First Look at the TS21 Soldering Iron

First Look at the TS21 Soldering Iron#

I finally managed to give my new portable soldering iron a quick trial today: the TS21 soldering iron from Miniware.

I’m pleased to say it will be staying in my toolkit.

For quick soldering jobs, it looks like exactly the sort of tool I was hoping for. Sometimes I just need to solder a joint, attach a connector, or do a quick touch-up without breaking out the full rework station, arranging stands, wrestling with cabling, and rearranging half the desk. For that kind of job, this little iron makes a lot of sense.

The TS21 is a USB-C powered soldering iron. Plugged into my 65 W USB-C power supply, it heated up to 350 °C in only a few seconds. It felt like less than five seconds, although I haven’t measured that properly yet.

The published specifications list support for up to 100 W over USB-C PD, although in normal use it may not necessarily draw the full 100 W. I may try it later with a higher-power USB-C supply to see how much difference that makes in practice.

For the type of work I tested it with, it seemed perfectly capable. I typically use lead-free solder, and the TS21 appeared to handle that without any issue. Given that common leaded solder generally melts at a lower temperature than common lead-free solder, I would expect it to be easier going in that case, although pad size, copper area, flux, and tip geometry will still matter.

I haven’t done much soldering this week because most of my time has been taken up with a customer software development project, but the short time I did spend with the TS21 left a good first impression. The fast heat-up time is excellent, and the integrated light is a surprisingly useful feature.

I’m looking forward to using it more over the coming weeks and forming a longer-term opinion. It also feels like the sort of tool that could be genuinely useful when working away from the bench.

One thing I definitely want to test is how well it copes with larger solder pads, thicker wires, connectors, or components with higher thermal mass. The TS21 looks well suited to small electronics work, but larger joints are where compact USB-C irons can start to show their limits. Before doing that, I may also try it with a higher-power USB-C PD supply so the test is fairer, although the 65 W supply I used here already seems perfectly reasonable for smaller soldering jobs. If it struggles with larger parts, that would not necessarily be a deal-breaker. I suspect it could still work well when used alongside a hotplate or heat pad to provide some base-level preheating.

For now, though, the early signs are positive. It feels like a very handy soldering iron for quick prototyping jobs, small boards, breakout boards, and general bench use when setting up the full rework station would be overkill.

I’ve included a few images of the contents of the box below.

I run Protoworks (NI) in Northern Ireland, helping small businesses design prototypes and build custom software. If you have a hardware or software idea you’d like to sketch out, feel free to get in touch.