// the find
deividAlfa/stm32_soldering_iron_controller
Custom firmware for Quicko and KSGER T12 soldering stations
Custom firmware for cheap Chinese T12/JBC soldering stations (KSGER, Quicko) that replaces the factory firmware with a proper PID controller, multi-tip calibration, and a full OLED UI. If you own one of these stations and the stock firmware annoys you — unstable temperature, no tip profiles, poor sleep behavior — this fixes it.
The unified codebase with board-specific profiles is well thought out: one firmware tree, many targets, only a board.h and .ioc file differ per variant. The PID implementation with per-tip calibration at two setpoints (250°C and 400°C) is significantly better than the bang-bang control in most stock firmwares. Dynamic screen loading to conserve RAM on 10KB devices shows the author actually understands the hardware constraints. The documentation is unusually honest — fake MCU detection, known-bad hardware designs (the KSGER LDO regulator overheating issue), undocumented flash usage — all called out plainly.
The project is pinned to STM32CubeIDE v1.12.1, a version ST has pulled from their site — you need a mirror link from the repo itself, which is a fragile setup. It deliberately uses the undocumented second 64KB flash block on 'limited' devices, which works in practice but is a real risk if ST ever ships a batch with the block genuinely defective. I2C EEPROM support was abandoned, so settings live in internal flash with the wear that implies. The clone/fake MCU situation is a mess with no clean solution — if your board has a relabeled GD32 or CH32, you're largely on your own.