i-Con Hand Soldering System

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The Ersa i-Con hand soldering station is a state of the art hand soldering tool that combines power and efficiency with the ultimate in operator controls in order to maximize your hand soldering process.

       

The i-Con system is a well designed unit and provides numerous benefits, including:

150w of Power:

The i-Con system incorporates a thermocouple, placed close to the soldering tip, to ensure accurate temperature measurement.  Combined with the 150w of power from the long life heating element, this provides you with a quick and accurate response to temperature loss/transfer, therefore allowing you to solder at lower temperatures.  Soldering at lower temperatures provides several benefits, some of which include: longer tip lifes and safer for the components being soldered.

Furthermore, the more power your soldering iron can handle, the more difficult and temperature demanding applications your system is capable of soldering.

Below is an example of temperature transfer from soldering iron to solder joint and how the system recovers from one joint to another.

Variable Power Settings (High, Medium and Low):

This brings us to power levels, as the Ersa i-Con system has three power levels (High, Medium and Low).  Referring to the picture above, different power level settings control how much power the system can use to recover, and this can be important based upon your specific application.

Most applications will use medium power, which will allow the system to overshoot the desired temperature a small amount (approximately 10-15°), whereas medium power will allow a significant overshoot and finally low power will not allow any overshoot.

This may be critical on a heat sensitive component to have a low power setting, to ensure that you don't expose the component to higher temperatures.  As the tip measure it's approaching the desired temperature it gradually decreases the energy so that it doesn't overshoot.  This will take a slight bit longer to solder, but it protects the solder joints in specific applications.

300-600µ Iron (Fe) Plating:

 Ersa has developed tips that use a special plating process, through this process they are able to achieve higher thicknesses of Iron (Fe) plating than their competition.  This has a significant impact on the operational costs of your soldering iron stations. 

Simply put, the greater the thickness of your Iron (Fe) plating, the longer your tip is going to last under similiar conditions.  As we solder, Tin (Sn) has the characteristic of leeching the Iron (Fe) from the tip, this activity is increased with higher temperatures.

Ersa achieves approximately 300-600µ of Iron (Fe) plating as compared to the competition at 100-200µ of Iron (Fe).  Combine this with the fact that Ersa can generally solder at lower temperatures, in reference to the previously mentioned power and thermocouple placement, this provides  substancial operational costs savings in your hand soldering process.

Increasing the Iron (Fe) plating is only possible, because the i-Con has sufficient power (150w) and accurate thermocouple placement to measure the heat transfer.  With this increase in Iron (Fe) plating our expectations are that you will observe the Ersa tips lasting approximately 2-3 times as long as their competitors.

Long-Life Heating Elements:

The Ersa i-Con heating element (PN: 010102J) is the heart of the system.  It provides you with 150w of power, plus the embedded thermocouple in the end to provide you accurate temperature readings. 

Unlike several of our cartridge style competitors, where the heating element is actually part of the tip, the Ersa heating element is completely seperate from the tip.  This is very beneficial because often the tip will burnout prior to the heating element, so why throw away a perfectly good heating element?  This proves to be a very costly process and very wasteful.  With the Ersa heating element you are truly maximizing the life of the element.

A significant amount of development has gone into the Ersa heating element.  For example, the shape of the heating element tip originally was flat.  Ersa found this to provide a pocket of air between the inside of the soldering iron tip and the heating element.  This pocket acted like an insulation barrier, similiar to that of a double paned window and it hindered the heat transfer to the tip, plus the accuracy of the thermocouple embedded in the heating element tip.  They modified the tip specifically to bevel the edges and provide more accurate contact and transfer.  This is just a small example of the engineering that Ersa has invested into their product.

Quick Initialization & Standby Recovery (8 Seconds/3 Seconds):

The Ersa i-Con system has a quick initialization and standby recovery time.  This is the time required to initialize to operational temperature from ambient or standby.  The quicker the boot up, the faster you can start soldering.  Also, the less likely the operators will simply leave the system powered constantly to avoid the standby recovery.  Leaving your system powered can effect your tip life, plus it could be a safety hazard and also the energy costs can add up.

Furthermore, with the i-Con you can customize the standby temp and the time to go to standby, allowing you to customize your system to your process.

Push Dial Control:

The i-Con incorporates a single push dial control system for navigating the system.  You can simply turn the dial for a quick temperature change, or press  and hold the button to access a menu of options, from process temperature windows, power level or standby configuration.  This push dial knob is intuitive and very easy to use.

Process Temperature Windows:

One feature that you will find nearly impossible to find in our competitor's systems is process control of your hand soldering process.  The terms "hand soldering process" and "process control" are almost antonyms because simply put, operators and techniques vary.  It is very difficult to get process control across a panel of operators, because of the varying methods and techniques. 

What the Ersa i-Con affords you is the ability to provide a process window and also a process alarm (audible beep).  You can set a narrow window or a large window depending on your application.  The system will beep at you (if the process alarm is enabled) whenever your temperature climbs out or drops below your process window. 

This allows you the ability to apply some sort of process control on your hand soldering process.

Security - Passcode Protection:

The Ersa i-Con allows you to secure your settings with the use of a numerical password that you can set on your system.  This will allow you to prevent the operator from changing your settings, or turning up the heat and trying to cut corners at the expense of your set process window controls.

Systems

i-Con 1
MSRP:  $445.00
PN: 1IC1100A000A67

Digitally controlled soldering station with 150w i-Tool, power supply and holder with dry sponge.

*Not compatible with Chip Tool or X-Tool




i-Con 2 w/ 2 i-Tools
MSRP:  $952.00
PN: 1IC2000AITA67

Digitally controlled soldering station with 2 150w i-Tools, dual tool power supply and 2 holders with dry sponges.



i-Con 2 w/ 1 Chip-Tool & 1 i-Tool
MSRP:  $1,112.00
PN: 1IC2000AC0A67

Digitally controlled soldering station with 1 Chip-Tool, 150w i-Tool, dual tool power supply and 2 holders with dry sponges.


i-Con 2 w/ 1 X-Tool & 1 i-Tool
MSRP:  $1,856.00
PN: 1IC2000AXTA67

Digitally controlled soldering station with 1 desoldering X-Tool, 150w i-Tool, dual tool power supply, vacuum pump and 2 holders with dry sponges.