i-CON soldering station

Here we will examine interior of original Ersa i-СON 2 soldering station.

Connectors

Legend:

• P/IO: power/data line (one-wire UART, see "Communication" below)
• PE: protective earth
• HE+: heating element positive circuit
• HE−: heating element negative circuit
• GND: ground

External on the station

Left side (accepts i-Tool, Power-Tool, Tech-tool, Micro-Tool, Chip-Tool, X-Tool):

Right side (accepts i-Tool only):

Internal in station

Connector on i-Tool

Connector on ChipTool

Communication

To communicate with i-Tool, station uses P/IO wire which combines both power and data. Furthermore data is half-duplex.

UART protocol is used:

• Rate: 250000 bps
• Start bit: 1
• Data bit: 8
• Parity bit: No
• Stop bit: 1

Data exchange

Every request from station is followed by tool response after ca. 120 μs.

Endian is little.

Request format

Offset	Type	Example	Description
0	u16	0x2F02	Preamble (constant)
2	u8	0x05	Message ID
3	u16	0x0010	Operation code
5	u8	0x05	Requested data length
6	u16	0x498E	Checksum

Response format

Offset	Type	Example	Description
0	u16	0x2F02	Preamble (constant)
2	u8	0x0A	Message ID
3	u16	0x0010	Request operation code
5	u8	0x05	Requested data length
6	array	0x5E 0x0A 0x1C 0x03 0x00	Data
n-2	u16	0x8F42	Checksum

Messages

Get tool ID

This data exchange is implemented every second (1 Hz) after powering station up until receiving successful response from tool.

Request:

• Message ID: 0x05
• Operation code: 0x0001
• Requested data length: 2

Response:

• Message ID: 0x07
• Data:
  • 0x2802: i-Tool

Example (raw hex):

• Request: 02 2F 05 01 00 02 3A 4D
• Response: 02 2F 07 01 00 02 02 28 C1 A4

Get tool revision

This data exchange is implemented once during startup after getting tool ID.

Request:

• Message ID: 0x05
• Operation code: 0x0040
• Requested data length: 2

Response:

• Message ID: 0x07
• Data:
  • [0]: (u8) Minor
  • [1]: (u8) Major

Example (raw hex):

• Request: 02 2F 05 40 00 02 A7 67
• Response: 02 2F 07 40 00 02 00 01 D1 CC
  • Minor: 0
  • Major: 1

Get status

This data exchange is implemented every 20 ms (50 Hz).

Request:

• Message ID: 0x05
• Operation code: 0x0010
• Requested data length: 5

Response:

• Message ID: 0x0A
• Data:
  • [0]: (u16) Heating element temperature (Celsius * 10)
  • [2]: (u8) Handle temperature (Celsius)
  • [3]: (u16) Flags (see below)

Flags:

15 ... 2	1	0
RESERVED	IDLE	OK

• RESERVED: Reserved for future use
• IDLE: 1 if tool is not moved (e.g. on stand), 0 otherwise (e.g. during active soldering)
• OK: 1 for no error state, 0 otherwise

Example (raw hex):

• Request: 02 2F 05 10 00 05 8E 49
• Response: 02 2F 0A 10 00 05 52 0A 1C 03 00 69 04
  • Heating element temperature: 0x0A52 = 264.2 °C
  • Handle temperature: 0x1C = 28°C
  • Flags: 0x0003 = IDLE | OK

Checksum

• Algorithm: CRC-CCITT (XModem)
• Data: entire message, including preamble, except CRC itself

Example:

CRC-CCITT-XModem(0x02 0x2F 0x05 0x10 0x00 0x05) = 0x498E