This is not a conversation about guns. This is a conversation about items that have withstood abuse that are near unbreakable.
Some items I have heard referenced as AK47 of:
Gerber MP600: It’s a multi tool
Old Thinkpad Laptops
Mag lights
Toyota Hilux
Open source soldering iron? How does that work?
The tip heats up enough to melt solder.
it has software for the temp control and such
It has a display and even bluetooth. The Firmware is open source. The schematics are available.
Imo open source is not that important for an iron unless you want to add a klingon translation. But the iron is pretty good, although it is often rather >50 bucks including shipping.
Open source might be important if we want to run DOOM on it.
It has some fancy features to allow for custom heating presets among other things. Also, it means you can easily repair/modify the hardware for whatever reason you might come up with.
The ironic part is that you’d need a second soldering iron to do that.