In preparation for my KBD75 to arrive any day noooowww, I’ve bought some stuff.

The main one is a new soldering iron, because I tried to be cheap, and bought an Aoyue 937+ in hopes that I wouldn’t have to plunk down for a Hakko, and I was wrong. That thing lasted about a month before it just stopped working.

Still being a cheapass, I decided to try another soldering iron (and at this point, I could have just bought a Hakko), and picked up the SainSmart Pro 32, which is a rebrand of the TS100 digital soldering iron, but comes with a power supply so I don’t have to source one on top of the initial purchase. This is also the same soldering iron as the SEEED mini soldering iron found on Massdrop, just you know… without having to wait forever for it to actually ship.

I used it some yesterday, and it is awesome. It heats up incredibly quickly, is easy to change the temperature on, and is easy to wield. The only negative I had with it is one that other people have had, which is that the body is completely smooth, so that, coupled with it’s small size in general, means it can be hard to hold.

Easy enough solution though, with the application of a few strips of TALON Grips, which is a rubber-textured material on an adhesive backing intended to be used on handguns for additional grip. It’s easy to cut up and apply (it’s very thin), and proved to be the perfect solution for adding extra grip to my soldering iron.

Oh, and it also has a USB port on it. So you can update the firmware and/or parameters. It’s a soldering iron. What is even going on anymore?

Asides from the soldering iron (I also picked up a cheapass solder sucker which I already want to replace), I purchased 110 1.8mm white LEDs from the wonderful to deal with Komatoz Kaps, as well as a pack of 150g+ and 98g springs from Switchtop.

From having to desolder a board recently, I am contemplating how much I really want to put LEDs on my KBD75 (or if I should use SIP sockets), because it’s been a pain so far. I purchased 98g springs to use when I order some Cherry MX Silent switches from mechanicalkeyboards.com once they come back in stock, and the 150g+ springs are just for my own amusement (FINGERCRUSHERS FOR DAYS).

Some Amazon links to stuff because I’m a goddamn sellout:

SainSmart New Pro32 Soldering iron: http://amzn.to/2lEWElN

TALON Grips 5×7 sheet: http://amzn.to/2lZGYME