Pinecil Settings Manager

A small command-line utility to interact with Pine64 Pinecil v2 soldering irons via the pinecil Python library.
Supports dumping and restoring device settings, inspecting current state, and pretty-printing saved configurations.

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Features

• save: Fetch current settings and firmware version, pretty-print them, and save as a (version, settings) JSON file.
• write: Load a settings JSON, warn if firmware versions differ, diff against device, apply only changed settings, and commit to flash.
• info: Pretty-print live device state (settings, device info, and live telemetry).
• graph: Get a live graph inside the terminal of the tip and handle temperatures, as well as power draw.
• print: Inspect a saved JSON settings file, showing its firmware version and stored settings.

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Installation

Install the pinecil library:

pip install pinecil

For graph support, install the asciichartpy and shutil library:

pip install asciichartpy shutil

Ensure you have Python 3.7+ and asyncio support.

Usage

python pinecil_settings_manager.py <command> [arguments]

Commands

save

Dump the current device settings to a pickle, annotated with firmware version.

python pinecil_settings_manager.py save filename # Creates `mysettings_v1.0.3.json`, pretty-prints settings being saved.

# filename: Base name (without extension). The script appends _v<version>.json.

write

Load a settings pickle and apply only changed values to the device.

python pinecil_settings_manager.py write path/to/mysettings_v1.0.3.json

• Prompts [y/N] if the firmware version in the file differs from the device’s.

• Shows a diff of changed settings before applying.

• Calls save_to_flash() once after the updates.

info

Fetch and pretty-print the device’s current state:

python pinecil_settings_manager.py info

• SETTINGS: All saved settings.

• INFO: Device metadata (e.g. firmware version, serial number).

• LIVE DATA: Real-time telemetry (e.g. actual tip temperature, PWM).

graph

Get a live graph inside the terminal of the tip and handle temperatures, as well as power draw, using the wonderful asciichartpy library:

python pinecil_settings_manager.py graph

print

Inspect a saved pickle file without connecting to a device:

python pinecil_settings_manager.py print path/to/settings_file.json

Shows the stored firmware version and all settings in a human-readable table.

Examples

1. Save settings to disk

python pinecil_settings_manager.py save settings_backup

2. Inspect the backup

python pinecil_settings_manager.py print settings_backup_v1.0.3.json

3. Restore to device

python pinecil_settings_manager.py write settings_backup_v1.0.3.json

4. Check live device data

python pinecil_settings_manager.py info

5. Get a live graph of the tip and handle temperatures, as well as power draw.

python pinecil_settings_manager.py graph

Troubleshooting

No devices found:

Ensure your Pinecil is powered on and has bluetooth enabled (in advanced settings). Only firmware versions 2.21 and above have bluetooth support. See here

Version mismatch warning:

If firmware changed since you saved settings, confirm before writing. Settings names or values may have shifted.