SH72, a compact soldering iron or TS100 for

I think many people know the compact TS100 soldering iron, which came out a few years ago. Small, powerful, but... very expensive.
Not long ago, a very similar-looking but much cheaper SH72 went on sale. Of course, it's a simpler model, with no display, buttons, or option to play Tetris, but it's still perfectly functional.


There was a promotion on this soldering iron before New Year's, and it was going for $10.99. Even I couldn't resist buying one, despite already having plenty of different soldering irons and stations, including a TS100.
You can also get this soldering iron on AliExpress for $12.99 — link, or for $16.47 with a power supply — link

It took a long time to arrive. I'd even forgotten about it by the time I picked up the package from the post office, with a neat little box inside. The packaging is also a sort of "budget version" compared with the TS100, though there are some similarities.


The kit is simple: the soldering iron, a spare tip, and an instruction manual.


The manual is in English and Chinese, but since there are no menus here, you don't really need it.


This is the kit I'll be taking a close look at today.


The tip is marked SH-BC2, Z48.


The product page offers a choice of seven tip styles. I chose the BC2 because I'm more used to tips of this shape; in my opinion, they're the most versatile.


The tip is clearly shorter than the now widely used T12 tips.


The soldering iron's design really does borrow a lot from the well-known TS100, but it's even a little more comfortable in some ways. For example, it has small raised dots for your fingers.
The soldering iron has just one control: a temperature adjustment knob.
Power is connected just like on the TS100, using a 5.5/2.5 mm plug. The input voltage is 12–24 V.
The tip is secured with a knurled nut. It fits quite snugly and is held firmly in place.


The soldering iron assembled.


Dimensions from the product page.


And of course, I have to compare it with the TS100 mentioned in the title. As you can see, they're really very similar, at least in their construction and overall appearance.


The soldering iron's housing is fairly easy to take apart; the side panel is held in place by clips.


The circuit board is held firmly in place even without any fasteners. To remove it, carefully ease out the end nearest the tip, then pull it toward the tip retainer, since the power connector fits into a hole in the back of the housing.



The board has a trimmer, an LM2904 op-amp, and a TPC8107 MOSFET. Note that the transistor's maximum voltage is 30 V, so it's best not to exceed the specified 24 V. If it fails, the tip will simply burn out.


The contact assembly is secured with small screws and nuts, and I do have one complaint: one screw was loose, even though everything worked. But when I tried to tighten it, it turned out to be trickier than expected. Either the thread hadn't been cut properly, or the nut had gone on crooked when I screwed it in. In the end, I had to unscrew the nut and turn it around to tighten it.


When I first tried the soldering iron, I thought it would be nice to have an indicator showing when it was heating up and when it had switched to temperature regulation. I was very surprised to discover that it does have one, but it's on the inside, not the outside.
When power is connected, the LED lights up; once the iron has warmed up, it starts blinking.


The installed LED is tiny, and even if you drill a hole in the housing, you still won't be able to see it. So it's better to install an additional one. The negative lead can be connected in several places, but I recommend carefully soldering it to one of the trimmer potentiometer’s terminals. Connect the positive lead through a 2–10 kΩ resistor to the right-hand pad of the resistor marked 223.
It’s best to use brighter LEDs and a resistor of 10 kΩ or more; I had to use a 3 kΩ resistor.


Make a small hole in the handle and position the LED opposite it.

My second complaint was the resistor knob, which stuck out quite a bit past the handle. It turned out that the hole for it was offset, so the knob was simply hitting the housing. After widening the hole a little, I was able to push the knob farther in.


Of course, it could probably look better on the outside. Ideally, I’d install a light pipe from the original LED, but this works just fine for me.


Both the product title and the label state that the power at 24 V is 65 W.


But in reality, it turned out even a little better: at 24 V (actually, slightly less), the power was almost 70 W!
Once it’s warmed up, it draws power in very short pulses, so even the fairly fast ammeter on the power supply shows a current of just 10 mA. The average current will of course be higher.


The tip sticks out about 5 mm farther than on the TS100, and about 5 mm less than on my new soldering iron with a T12 tip.
The Aoyue station still has the shortest tip extension; I haven’t come across a shorter one yet. My main soldering iron is at the top—the one I’ve simply gotten used to :)


A comparison of three types of tips:
1. Standard T12
2. Aoyue station tip
3. The one reviewed here.

Even though the tips have the same outer diameter, you can’t use one in place of another. For example, the T12 would simply be too long, and it would be difficult to secure because the tabs for the nut are at a different distance from the contacts.
The Aoyue tip has no tabs at all, so there’s a risk of inserting it too far and simply breaking the soldering iron.


And, of course, here it is compared with the TS100 soldering iron tip.


The lowest setting is 220 degrees, although there’s a mark at 200 too—you can’t turn it that far.


Actual temperature measurements at settings of 250, 300, 350, and 400 degrees. The adjustment is quite sensitive: even a small change in the knob’s angle affects the temperature. But you can’t tell exactly where to set it for 350 degrees, for example, so I think the actual setting can vary by about ±10 degrees by eye.


The warm-up is very well controlled. First, the temperature quickly rises to just below the setpoint, then slowly overshoots it by about 5–6 degrees, drops back down, and holds steady.
For example, the photo shows the warm-up graph with a setpoint of 350 degrees. The maximum was 358–359 degrees; the temperature above the graph, after it had stabilized, was about 352 degrees. The difference is due to the inaccuracy of setting the temperature with the knob.



A photo of it in my hand. It didn’t turn out very well, since soldering while holding a camera at arm’s length is awkward.
The tip is held firmly, so its length isn’t much of a problem. There’s plenty of power to heat even “heavy” copper pours and components.


Overall, I liked it. A soldering test showed that ergonomically and technically, it’s essentially the same as the TS100, but without buttons, a display, or sleep mode—in other words, just a basic temperature-controlled soldering iron.
I found three shortcomings: one major one (a screw wasn’t tightened properly) and two minor ones—the LED wasn’t wired up, and the adjustment knob stuck out too far.

For the 11 dollars I paid, it’s excellent. At 15 dollars, it’s still pretty good, but I’d wait for a sale.

That’s all from me. I hope this was useful.