Soldering Irons

[tedmich]

guns are good for heavy duty soldering, McMaster has some beefy ones
McMaster-Carr

the little Wellers are hit or miss, check the DOA reviews on amazon!

[big_teee]

Not big on the soldering guns.
I like a one piece soldering iron that goes in a soldering cage.
I'm getting closer.
T

[Bruce Johnson]

Reading those reviews, I have to shake my head. The problem with the gun going "dead" and not heating up is fixed by tightening the two nuts that clamp the tip. That mechanical joint is very sensitive to corrosion, particularly if you use the gun and then put it away for a while. Inside the gun, there's hardly anything that can fail. It's a transformer and a switch. All those nice soldering guns being thrown away for no reason....

[big_teee]

Reading those reviews, I have to shake my head. The problem with the gun going "dead" and not heating up is fixed by tightening the two nuts that clamp the tip. That mechanical joint is very sensitive to corrosion, particularly if you use the gun and then put it away for a while. Inside the gun, there's hardly anything that can fail. It's a transformer and a switch. All those nice soldering guns being thrown away for no reason....

I agree with Bruce.
I have an old gun iron that is probably 45 years old.
It was the larger one.
You have to tighten, or clean the copper to make proper continuity.
They work great.
I just like regular wand type pencil irons for building stuff.
Good Luck,
Terry

[Bruce Johnson]

I agree, Terry. I use a smaller temp-controlled iron for the bulk of my soldering on instruments. The little Weller gun is for those occasions where I need to solder something larger, like a 12 ga speaker wire, or a brass strip to a plate. It stays on my assembly bench, ready when I need it. I also have one of the larger Weller guns, but it's big and clumsy and I haven't used it in many years.

[David Schwab]

My Hakko 936 is a total piece of shit. It eats tips, they don't last 12 hours. Also the 50-60W isn't nearly enough for large components or large ground plane pads. I'm still shopping for the right 80-100W iron /controller. There have been good recommendations here before I just need to dig them up.

Really? I have the Aoyue 936, which is a Hakko 936 clone (made in the same Chinese factory, but comes with a 30W element instead of 60), and I've been using the same tip for over a year now.

I'm not using the original pointy tip, but a wide chisel tip instead.

[g1]

Have you considered butane? We tend to overlook them and think electric by default. I have a temp. controlled Weller for regular use but have a Pyropen Jr. for other uses. It can get REAL hot, has regular tip, hot air tip, or torch use. Also great for cordless field service, or those occasions where you can't power down the unit so you need electrical isolation.

[Steve A.]

Weller has 2 irons with temperature sensing tips, that should do most jobs.
Weller 60W/3-Wire Controlled Output Soldering Iron | W60P3 | Weller
Weller 100W/3-Wire Controlled Output Soldering Iron | W100P3 | Weller

I got a Weller W60P in the mid-80's and I was very happy with it until it finally died after 15 or 20 years. I'd replace parts as they went bad from time to time but it finally became unrepairable and I replaced it with an Xytronic solder station. Although it could do finer work, it was not as dependable as my good old Weller W60P. After a few years I could no longer find the tips for it locally so I decided to get a Hakko 936 which does the job but as was mentioned earlier goes through tips way too fast.

So I may decide to get another W60P. Although there is no built-in diode half-power switch you could add one externally for about $10 (I just built one for my Little Dipper crock pot.) When using it intermittently I'd switch it over to half-power to save on electricity and to prolong the life of the tip and the iron. Or use the half-power mode for finer work, although I think that the $40 Weller WLC100 would complement the W60P very well. Add a $25 Weller SPG 80 iron for heavy duty soldering like humbucker covers and steel chassis (which I just now learned is the plural of "chassis") and you should have all of the bases covered.

I had always boycotted the WLC100 because it was not a "real" solder station- the dial selected wattage instead of temperature. Yuck! But I'm now thinking that it work better for me than the real solder stations that go through expensive tips too fast. (I will still use the Hakko 936, but only when it is absolutely necessary.)

If you get the W60P the Panavise 324 is the perfect addition but at $90 you may want to pass on it:




Amazon.com: PanaVise 324 Electronic Work Center: Industrial & Scientific

Steve Ahola


P.S. I always heard that soldering guns should not be used around guitar pickups since they could affect the magnets. Truth or suburban myth?

P.P.S. For anybody looking for a real solder station it looks like the 60W Xytronic 168-3C station with the nichrome heater gives you the best bang for your buck ($75 plus $15 s/h on eBay.)

