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Comment by Over2Chars | Hacker News Reader

The wiki is free and open-source? Or the contents of the wiki are free and open-source?

If it's a wiki, it would be less than courteous to restrictively copyright public contributions (but I'm sure it's been done).

And presumably, paywalling it would reduce contributions.

My impression as to the number one barrier to hardware modifications is soldering. For some reason people can't or won't do it.

So I'd like to introduce the non-sponsor for this comment, "Pincel" the open firmware soldering iron

https://pine64.org/devices/pinecil/

It's running a risc-v chip on open firmware so you'll have cool points with when you whip it out at Richard Stallman's next BBQ.

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It's nice that open firmware exists

but why on earth would a soldering iron need firmware to begin with?

Temperature control.

It can be done w/o software for sure, but it's easier to do PID with.

The Pinecil is great, but is definitely a terrible recommendation for anyone new to soldering. If you're trying to encourage people to learn to solder, they should be doing it with a proper station that can handle and maintain temp for extended periods. I have a Pinecil, but it's really only useful for quick on-the-fly jobs (which it excels at, in my experience) so it stays in my tool bag for work. It suffers from overheating and temperature changes for more lengthy jobs.

Otherwise, yeah, if you're already competent at soldering and need a pocket-sized iron that you can create a portable power supply for, invest in a Pinecil

Ok, next time I'll do it like this

So I'd like to introduce the non-sponsor for this comment, "Pincel" the open firmware soldering iron

https://pine64.org/devices/pinecil/

It's running a risc-v chip on open firmware so you'll have cool points with when you whip it out at Richard Stallman's next BBQ.

</HUMOR>

So it's 10000000% clear I am making the joke.

Well, I feel stupid. Apologies!

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