Fun fact - some soldering irons regulate their temperature using the curie point. There’s a disk of ferromagnetic material with a particular curie point in the tip. A magnet in the barrel of the soldering iron is attracted to the tip, and when it sticks to the tip, it switches the heating element on. When the disk hits its curie temperature it’s no longer magnetic, and the magnetic switch opens and shuts off the heating element (it’s on a weak spring). When the tip cools down enough it becomes magnetic again, and the magnet is pulled to it and turns on the heater. You can have different tips with different curie temperatures, so one soldering iron can do multiple temperatures with very cheap internal electronics (basically, just a switch).
Ulrich@feddit.org 1 week ago
Yes but it doesn’t need to be, and the soldering iron being 310 doesn’t mean the magnet is 310.
mriguy@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Fun fact - some soldering irons regulate their temperature using the curie point. There’s a disk of ferromagnetic material with a particular curie point in the tip. A magnet in the barrel of the soldering iron is attracted to the tip, and when it sticks to the tip, it switches the heating element on. When the disk hits its curie temperature it’s no longer magnetic, and the magnetic switch opens and shuts off the heating element (it’s on a weak spring). When the tip cools down enough it becomes magnetic again, and the magnet is pulled to it and turns on the heater. You can have different tips with different curie temperatures, so one soldering iron can do multiple temperatures with very cheap internal electronics (basically, just a switch).
Ulrich@feddit.org 1 week ago
ooh, that is a fun fact!