I've had it...

[badferday]

... with rubbish soldering options in the prosumer space. Hakko used to be great, but they're leaning so hard into digital UI the wrong way - with buttons, not dials! Louis Rossman hilariously comments they have an "80s alarm clock approach" to setting temperature. And it's true. Their hot air stations require you to set temps digits by digit. The intuitive dial is dying!

But there is hope! We can have our digital cake and eat it, too, with stopless jog dials!

So I threw together this rough UI design, and wanted to see if any peeps wanted to put our skills together to prototype THE PERFECT HOBBYIST SOLDER STATION. I call it Lil' Hottie. I''m knowledgable with design and UI, also OK with fabrication. Electrical engineering, coding, etc... not really my strength.

Anyways, I did a quick mock up on what the perfect hobbyist station would look like. The red/blue border around the dials indicates ring lighting that goes from blue to red when reaching set temperature.

I thought of having the solder remover incorporated into the iron, but I think tip temperature sensing is a higher priority.

In case it isn't immediately clear, the big red button is an emergency power cutoff to the entire system. Why such devices don't ALL have that is beyond me.

BTW, no in-handle pumps for the rework portion. Piston compressors are the way to go. And I don't want to take shortcuts. Shortcuts are often taken when they aren't necessary, when there is plenty of margin to meet the cost. For example, this design has one high velocity variable pneumatic system, and one vacuum system. Could one piston in the middle of their need get things done? Sure, but it would be compromsing both functions. Yuck to that kind of design.

Am I missing anything? Tell me! Let's collectively make this dream come true!

 

[badferday]

Just thought of one thing. The blue/red indicator should also have blinking/steady states for people with colour vision disabilities. Like, blinks while blue, and goes solid when red.

I've employed some very important industrial design principles here. The lights are good because at a glance the user can tell if it's ready to go. Yes, they can compare numbers, but good ID is all about eliminating friction, and it is slower to look for numbers and take a moment to compare them. Also, good ID means you can tell how to use a product without a manual. That's why I love jog dials. Dial until you have your value, click to set the value.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Louis Rossman hilariously comments they have an "80s alarm clock approach" to setting temperature

LOL'd at that one Good thing I just finished my coffee That IS hilarious and I agree. I like dials and buttons, not wonky tactile-ness UI.

 

[Patrick]

its infecting everything. I hate it. my guess is its cheaper ?

My washer and drier have those buttons. and you have to long press them to turn them on. i hate it.

.. i miss being able to just turn a dial and pull to start washer and drier

 

[badferday]

I bought an induction cook top. Not a SINGLE cooktop had proper dials. They were all touch screen. I found one that has a somewhat dialesque interface, a Samsung with a barely functional magnetic dial.

There are induction ranges that have dials, but my kitchen isn't made for that, so I was stuck with this rubbish system of interacting with my elements.

Amazing how greed and stupidity seem to overlap lots.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

its infecting everything. I hate it. my guess is its cheaper ?

My washer and drier have those buttons. and you have to long press them to turn them on. i hate it.

.. i miss being able to just turn a dial and pull to start washer and drier

You sound like me LOL. I was just complaining to my wife about this yesterday after a few loads of wash. I can not stand those long press features. To be fair, if I were to give them any benefit, those panels are easier to clean I guess.

 

[badferday]

You sound like me LOL. I was just complaining to my wife about this yesterday after a few loads of wash. I can not stand those long press features. To be fair, if I were to give them any benefit, those panels are easier to clean I guess.

True! They are def easier to clean. I did hate pulling off the knobs to wipe things down on my halogen electric cooktop.

Thing that bugs me is that induction is an objectively superior technology, and shit interfaces stand in the way of most intuitively experiencing that. You can see this superiority from feedback from people working in professional kitchens that have set aside gas. Induction is faster and more adjustable than gas, it barely increases kitchen temperatures, it keeps energy bills lower, it requires next to no maintenance.

Not to mention the increased connection between childhood exposure to internal pollutants from gas, and the connection to asthma development.

It's one of those super rare, truly revolutionary technologies. But without knobs, it's hard for consumers to realize that!

The only drawback of induction is for woks and the like. Wok cookery depends on that rising heat. In this case, it is not waste heat. But guess what? In Asian countries, manufacturers are releasing conical induction elements to bring that convection heat mechanism to wok cookery! Kinda like those conical elements you could put in those coiley electric stovetops.

Tl;dr manufacturers really need to DIAL back on the touch screen/button nonsense!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

The touch screen on my stove/oven sometimes does not work right. It seems to be an issue of circuit board creep because all the buttons work well when using the range but if Im using the oven for an extended period of time, it heats up the panel and then some of the buttons don't work. It is the most irritating thing.

I am a veteran chef and have spent decades using high BTU gas technology. While I do like induction (it's what I have at home and use daily as I have 3 kiddos under 7) it is not quite the same as the instant on heat of gas. My biggest issue is a personal one though, I am used to dragging my pan over the gas burner grill grates as part of my technique for flipping/tossing pan ingredients. I cannot do this on induction and on multiple occasions whacked the glass top really hard. There are a number of pan techniques that leverage the traditional gas burner grill grates that simply can't be done because they don't exist on an induction cooker. Sounds like a personal problem I know and it is to a degree as new techniques can be adopted to achieve similar results but my opinion truthfully is why? High BTU commercial gas works and is a tried and true technology for commercial kitchens. With the current hood standards, kitchens are in a constant negative pressure so gasses of any type will never build up. I see little reason to push an IMO inferior technology on an industry as a new standard as it flatly is not. With that being said, I agree with you 110% that induction is the superior way to go at home specifically if you have little kids or folks with cognitive limitations that you are caring for. The potential for burners to be left on and cause a fire or for gases to build up or escape as a toxic hazard is a real one that I can get behind for family safety.

