This ‘Visual Soldering Iron’ Is Genius

A big part of the reason that people struggle with soldering is that they simply can’t see what they’ve doing very well. That’s why it is so common to use magnifying lenses and microscopes when soldering. But why bother with that when you can always have the magnification where you need it with this genius D01 “Visual Soldering Iron.”

This is a soldering iron with a digital microscope attached to it, pointing directly at the tip. Whatever you’re working on, you get a nice magnified view. A built-in LED illuminates the area, so you also won’t need to fiddle with work lights.

That’s it — that’s the whole pitch. Its utility is obvious, so a hard sell and marketing buzzwords are unnecessary.

The question, of course, is if the soldering iron is good, if the microscope is good, and if combining the two has any serious disadvantages, such as a lot of weight.

I can’t answer that first question without trying it for myself. But it seems to use non-standard tips, which is less than ideal. It is battery-powered with a stated 45–60-minute runtime and that is fine, but may be an issue for those who prefer corded models. In my eyes, the only major issue is that you can only select from five temperature presets. That seems awfully limiting, even if they do cover the temperatures you’re likely going to use.

The microscope seems decent. It has 50x zoom and streams an “HD” video feed over Wi-Fi to an app on your smartphone. As long as that app is always available, I don’t see an issue there.

Unfortunately, there is no specified weight. The campaign copy just says that it is “lightweight,” which can mean anything. My guess is that it will be a bit hefty, thanks to the 3,000mAh 18650 lithium battery. The right-angle orientation may also be hard to get used to, for those of us who have used pencil-style soldering irons all our lives.

The idea here is great and I think the D01 Visual Soldering Iron has real potential. But I’m not prepared to call it a “no-brainer” without testing it in the real-world.

If you don’t want to wait and are already sold, you have until March 10th to back the Kickstarter campaign. Super early birds can get the D01 with a tip set for $99 and that should ship in May.