at this point, i'm basically watching your videos because soldering is the most satisfying thing to watch ever.

Bought it half a year ago. Had problems with the capacitance switch while powered from the powerbank, didn't trigger. Stripped it, removed all the funny stuff driving the mosfet and installed a small switch to polarize the gate. I carry it everyday with my 5V 2A powerbank, love it a lot! The look on somebody's face when I pull a soldering iron out of my bag and just run it off a powerbank, priceless. Great for small stuff.

Mine arrived yesterday and didn't work. The red light comes on but there was no heat. I opened it up and one of the wires going to the tip wasn't soldered on! The irony. :-)

So Clive, I bought this iron solely because of your review. I must say I'm impressed! Very fast heat, very fast cooling. Stays clean and works just beautifully. Thanks for the review!

Don’t care how old this video is.. I watch all your videos I can.. love them all!!

I've had one of these for the past almost two years, amazing little soldering iron. Very glad it got a great review by big Clive! Only problem with it is its hard to find spare tips for. I have found one site probably 6-12 months back, but forget what it was.

Thank you so much for this video, I know it's over a year old but I just recently saw it. Was so impressed I bought one. It didn't work. Figuring it would cost more to send back than just buying a new one I just bought another and emailed the company and let them know it was DOA. The day after receiving the replacement I got another. The company had sent me a replacement free of charge. With the second one I was able to fix the first. I now have 3 for the price of 2 and I am very happy with them!! Thanks to this video and you I also know how to remove the replaceable tips.

Clive you have opened up the whole world of electronics to me. I had literally 0 interest before I saw a few of your videos and since then I've been left with this massive thirst for knowledge and info. I am going to start soldering like you suggest and then maybe have a go at some of those LED light kits. Thanks again Clive, if we ever happen to be in the same town I will buy you a drink! or dinner ;)

Awesome Video, Schematic & Teardown Clive. Very Cool. I love these Irons & I've been using them for years now and they are fantastic I've had no issues using an Apple plug too. Keep up the great work. Nick.

I was as surprised as you how good it actually works. it took me back as I expected nothing really when I purchased one.

Good old 555, nice to see it's still being used.

Soon as you said "NE555" I started laughing. Never thought I'd see one of those in new production stuff. And the intentional use of the non-ideal specs of the diode is quite a nice touch. The person who designed this thing knows their stuff, and is almost certainly Old School. There's a spot-welder at my dad's auto repair shop that uses one of those to control how long the current is on, triggered by a switch on one of the electrode handles. From what I can tell, the thing's from the 70's or 80's.

When I started to teach myself electronics the 555 timer chip was one I started with it is a really neat chip to play around with but I never would have thought of it in this manner - really cool - Thanks Clive for sharing- two thumbs up !!!

I'm glad I saw your most recent 2021 version of a rechargeable portable soldering iron. It gave me a chance to compare it to this earlier USB version. The latter type reviewed here by Clive; I would say may have been updated to current day standards. Though like Clive has stated this wee iron could handle a soldering job very well. It fared well during the practical usage test with the given circuit board and various components. The solder flowed smoothly onto the two surfaces to make good electrical contact. I am impressed at how cleanly the joints; with solid connects the little soldering iron made each time.

Now that's my kind of soldering iron!

Got it recently and just love it. It's amazing for the little joints i would do anyway, no need to wait for my Antex to heat up anymore. All the short sessions were easily managed even with a Poundland's single cell powerbank.

I have been wanting something like this for the longest thanks for finding this

This is shockingly very useful for small repairs when you're out and have a portable power bank. I might actually pick one up. I don't know how many times I've wished I had a small soldering iron to fix little things when I'm out of the house.

They have improved this a lot over the years. I had one before you did your video on them and it was a real pain in the ass to use, kept timing out and didn't read the touch sensor most of the time. I decided to give it another try last year and ordered another. They have fixed the problem, it is no longer a touch sensor, but a push button and she doesn't time out as quickly either. Now it is a nice little iron and can do a lot of work without having to toss it up against the wall to get it to come back on.

