- Station for PTC based Soldering Irons - 
The PCB

Building the PCB

The PCB is populated on both sides. The LCD, rotary encoder and LED and some other components are mounted on the bottom side. The heatsink I used is available from Reichelt (a German component distributor) and must be cut to a length of around 46mm. The parts must be mounted electrically isolated onto the heatsink You can of course use a different kind of heatsink.

The LCD mounts onto the bottom side of the PCB using a 16 pin single row 2.54mm pitch pin-strip. Put some foam between the main PCB and the LCD as it is only held by the pin-strip. The LCD I used is available from Electronic Assembly. If you are using a different model you will probably have to connect it using single wires. 

The pictures below show the populated board's top- and bottom side without the heatsink. 

PCB top side without heatsink PCB bottom side without display
SolderingStationPCBTop320x240 SolderingStationPCBBot320x240
The board needs an external power supply of 24V AC or DC with 60W or 80W depending on the soldering iron. You can either use a separate 24V supply (some 3rd party notebook supplies can deliver 22V or 24V and are pretty cheap - Make sure that you get a power supply that has a separate earth ground pin or a (toroid-) transformer. The mains switch must be wired externally. Earth ground must be connected to GND and the soldering iron using J3. 
 
The soldering iron is connected via J4. Please refer to the schematic for details. 
 
The light of the LED can be displayed on the front using a short light pipe. 
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