standard tips are a little long for optimum fine manipulation, so there may be some attraction to the "short" tips that Pinecil offers.   Pinecil offers these tips only in one or another set of four tips: a "Fine" set and a "Gross" (larger) set.  That, combined with a lack of clear information about the sets, slows down a decision about whether to purchase one or both of the sets.

In a series of posts with my friend Jack, we will present some info and pictures which we wish we'd had, and think will help others. (We are not affiliated in any way with Pinecil, nor any soldering iron manufacturers.)

Basic information

Unsurprisingly, the tips for these types of soldering iron all have a consistent "plug" that inserts into the handpiece.  What differs between them is the hot end of the iron, which varies in detailed tip shape, and length by which the tip extends out of the handpiece. In general, the "standard" tips have the following length dimensions:

• Total length about 105 mm
• Length of "plug", about 33 mm
• Tip protrusion from handpiece: about 70 to 75 mm

Pinecil's "short" tips vary from this:

• Tip protrusion from handpiece: 53 to 59 mm
• Side note: The electrical resistance of the short tips is lower than the standard tips. The TS100 and 101 need a firmware upgrade to accommodate this -- not addressed in our series of posts here.

Often the product descriptions for this family of tips lists a total length. You will want to subtract the "plug" (33 mm) to assess the tip protrusion length.

Detailed photos

The following photos show each tip next to a ruler. The ruler zero is positioned as follows:


Pinecil "Gross" tip set


Pinecil "Fine" tip set


Notes

• Tip names share some commonalities with other brands
• When a tip has a number in the name, it often refers to the diameter of the tip. Thus a "BC2" has a approximately 2mm diameter.

   

[jackr-m]

For a complete view of the tip shapes, here is a 360-degree animation.
Pinecil Gross Tip Set:


Pinecil Fine Tip Set:


Closeup of Pinecil BC2 & C1 (from Fine Tip Set):

[gwideman]

Continuing our quest to convey which of these tips are useful for which purposes, here are some photos of the tips adjacent to components of different sizes.

Gross tips, next to 0.64mm-pitch IC:


Fine tips, next to 0.64mm-pitch IC:


Gross tips, next to 2.54mm-pitch header:


Fine tips, next to 2.54mm-pitch header:


... that completes our post for now.

[watchmaker]

I have the Pinecil, bought it as a supplement to my Ersa Techtool.  I have only had it for a month, but it seems like a real tool.  The fit of the tips into the handle is a certainty and it delivers soldering performance (61/37/2 w/2.2%flux) equal to the Ersa.  And it moves around nicely.

The non 100 watt PSU use is pretty useless to me.   I use the full 70 watts.  The setting controls and sleep/auto off and wake up features are reliable and work very well.  The display is easy to read, very contrasty.

I wound up getting your desktop four-port USB PSU.  It is very aesthetic.  I use it for both my laptop and the iron.  It makes more sense than a wall wart or another brick to manage. And the cost with shipping to USA is comparable to Amazon offerings.

From what I read, the combination would seem to be a much better option than the Aixun stations which seem so problematic.  I think iron, complete set of tips ($25USD) and PSU come to around $150 USD shipped.

[agent_power]

Thanks for the pictures, I wished you had posted this about one month earlier as I went to try the newer V2 with short tips and ordered the gross ones to see the difference. From the gross tips, I only like D24. I've been using BC2 for just about anything except for when I needed a finer tip, where I used C1

For what I spent and the amount of hours I used it it's holding up very well (2.5 years now, it's only freezing ocasionally). I'm using with a GaN charger and now I could even use both at once to desolder SMD components

[gwideman]

I wound up getting your desktop four-port USB PSU.

To be clear, Jack and myself are not affiliated with any manufacturer or vendor of products related to this thread. So I'm not sure who "your" refers to, but it ain't us! :-)