You should mod the USB lead to have a ground clip on the end of it for clipping onto grounded things so the suppression cap isnt an issue

finally, a good youtuber that comes from the uk

hi clive! awesome channel, i love your videos. recently i've bought one of theese usb soldering irons and i converter the 555 based circuit to run at about 2 hz 50% duty cicle and i removed the touch button and inserted instead a normal push button to force down the timing cap (so all time heater on). with this config the soldering iron is awesome! bye ;)

Thank you very much. I thought mine were defective. That bit about the collar saved me.

Such a clever yet simple circuit to control the iron power! Not heard of 555 being used in decades!

Now it's got the Clive Seal of approval lol I have ordered too it will be so useful in my small projects thanks again Clive

I use this little iron for re-soldering and repairing USB ports on tablets and phones - it's the perfect sized tip and gives out just enough heat for those tricky little smt solder dabs. Nice to see I wasn't the only one impressed by it!

I bought this little soldering iron, and it is amazing. I am not some pro but, I done many home projects with it, fixing some stuf etc.

wow. I really wanted a review of this, thank you very much Clive!

I'm sold. Just placed my order for 2 of them on eBay. Thanks for the great review!

I was hesitant to buy this based on the Amazon reviews, but based on your tear-down I went ahead and picked it up. Like you I am surprised that it actually works very well. Thank you for the review, it is exactly what I needed for my project.

Having seen these before, laughed at them and never gave it another thought, until now.. I am pleasantly surprised at how well it actually works! Another good find from the Electrical Bear ! :-)

I think I was just as surprised as Clive, if not more so, when he soldered that resistor; it warmed up quickly, and the solder melted FAST! I was expecting him to have to hold it at the joint for at least 10 seconds or so. This seems to be a fairly decent backup for non-critical (ESD-sensitive, etc.) applications, although I do share Clive's concern over the leakage current. To be fair though, quite a few of the vacuum-tube instruments I own have very similar leakage currents and voltages, or at least the ones to which I have not yet added a 3-wire power cord; my Knight KG-650 R.F. signal generator is a noteworthy death trap (120 VAC on the 'isolated' chassis!). Thanks for the detailed tear-down, Clive!

I can't believe I haven't seen this video earlier! I have one of these soldering irons and I just love it. It's very fast. seems to be hot enough in about six or seven seconds. I have it in a little kit with a small 18650 power bank and it lasts a pretty good long time. It really does work surprisingly well.

Added this to the list of things to buy for my travel kit. Thanks!

Been enjoying your videos for awhile, Clive. Keep em up! Side note, as an American, I still can't get used to hearing "mains"

Hi Clive, great video, bought one a few weeks ago, works fine. Quick tip, spare pack of tip sections are available from Maplin Martin

Just received one via eBay that purported to be the same -- and looks the same externally with "8w" spec, but turns out to be arguably a bit better. Cap a lot easier to pull off. Instead of a finicky touch sensitive switch there's a positive action on/off push button that looks exactly the same, and (as far as I know so far) there's no automatic turn off after 25-30 seconds, you just push the button again to turn it off. Blue LED. Gray collar instead of yellow. $10 from U.S. shipper (so a bit more than from China with a long wait). Heats within 15 seconds, as promoted. Very nice little tool. Thanks for the review!

My one looks just like it and I didn't realise Clive had a video on it until this old video popped up in my recommendations today. Unlike that the one featured here, mine would only run off a mains USB charger, so I did as Clive told me in a comment of another video, bridge out the drain+source pins. It now works well on power banks and great not having it cut out every few seconds. I now use it as my main iron as the power lead is not cumbersome like the chunky lead on my mains iron. It runs for around 4 hours continuous on my 10,000mAh bank. The only minor issue is that it can slide all the way through the hole in a typical soldering iron stand.

This was a fun little soldering iron while it lasted. It was easy to work on smaller soldering joints with than my previous main soldering iron. However, two weeks ago the tip of mine broke and the price for a new tip wasnt really worth it IMO. So instead I bought myself a pinecil with 11 extra tips so far I'm quite happy with the choice.

