Allison interviews Eric Essen, iFixit’s Chief Tool Officer, about their new smart soldering iron and electronics toolkits.
Eric describes iFixit’s FixHub Smart Soldering Iron designed to bring soldering to people without experience. It is powered through any powered USB-C port and has an adjustable soldering temperature through a web interface. When connected to a PD USB-C port, it handles 100W of power and heats up in 5 seconds.
iFixit also offers a complete Power Series Soldering Toolkit, that includes the Smart Soldering Iron along with a Power Pack that delivers 8 hours of uninterrupted soldering, safety glasses, heat mat, solder, flux, silicone electrical tape, and more. This kit comes in a durable tool roll for work on a benchtop or in the field.
Eric then shows iFixit’s Pro Tech Toolkit which equips the hobbyist or professional with the tools required to tackle any electronics job. It’s a portable kit with a magnetic case and foam insert to secure 64 bits and a fabric roll that secures an extensive assortment of commonly used hand tools.
The bits handle nearly every fastener used for electronics, including uncommon ones such as trippoint, pentalobe, and spanner heads. The toolkit contains an assortment of the most popular tweezers, spudgers, opening tools, and anti-static safety accessories for everyday use.
iFixit also offers a smaller Essentials Electronics Toolkit that contains tools needed for the most essential electronics repairs and everything you need for most household DIY fixes.
The Toolkits can be purchased now at the link below. The FixHub Soldering Iron and Toolkit is available for preorder now and will ship in May 2025.
Learn more at http://ifixit.com/
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Transcript of Interview:
Allison: When you go to visit iFixit at CES, of course they’re going to be soldering at their booth. What else would they be doing? I’m here with Eric Essen and he’s going to talk to us about their soldering kit and some of the other tools. What did you say you were the chief tool?
Eric: Chief tool officer.
Allison: Very good.
Eric: And I understand too that you guys have owned some of our tools for a long time already.
Allison: Of course we do.
Eric: Yeah, thank you for that. This is FixHub, our new soldering line. We want to make soldering accessible. A lot of people are afraid of soldering and to approach soldering and don’t think they can do it. A lot of that’s because soldering irons out there, you know, they’re 30 watt ones, they don’t heat up well, people don’t have flux, they don’t have all the right equipment to be successful in soldering.
Allison: Okay.
Eric: So we’re working to put together an environment where they can be successful. So this is the first USB-C consumer ready soldering iron. There’s some out there that are like community projects, but they’re not UL approved, they’re not CE approved, they’re not retail ready. So this is a 100 watt soldering iron. It heats up in less than 50 seconds. You can buy the standalone soldering iron. It’s $79.95. And that can plug into any web interface and you can adjust all the parameters and stuff on it. Or you can buy it with the power pack as well. The power pack and the soldering iron are $249.95. Or for another $50, for $299.95, we do a full kit that comes with everything including safety glasses, a heat mat, flux, solder, silicone electrical tape, a full ready to go in the field soldering kit to tackle any job.
Allison: That’s fantastic. Now I’m going to ask a real dumb question. When you say USB-C, do you mean USB-C powered?
Eric: Yes.
Allison: Okay.
Eric: So you can plug that into a Samsung or whatever phone charger. I’ve actually used it plugged into my MacBook. The MacBook doesn’t give it the full 100 watts it would like. So it doesn’t heat up in 5 seconds, but it will still work plugged into any USB port that puts out enough wattage. And if it’s a USPD, where it can do the power delivery communication, then it will get the full power and you’ll get that 5-second heat up time.
Allison: That’s very, very cool. I love that.
Eric: Yeah. And the soldering iron is actually just the first tool in our FixTub series. The other ones are still under embargo. I can’t talk about them yet.
Allison: You’re such a tease, Eric.
Eric: But we will have additional tools in the future that I’m really excited about that will complement it very well.
Allison: Can you set the temperature of the soldering iron?
Eric: Yes. Yes, yes. Everything.
Allison: You said that was from a web interface, right?
Eric: Yeah. So you can do it with the PowerPack on the PowerPack, but you plug it into anything with a web browser and you can do it in the web interface as well as there’s an Android app. So you can plug it into an Android phone and adjust the sleep time. It’s got fall protection with an accelerometer. Everything in it you can tweak and adjust however you prefer.
Allison: But if you’re on an iPhone, you can’t do that?
Eric: Well, you can just plug it into anything with it. Yeah, an iPhone has a lightning port. I don’t have them.
Allison: No, no, no. They have USB-C. They have for a couple of years now.
Eric: Oh, okay. I don’t have, yeah. I’m not on a new enough iPhone.
Allison: Oh, okay. Oh, no. I didn’t mean to shame you. No Lightning shaming here.
Eric: Yeah.
Allison: Okay. So you’ve got an interface in any case that you can get to those changes.
Eric: Yeah. No, that’s really important. We don’t want to require someone to buy something to do that. No, the soldering iron is meant to be a standalone tool, and then there’s the bonus of the battery pack you can buy. The battery pack supports over eight hours of continuous soldering.
Allison: Nice. Nice. What else did you want to tell us about today?
Eric: So we’ve got the ProTech Toolkit. This is an industry standard toolkit. You guys, I understand, own the first version in the gray roll.
Allison: Yep.
