This page provides documents about a cheap SMD solder station built as an Arduino shield (Arduino UNO). It supports active soldering tips from Weller (RT series) which contain the heating element as well as a sensor and provides a standard 3.5 mm jack. Together with the corresponding female connector you will get a compact SMD soldering iron (see pictures below) with very fast heat up times of a few seconds.

The shield consists of a low-noise amplifier for measuring the temperature via the ADC of the AVR, a power MOSFET stage to control the heating using PWM and a 7-segment LED display and push buttons for setting and displaying the temperature. The controller is realized digitally on the AVR.

Hardware and software are open source.

See also the corresponding website at Elektor Labs!

Top view of the arduino shield

Connection diagram of the RT solder tip

Complete soldering station including case and power supply

rt_solder_station_v1_3_schematic.pdf

rt_solder_station_v1_3_place.pdf

rt_solder_station_v1_3.brd

rt_solder_station_v1_3.sch

rt_solder_Station_v1_0.ino (initial code)

rt_solder_Station_v1_1.ino (added support for external standby switch)