I bought one of these to pick up soldering and electronics (as well as a larger 40w unit) and I found that I don't even touch the big iron... the small tip really makes this a handy little device. I made the exact same mistake you did with trying to unscrew the cap, thought it was broke for a while until I pieced that part together. Felt like an idiot, glad to see I'm not the only one who did that It's cool, you can plug it in and within about 5 seconds the tip is ready to go, and the needle tip and low power makes it a lot easier to keep yourself away from all other nearby connections.I haven't really tried anything too heavy with it but it's performed great on everything I've tried it with. Thought the use of the 1/8" /3.5mm jack was a bit odd, never seen it used for power before only audio.

Wow. Truly surprising. I said no right away when you mentioned the wattage, but oh did you prove me wrong. I'm into buying this thing, as I usually do repair work outside my little workshop, so this could really come in handy.

Hey, what a great little tool for the small stuff ! Its not like we all dont have several soldering irons but, its just a handy little tool !

I am using this for over one year, and for small projects it works perfectly

dang good little soldering iron i have had one for a couple of months and it still surprises me as what it can do (if you respect its low-ish power) i would recommend one to anyone BUT NOT to use from a standard PC or laptop. i use it from a converted PC PSU/bench PSU

I was wondering why my iron wouldn't heat up. Thanks for letting us know about the whole cap situation.

Your videos make me want to tear down my electronics. So many dodgy products on the market. Good to see that there's some good stuff too. Thanks for the vid!

555 inside, can't be all evil :-) Nice little circuit.

A surprising find and looks like it could be really handy for quick, light jobs in the field.

Cool, you have just answered some questions that have been bothering me for some time. I first saw one of these on another channel some time ago, and ordered one in from China. It was an earlier model with no touch pad, but seemed like the real deal. The one I have came with a cord that had two plugs on the USB in side, and a USB mini on the output side of the cable. It generated plenty of heat, in fact I had problems with it burning off pads if I held it on for to long. A few days ago I tore down some kits that I had ruined with the iron, an discovered over half the LED's had failed, my guess was that those were the ones where my power pack went dead and I Plugged it into a wall wart. At any rate it now lays in the tool box in my motor home as I deemed it only useful for on the road emergencies. I had thought it the real answer to soldering in my easy chair as it heated up so quickly and was so easy to use. Perhaps I will try the newer version now and see if that works better, and now that I understand where the problems lay, it may solve some problems. Thankfully I found a nicer 110 volt that I can use at my chair now, heats up very fast and has replaceable tips, and a thermostat on the handle that actually works fairly well.

Great thanks I knew I'd seen this somewhere. I brought one after seeing this (funny they all look alike) if it wasn't for your wiring diagram I wouldn't have got it working properly. It took 15 seconds to heat up but at 20 secs it would turn off, very inconvenient. Thank you, it now turns off at 1 minute giving a decent time for soldering.

Haha! I just tested out the '3D printing clean up tool' version of this and did the same thing with the collet, I thought the cap unscrewed too... Seems like they're the same device.

Mine arrived this morning, great little tool!

Wow man, suprised much like you do! Could be really handy. Thanks for the nice review.

Oh so mains voltage present at the tip due to capacitive coupling explains why my Hakko FX-951 and other decent transformer based soldering stations have the tip connected to mains ground? To bleed off the capacitive build up of mains voltage at the tip before it builds to a dangerous level for components?

Hey, I'm new to soldering and working with electrical circuit analysis. Where would you get those kits? They seem like a good way to practice soldering and understand how circuits work.

That's quite a impressive little device. Seems to work very well. Think I'm going to buy one, It would definitely be of use to me. The 555 based timer is a perfect design, it's a simple circuit for a simple task.

I have one of these and was similarly impressed. I keep it around in my backpack these days, just in case (I also carry around a power bank for general use). I replaced the dodgy minijack thing in the back with a miniUSB connector, so I wouldn't have to carry around its special snowflake cable. Not something I'd use daily, but having it around has saved my ass a couple times already.

FYI, NE555 can be reset mid-cycle. So if you keep your finger on the button, it should keep heating.