Eric: This has been out for 15 years. We’ve sold 1.5 million over that. We’re not sure exactly.
Allison: So this is basically, I’m telling people in the audio podcast, we’ve got little bitty tiny screwdrivers and nut drivers and little, the spudgers, man, the spudgers are gold.
Eric: Actually, here, let me show you real quick. So, for example, these are triangle bits. These fit McDonald’s toys. These also fit almost anything with a heating element, hair dryers, curling irons.
Allison: I don’t think we got that back in the gray roll, did we?
Eric: Yeah, no, we did have the triangle bits in the gray roll, I think.
Allison: I’ve got to go look more closely.
Eric: Yeah, it’s been, that kit’s about 13 years old now, I think. So we’ve got the pentalobes. This bit right here.
Allison: The old pentalobes.
Eric: This bit right here is an oval bit. It’s only used by one or two European coffee, like really high-end coffee machines. Almost nobody ever uses it, but the idea is this 64-bit kit has the bit to fit every single screw used by, in consumer electronics ever.
Allison: What is this one that’s got like a little U-shape thing on it?
Eric: Oh yeah, these, next time you’re in an elevator, look at how the elevator panel is screwed on. Actually, at the office, when the elevator tech used to come, you know, you have to have an annual elevator inspection, they used to always ask, “Hey, do you have any more of those bits?”
Allison: Yes, I do. Eric’s got one in his back pocket, right?
Eric: So this is the most comprehensive kit. We surveyed, you know, I’ve read every single not-five-star review that it’s ever gotten. I have read every single minor customer, anything that it’s ever had over the years.
Allison: How could there be that many?
Eric: There’s not. But, you know, anytime there’s been a warranty claim on a tool, you know, I’ve paid attention to that. And then we also surveyed our customer base and got over 20,000 responses from our customers, and we asked them what tools they use the most, what tools don’t you use. Like, nobody normally uses the anti-static wrist strap, unless you’re working in a clean room or certain professional environments. But the normal consumer never uses the anti-static wrist strap.
Allison: I’m also probably not going to work on the elevator. Probably not. Or I wouldn’t have it with me if I needed it.
Eric: Yeah. So we took all that, and then we also, we’ve got over 100,000 repair manuals with all the tool data. So we crunch all that tool data to actually know what bits are being used the most and are in the most devices. And that’s what we use to trim down to create the new ProTech Go. And this is our pocket-size kit. This will actually fit in a standard blue jean-like front pocket.
Allison: Boys’ pockets.
Eric: Yes. Boys’ pockets. Well, girls don’t even get pockets half the time.
Allison: Exactly. So the ProTech Go. And how much does that retail for?
Eric: It’s $49.95.
Allison: Nice.
Eric: And we timed the launch. This is already available right now in Best Buy and Micro Center. And will be on other retailer shelves shortly.
Allison: Very good. Very good. All right. Well, this is fantastic. I love the company. I love the guides.
Eric: Thank you.
Allison: Great time rescuing. I had one friend who had a MacBook that had a bad display and another friend who had a good display, but the Mac was shot. And I took both of them apart and I made one live. It was one of my proudest moments.
Eric: Thank you for saving a device. That’s the most important thing.
Allison: There would have been two MacBooks in a landfill.
Eric: That’s right. That’s right. And now, you know, that’s actually how iFixit started. I don’t know if you know the original story. Kyle, our founder, he broke the hinge on his MacBook. And he contacted Apple and said, “Can I buy a hinge?” And they said, “No, we don’t sell parts.” And so he bought a used MacBook on eBay, took the hinge out he needed, and then he listed the rest of the parts on eBay and quadrupled his money. So then just started buying MacBooks and taking them apart. Actually, back then, they were PowerBooks. The original name was PB Fixit. And then we rebranded as iFixit to be universal for all devices.
Allison: Right, right, right.
Eric: But, yeah, no, we started out actually– and when I first started at iFixit, the first couple hours of my day often was just disassembling–
Allison: To sell for parts.
Eric: –MacBooks and classifying all the parts. And we were almost like a MacBook junkyard in the early days. So we’ve grown to the point now where we manufacture a lot of parts ourselves. We have our own battery lines going and things like that.
Allison: The guides that you give away for free do so much for the community to feel empowered and to have a good feeling about the company. I mean, I feel good because I bought your products and they work and I bought parts and things, but you’ve got so much goodwill in the community because of the work that you guys do on the guides and the teardowns and everything. What is that little part there? That’s great stuff. Great work.
Eric: Yeah, well, we wouldn’t have those guides if it wasn’t for the community also. We do write a decent percentage of the guides, but iFixit’s like Wikipedia. And there’s hundreds of hobbyists who have their very specific specialty that they’re into, whether it’s early ’70s Mercedes cars, and they’re writing guides all the time. As well as thousands of university students are going through our technical writing program all the time, and their assignment in technical writing by all these universities is to write repair guides for iFixit.
Allison: Really? That’s awesome.
Eric: So not only are they learning, but they’re also giving to the community and creating content that helps keep devices out of the waste cycle.
Allison: That is fantastic. I’m glad we kept chatting past the products. I didn’t know any of that. Well, thank you very much, Eric.
Eric: Thank you.
Allison: And people can find this at iFixit.com.
Eric: iFixit.com.
Allison: Very good. Thank you.