Re-wire digital soldering iron to re-work station

[DoublePlusUngood]

Hello all. I'm new to forum and hope I'm in at least somewhat the correct post location.
I'm just starting to learn myself electronics so very very amateur but I can solder pretty good (many years of stain glass) and enjoy it.

I'm wanting to re-use an old soldering Iron (Aneng), the type with the little side readouts for temp and re-wire it into the plug which goes into my cheapy re-work station, the ubiquitos Lefavor 8586 (or <insert re-badge co. here> 8586).

The soldering iron has just (R/Blk) pos/neg plug wires coming in and the re-wire station has three (R/Blk/Y) as it has an analog rheostat knob.

My idea, if possible, was to bypass the irons on-board temp control buttons and use the stations dial to bring the temp up or down and here's the rub I DON'T want to do it if I can't also have the readout display give a numerical indication of the (voltage I guess) as if this isn't possible I'll just go grab a used "dumb" iron I can cut the end off. I'm not to miffed it I can't get it to start at 0 but I want the screen to reflect how much juice the iron is receiving...just for fun.

I have a whole other "main" station I'm happy with and these are all extra bits and as said, for fun, so borkin something up isn't the biggest deal and in fact I'll just see it as learning, specially as it'll probably be the iron gettin ruined if anything and although I like the iron fine I can live with it these ain't real expensive units. Hope some of that is clear and much appreciate any help. Pics included. I have a magnification station as well and do want...need in fact, to learn board repair eventually. I have two turntables that need new chips and I paid a good bit for em so not gonna make them my first horseyride.

 

[stenzer]

Hi,

to me it looks like the heating element of your soldering iron has the temperature sensing element included (in series), or it simply uses the heater resistor to control the temperature, as I only see two wires connected to the ceramic heater. Have a look if there is an additional trace from the "plus" pole of the heating element (main terminal of the triac?) towards the MCU, and check how the sensing is realized. Unfortunately I do not have a clue how the sensing/control principle of the 8586 is realized. Most likely the controle depends on the the thermal caracteristic of a specific sensing element/heater, so the (correct) tempearture controle will not work with an arbitrary heating element, or at least will not provide the set temperature.

I DON'T want to do it if I can't also have the readout display give a numerical indication of the (voltage I guess) as if this isn't possible I'll just go grab a used "dumb" iron I can cut the end off. I'm not to miffed it I can't get it to start at 0 but I want the screen to reflect how much juice the iron is receiving...just for fun.

Do you want to have the read out on the 8586 or on the handle?

Can you show us how the original handle was wired?

BR

 

[DoublePlusUngood]

Hey thanks. Although I'm reading a tad bit a Greek I understand enough to search what you said and therefore add to my understanding, the rest I understand I will look into.

So the original handle wiring is lost sadly, I didn't keep that handle after taking it apart but I'm gonna try to find something on it. As you may know these things (8586) are kinda weird as in who knows what each manufacturer adds/deletes to the original IP (I believe they all come from the from Atten, I'm gonna reach out to them for the wiring as they've actually responded to me before, all the other co.'s who put these out are hard to pin down.) Although side note I must say when you open this up it's very clean and a youtube video labelled something like "how to make 8586 safer" actually didn't apply to this one as the mod described was implemented already.

Honestly I'm not thinking this can even be done being the differing types of heating the element as you mentioned.

I did notice (as shown in pics if zoomed) the iron I'm wanting to use has an unused attach point marked "E" and seeing as I stated I don't care if it gets ruined I tried putting the yellow wire on this from the 8586 just to see. It turned on via the irons "on" button and turned straight back off after about a second. Then I disconnected the yellow and just left the red/black connected (as they are normally from the irons plug) and the same thing happened. Thinking it wasn't gettin enough juice from the box I turned the iron heat knob all the way up and same result so that is interesting (to me at least) as I guess the 8586 is expecting something coming back from the iron regarding temp but now I'm just guessing. I'm also guessing the "E" point is just from another model without on-board controls or something similar.

also yes, ideally the readout would be from the handle of iron because in fact this 8586 the readout only applies to the Heater, strange really as the oppsosite seems way more functional and there are versions that do that very thing. Although bigger brains then mine I'm sure could indeed tap in to that lcd sceen and drop in a switch to change which readout it's displaying.

That would actually be cooler mod to go for, throwing out this idea entirely and grab another iron without the on-board controls.

One last thing sorry for late reply but I had to finish moving, and thanks.

 

[stenzer]

Hi,

to figure out if the "E" pin/wire is the protective ground connection measure the resistance between wire and the earth connecton on the main socket on the backside of your solderstation. It should be in the milli Ohm range if it is the ground connection.

also yes, ideally the readout would be from the handle

Ok, I see the station doesn't give any feedback for the handle, as there is only the knob.

The red/black wires are controlled by the solderstation, to provided the required energy to regulate the tip teemperature based on the set temperature of the station. So here you would have to by pass this controle. Have a look on the PCB of the solderstation, most likely there is a triac in the vicinity of the handel's connector, used to controle the heating energy.

Try to find a schematic of the 8586, so we are able to help you in more detail.

BR