I bought myself one of these years ago because it cost less than a new bit for my Antex mini iron (an original but still works) and I just needed to do a quick job to repair a mod, did the job and I was very happy, I have bought a couple of new irons since as I am getting into back into little projects and it is easier than changing bits for different jobs

I might get one of these for doing guitar repairs in the field. seems pretty good.

Wow that's cool! I might have to get one now. Also +3 internets for conversational use of "aplomb"!

You are so good at soldering

came to check if the item's of any worth but enjoyed the video very much instead!!! Great work!

thank u .. am looking for something like this for a while .. thank u for sharing

I've ordered a couple of these to play with. I'm hoping I can extend the 'on' time by customising the R/C on pins 6 & 7 of the 555. Greaat to see Julian Ilett giving one a go too. I bet sales are booming!

I have one of these, had it long before your video in fact. She is not without a down side, for one the male plug is troublesome you see I was in the habit of using her for short jobs then just unplugging it from the iron side and laying the plug aside. I had it hooked to a 110 to 5 volt multi outlet USB charger device that puts out lots of power. Anyhow one day the plug fell against something that shorted it out. I could smell something burning, and like an idiot I began to feel around. I now have a perfect mark of that plug on my left hand, man that thing was HOT. My chair nearly burst into flames because the cord was against the upholstery (i do my work in a recliner, not a great idea but the only comfortable place I have to sit any more). I went back to using my regular regulated 110 volt iron and unplug her from the wall when not in use, the little iron is in her box and used only when I have just a couple of joints to solder. Also she gets way to hot if used to say, put together a kit. I have several I was putting together for Christmas to sit on the dash of our motor home that have the traces burned off, We are always living in the motor home in the winter months down in Arizona, avoiding the cold and snow of the Dakotas.

Hi Clive... I bought a couple of these after seeing your review. Can't find a source for spare elements/bits but at this price I can just buy a new one and have a handy USB lead for future projects. I use it with a power bank like the one you're using. It won't replace my trusty Antex but it's handy for a quick soldering job which I can do in less time it takes for the Antex to warm up! It's also half the price of an Antex tip.

I'm sold! Perfect for those quick fixes where you don't want to bring out the big soldering station.

I'm amazed as you are that it actually manages to function, but I'll be sticking to my Portasol butane-powered iron for mobile work.

Is there anything they won't power by USB?

Such an impressive tool!!!

Can the USB power units have a ground resistor added to them to drain off the parasitic voltage ? that way you would be able to use a mains powered supply and have a grounded tip at the same time.

Really not bad... I'm impressed. Will definitely buy one.

Finally! Thank. Nearly bought it

What terminal blocks do you use? I bought a few 2 and 3 pin rising clamp terminals but those seem so much more useful being able to cut them to size!

Hi Clive, Have you tried it with lead-free (higher temperature) solder. Or is that what you were using? RP

I have one in my backpack and just power it from my laptop's usb3 port, i had some problem powering it from a powerbank. It's surprisingly good.

The good performance is all due to the near perfect thermal coupling between the heater wire and the tip because those are one indivisible part.

Quick question. I do minor RC and electronic soldering, nothing major. I've always borrowed a family members soldering stick but it's crap. I'm not really worried about price, so what decent soldering iron would you recommend for someone who needs a decent one but doesn't do a ton of soldering?

Clive are you surprised how good it is it looks good to me just simple it works

I got one, and it really does work. Its by no means the best iron ever, but its remarkable how much it doesnt suck. I think it will be hand for times that I want 2 irons at the same time.

Hi, I also powered this from a USB output on a extension cord. I wanted to try finishing some wood PLA print. The tip was glowing dark red. Wow. I will have to try with some power bank or batteries as I only need 200C.

Clive, you should try out the TS100 soldering iron if you're looking for something that can be powered from a DC supply directly.

It just arrived and works perfectly.