XYTRONIC 168-3C AUTO-TEMP 60 WATT SOLDER STATION NEW | eBay

Damn- all of these cool soldering instruments have me drooling!

[J M Fahey]

My workhorse soldering pencil is a generic 60W one with a switchable 1N4007 diode in series (which is permanently mounted on the dedicated "soldering" outlet in my bench.
So any 60W one I plug there becomes instant 30/60W with the added advantage of having the heavier thicker (more thermal mass) 60W tip (typically 6mm) instead of the typical 4 or 5mm tip found on 30W ones.
Only "problem" is that I have to be somewhat more careful when soldering DIPs and similar close spaced parts, but no big deal.
And when soldering to potentiometer bodies, thick wires, fuse holders, switches it does so with authority.
It normally is used in the 30W setting, unless I need the higher power for these tasks.
***Always*** iron clad tips, of course. (sometimes called "ceramic" for unknown reasons).
Always have a couple spare ones, just in case, because Murphy demands they fail on Saturday afternoons with an anxious customer waiting.

[Tonestack]

I own a temperature-controlled station, but my two workhorse irons are a Weller WP35 that I have owned for sixteen years and a 175W Hexacon P115 plug-tip iron that I have owned for at least a decade. The Hexacon iron makes short work of chassis ground connections.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

The W60P is what I've used for about 7 years now. It is nice and simple like the cheap orange handled ones, but a bit more beefy and they are temperature controlled in a sense - they just aren't adjustable without changing the tips. My biggest beef with the cheapest ones is that if you leave them plugged in too long they just keep heating and heating, and I end up finding myself unplugging and replugging them.

The 1/8" 700 degree tip works beautifully for flatwork eyelets. I use 800 degree tips for most raw guitar wiring - pots and switches - going back and forth between 1/8" and 3/16". They make even bigger tips for other applications. Larger tips lose their heat into the work at a slower rate, so in a sense they are "hotter", even if they are the same temperature.

I've bought a lot of tools from HMC Electronics and have been pretty happy.

I never could make up my mind whether I'd be better off with a station than a stand alone iron so I can't help you with that, but if you are determined not to use a station, then I think you're going to love the W60P... especially if you've been using a 20w orange handled one all this time!

[Joe Gwinn]

Weller makes adjustable temperature-controlled irons. I have a WES51, and it works just fine. And the tips are iron-plated.

[big_teee]

The W60P is what I've used for about 7 years now. It is nice and simple like the cheap orange handled ones, but a bit more beefy and they are temperature controlled in a sense - they just aren't adjustable without changing the tips. My biggest beef with the cheapest ones is that if you leave them plugged in too long they just keep heating and heating, and I end up finding myself unplugging and replugging them.

The 1/8" 700 degree tip works beautifully for flatwork eyelets. I use 800 degree tips for most raw guitar wiring - pots and switches - going back and forth between 1/8" and 3/16". They make even bigger tips for other applications. Larger tips lose their heat into the work at a slower rate, so in a sense they are "hotter", even if they are the same temperature.

I've bought a lot of tools from HMC Electronics and have been pretty happy.

I never could make up my mind whether I'd be better off with a station than a stand alone iron so I can't help you with that, but if you are determined not to use a station, then I think you're going to love the W60P... especially if you've been using a 20w orange handled one all this time!

I agree, I think the W60P would be perfect, and would fit in my Soldering Iron Cage.
The 700, and 800 degree tips would be great.
T

[dai h.]

Really? I have the Aoyue 936, which is a Hakko 936 clone (made in the same Chinese factory, but comes with a 30W element instead of 60), and I've been using the same tip for over a year now.

I'm not using the original pointy tip, but a wide chisel tip instead.

The Hakko irons I have seem to be pretty good quality (and generally considered as). From what I understand, there are fake Hakkos, and the clones vary in quality as well (too lazy to look it up, but I saw a page showing the internals of 3(?) different Hakko clones, and the heater construction did not look the same).

re: "large ground pads", if this is something like a multi-layer PCB, I doubt any regular iron will do the job (basically all the metal sinks away the heat so while the PCB will get hot, it will have great difficulty ramping up to solder melting temperature--I think you need specialized equipment such as a localized wave soldering type thing or a preheat of the board by baking, a hot plate type device, or perhaps hot air). If the large ground is something like a ground plate on a Fender, you need a higher capacity iron with a large tip (preheating with a hair dryer, etc. would probably help also say if the soldering was attempted while the plate was still attached to the chassis).

[tedmich]

some guys over at HC dig these irons, which are CHEEEP

Solder Station-CSI-STATION1A