Solder Station Recommendations?

[GregS]

I've always used mostly Wellers, because that's what the company bought.
At home on my own bench, I use the "princess" from RS or one of a couple
of clunky irons from the hardware store or something.

I would say half my soldering days were with Ungar soldering irons, with the
screw-in heaters and screw-in tips. They work if you select the right wattage or use
a variable triac heat control, or just use the diode trick to reduce wattage to about a third.

greg

 

[neon]

for 200 connection per year $5 50watts is plenty good. but spend your $50 if you want

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

That thermostatic action causes a change in the voltage at the tip,
making them unsuitable for ESD sensitive components. Microdyne had at
least 100 stations in storage, after they were all replaced with Edsyn
"Loner" series stations to eliminate their problems. we also set a 3
ohm maximum resistance between the tip, and the ground where the
worker's ground strap was connected. The heat and different metals,
generated a small DC voltage that goes up, along with the resistance.

But! ...be careful of those cords/connectors. One place I worked had
2 lockers full of dead Wellers. Closer inspection revealed almost
everyone one of them had cord/connector failures where the iron
plugged into the power unit.

nb

I've fixed a lot of those cords, and reused the plugs.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Arfa Daily]

I would say half my soldering days were with Ungar soldering irons, with
the
screw-in heaters and screw-in tips. They work if you select the right
wattage or use
a variable triac heat control, or just use the diode trick to reduce
wattage to about a third.

greg

Ah ... The diode trick ... We used to have a really scruffy worker at one
place that I worked as a youth. He used to repair, amongst other things,
high power audio line amplifiers on a television distribution network, where
vision was fed round on a low frequency carrier, and audio was demodulated,
and fed round at audio. You could always tell amps that he had worked on.
Most of the print around the output transistors would be missing, and
bridged with whatever bits of wire / nails / welding rods that he could lay
hands on. We used to say that they had been "Cottle-ised" (his name wasn't
actually Cottle, but that's near enough ). Anyway, the irons that the
company used were Adcolas. These were clunking great things with a polished
bakalite handle. If you were skilled, they could actually be used with
surprising delicacy, but in Cottle's hands, it was a poker. One day, when he
was out to lunch, we had the brilliant idea of removing the fuse from the
plugtop of his bench iron, and soldering a BY127 diode across the holder.
This left the iron plenty hot enough to melt solder to tin the tip, but as
soon as he applied it to a joint, iron, solder and joint all stuck together
like superglue. We all fell about listening to him cursing and banging
about. He eventually found the diode, but not before spending the afternoon
replacing the element, and checking the mains voltage and the isolation
transformer on his bench. We suceeded in pulling the same trick on him at
least another twice as I recall, and also did the same to his bench light,
which resulted in an annoying 25Hz flicker that he couldn't solve for a
couple of days.

Workshops used to be such fun in the 70's. Now it's all legislation and
health and safety ... Anybody else have fond memories of long hair, a copy
of NME in your back pocket, and workshop tricks ?

Arfa

 

[Andy Cuffe]

You are right. The cord often wears out first.

But a Weller can even perform it's own abdominal surgery thanks to
transformer isolation.

Robin

I wish I could find a source for that nice flexible silicone rubber
insulated wire Weller uses on its soldering irons.
Andy Cuffe

[email protected]

 

[[email protected]]

But! ...be careful of those cords/connectors. One place I worked had
2 lockers full of dead Wellers. Closer inspection revealed almost
everyone one of them had cord/connector failures where the iron
plugged into the power unit.

nb

My first Weller WTCPN had the connector break like many others. Some
folks at ABC changed it to an XLR. On my own, I took a piece of a
paper clip (largest size that would fit inside the pin) and soldered
it in there around 1982. Still works fine. Had a heater failure but no
time to fix it that week and bought a WTCPT also. But I like the
Metcal I have at home and at work.

GG

 

[Remove _ for valid address]

I wish I could find a source for that nice flexible silicone rubber
insulated wire Weller uses on its soldering irons.
Andy Cuffe

This cable is available here in the UK.
e.g. www.cpc.co.uk (order code AN00041, pre-stripped 1.5m piece.)

I fitted one to my 15W Antex some years ago. It's a bit heavy in
my opinion (unbalances a small iron) but a big improvement
on the old cable (white PVC with notches melted along it ;-)

Mike.

 

[Dave Plowman (News)]

This cable is available here in the UK.
e.g. www.cpc.co.uk (order code AN00041, pre-stripped 1.5m piece.)

I fitted one to my 15W Antex some years ago. It's a bit heavy in
my opinion (unbalances a small iron) but a big improvement
on the old cable (white PVC with notches melted along it ;-)

Most Antex irons are available with silicone leads which is similar in
size and weight to the PVC type. They cost more, of course.