Very nice little iron! When I was actively involved with the R/C hobby I used to use a standard 110V 25W iron hot-wired ;) into my battery charger which was powered off my car battery. It would output maybe 45 volts at its highest voltage setting. Took a while to heat up but it worked well enough for the few times I needed it. I also powered a Dremel Mototool the same way which as you know runs fine on DC or AC. I imagine this little 5V iron would run fine off a car battery if you put a small $2 step-down converter between it and the battery to keep it from burning out. It might even work fine directly on 12V as there's nothing in the circuit board, including most 555 chips, that can't tolerate a little higher voltage. Might be worth a test to find out.

Thank you. Watching your vid...helped us understand why our pen wasn't working. Realized we needed that screw from the lid to stay on the pen. :)

This is how impressed I was with the Radio Shack battery powered soldering iron. It really did heat up much faster and just generally seemed to work better than any of the mains pencil irons I had tried before. it doesn't work on really large stuff, especially when the batteries are running a little low, but it works for most of what I need it for. The only problem is the batteries don't last extremely long... I'm thinking about adding a DC jack to it.

any suggestions on what to buy from ebay to go from a XT60 on a drone battery to a USB for powering this soldering iron for quick fixes in the field ?

I find it very funny that this was the next video after a video in which mikeselectricstuff said, word for word, "If you see someone trying to sell a 5V soldering iron, laugh at them"

Nice review I had to go and order one as I tend to do very small solder jobs especially with LED jobs now for the 6 month shipping wait ;) lol

Clive, I seem to remember you reviewing a Cubot phone in a previous video? After seeing that I looked up the Cubot H1 and see it's capable of charging another phone from its internal battery. Do you think that this iron would work from the output of said phone with an OTG cable? I imagine the current draw would be too much, but it would be cool to be able to power it with something that's always in your pocket.

The one I purchased a couple years ago has 2 usb plugs so it can draw power from 2 sources for higher wattage. I don't have it here so I don't have the brand but it lives in my go box and works great when I need it.

Hey thanks for sharing this video. Yes, it is surprisingly decent product :-) I loved it a lot and used quite a bit - however I just blown off the heater element. as you demonstrated in beginning, once in hurry I un screwed the nut and while cleaning the tip accidentally pulled it off. are you aware, where can I get a replacement tip by any chance?

Working with it no where near mains noise meant I was forever tapping it to keep it on. I bypassed it as others have done and now it just on all the time and brilliant.

super cool. paired with a USB-C cigar lighter plug this might be a fine mobile option too. nice one big guy.

Just took delivery of one of these. Looking forward to putting it through its paces building a guitar pedal.

i wonder if those soldering iron tips are still available to buy on ebay and how much. Excellent as usual, mister Clive.

Just got mine, BT-8U slightly different toggle switch on body and a 3.5 mono jack to USB cable. It is very light and feels like the weight of a biro and is very comfortable in hand and there is no fight with the power cable. It's actually enjoyable working with it. First Job I gave it was resoldering a microusb socket on to a board on a battery bank of course the wires from the battery to the board broke off so I had to do those wires as well. The pins on usb micro B are about 0.4 mm wide and quite tightly spaced, so having a tip fine enough for my shaky hands to do the job was ideal. I had to use a magnifying glass on my third hand in order to focus on where i was placing the tip. I would have destroyed the board with my regular iron. It's very quick to heat up and cool down and being able to switch the power off I was able to melt the solder on the board for a hole and power off and spin the tip in the hole making reattaching the battery cables much easier. Jobs done and the PCB didn't get overheated. Cost me 12 euro to repair a powerbank that cost me 10 (Amazon charge 21.47 sterling for this 10,800mah juicebank out of stock). So still a win for me. If I hadn't been able to fix the connector I would probably modded the powerbank with a couple of wires to charge from an old powerbank. Thanks Clive for the review it was worth it even with the mark up to get it from Dublin instead of China :) There is an interesting russian video kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jsp6lNmivZOdYIk.html where he modified the circuit so it has a variable duty cycle and thus some temperature control. It might be nice to revisit the subject.

mine arrived earlier this week and I also unscrewed the cap and wondered why it wouldn't work for a minute!..a handy tool for next to no money!

Bought one a few months ago, love it for small patch jobs with a 5 dollar usb battery. 10 dollars for a workable portable soldering iron.