 

[badferday]

The touch screen on my stove/oven sometimes does not work right. It seems to be an issue of circuit board creep because all the buttons work well when using the range but if Im using the oven for an extended period of time, it heats up the panel and then some of the buttons don't work. It is the most irritating thing.

I am a veteran chef and have spent decades using high BTU gas technology. While I do like induction (it's what I have at home and use daily as I have 3 kiddos under 7) it is not quite the same as the instant on heat of gas. My biggest issue is a personal one though, I am used to dragging my pan over the gas burner grill grates as part of my technique for flipping/tossing pan ingredients. I cannot do this on induction and on multiple occasions whacked the glass top really hard. There are a number of pan techniques that leverage the traditional gas burner grill grates that simply can't be done because they don't exist on an induction cooker. With that being said, I agree with you 110% that induction is the way to go at home specifically if you have little kids or folks with cognitive limitations that you are caring for. The potential for burners to be left on and cause a fire or for gas to escape as a toxic hazard is a real one that I can get behind for family safety.

True say! And with induction, they tend not to have tempered glass like halogen electric, so breaking them is way WAY easier.

Professional grade induction is a whole other league, though. The circuitry for adjusting temps and delivering power quickly is far FAR superior to home induction. I wonder if any of the chefs I know are cooking on professional grade induction. I'd love to hear their thinking.

Induction, as a technology, is amazing... but it doesn't have the market share yet where manufacturers are making prosumer devices.

I would guess a prosumer grade induction cooktop would give you gas-like responsiveness. And knobs. It would definitely have knobs.

 

[Patrick]

turns out gas stoves are not faster. They just seem like it. because when you turn them on, there is noise and a flame you can see.

another sticking point with Induction, is ... i don't think i have anything that will work with induction. It doesn't work with just any cookware.

...
but i agree induction is neat.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

True say! And with induction, they tend not to have tempered glass like halogen electric, so breaking them is way WAY easier.

Professional grade induction is a whole other league, though. The circuitry for adjusting temps and delivering power quickly is far FAR superior to home induction. I wonder if any of the chefs I know are cooking on professional grade induction. I'd love to hear their thinking.

Induction, as a technology, is amazing... but it doesn't have the market share yet where manufacturers are making prosumer devices.

I would guess a prosumer grade induction cooktop would give you gas-like responsiveness. And knobs. It would definitely have knobs.

So, speaking of prosumer grade induction, my dad has a Wolf brand professional grade oven for residential homes and it has an induction top and lovely knobs. It is pretty quick to heat up and I have cooked on it for them numerous times. I agree with you that I underspent on my oven with induction top but it was the middle of pandemic and it literally was all I could get LOL (previous oven broke day before thanksgiving 2019 if you can believe that! ) Anyhow I am not unhappy with my induction top. Like I said I think they are a great technology for residential especially but I have not been sold on professional induction yet. I did actually use one that had a .25" steel top dressing like a flattop and I agree that it was absolutely fine for that application. It worked equally as well as any gas driven flattop Ive ever used.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

turns out gas stoves are not faster. They just seem like it. because when you turn them on, there is noise and a flame you can see.

another sticking point with Induction, is ... i don't think i have anything that will work with induction. It doesn't work with just any cookware.

...
but i agree induction is neat.

There is a huge difference in output of commercial gas range burners that drive 35000+ BTUs vs residential at around 15k BTUs that are pictured in that video. Having used both commercial gas and induction, it is my opinion that commercial gas is superior to commercial induction. I believe Induction to be superior at home but not for heat or speed rather for family safety concerns.

And it better have knobs darnit!

 

[badferday]

turns out gas stoves are not faster. They just seem like it. because when you turn them on, there is noise and a flame you can see.

another sticking point with Induction, is ... i don't think i have anything that will work with induction. It doesn't work with just any cookware.

...
but i agree induction is neat.

This is a true. I have a giveaway pots and pans pile since switching. Hahahaha.

And certainly the physics support induction being inherently faster, given the heat is instantly generated in the material, instead of being condictuvely controlled.

A lot of what Certificate has noticed is due to shitty control interfaces. I turn that dumb magnetic knob, and it takes a few moments to register my input and change it accordingly. So I turn it faster and it suddenly goes to max. It's infuriating. The touchscreen is less slow, but still. Knowing the technology to deliver instantly and super-granular control is IN THE APPLIANCE ALREADY, and that the UI is holding it back... grrr.

Even with the rubbish interface it's blazing fast, though. Gone are the days of dicing garlic and onions while the oil heats up. You better have allll your prep done before you turn on that element, or you're burning food.

It's cool hearing our friend, Certificate, discuss his experience as a former professional chef using induction at home. I do remember watching Japanese omelettes being made, and I was like "Nope! Can't do that.

What they need to do s switch away from pretty looking glass tops, to non-ferrous metal tops. And knobs... give us back our knobs!

 

[Patrick]

There is a huge difference in output of commercial gas range burners that drive 35000+ BTUs vs residential at around 15k BTUs that are pictured in that video.

Thats fair, i was only talking about residential. But the commercial side is interesting....

I think its also fair to point out how much energy is wasted with gas as it goes up along the sides of the cookware. which that video also addresses.

I just noticed the video is on his extra's channel. On his main channel he shows off the best toaster. it was made like in the 60's or something.

Where it could sense how toasted a bread is. So the dial for how dark you want your bread is is always correct. even if you start with frozen slices of bread.
I'm kinda jealous of that, as teh one i have i feel like i have to guess every time what to set it too.