Soldering iron

[Dirk Bruere at NeoPax]

Looking for a cheap but reasonably good iron.
Anyone have any opinions on this Chinese one?
Precision Gold, 60W:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/60W-Profe...werTools_SM&hash=item5ae526757d#ht_945wt_1270

 

[Nico Coesel]

Looking for a cheap but reasonably good iron.
Anyone have any opinions on this Chinese one?
Precision Gold, 60W:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/60W-Profe...werTools_SM&hash=item5ae526757d#ht_945wt_1270

I'd spend a little bit more and go for an Ersa soldering station. The
tips of Ersa are very good.

 

[notbob]

I'd spend a little bit more and go for an Ersa soldering station. The
tips of Ersa are very good.

....or a Hakko:

http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fx888.html

nb

 

[Michael Karas]

[This followup was posted to sci.electronics.design and a copy was sent
to the cited author.]

...or a Hakko:

http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fx888.html

I've used a Hakko model 926 for nearly 20 years now. A newer Hakko FP-
101 has been serving me for almost 10 years. I continue to be extremely
happy with both units and should a day come when one of them konks out
and dies it will be another Hakko that replaces it.

 

[Rich Webb]

[This followup was posted to sci.electronics.design and a copy was sent
to the cited author.]

...or a Hakko:

http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fx888.html

I've used a Hakko model 926 for nearly 20 years now. A newer Hakko FP-
101 has been serving me for almost 10 years. I continue to be extremely
happy with both units and should a day come when one of them konks out
and dies it will be another Hakko that replaces it.

Hakko is good. Have their portable solder sucker (808) and it's pretty
bullet proof. Except that the little plastic button that covers the cal
pot keeps getting lost; vinyl tape works as a stand-in...

With that in mind, if the OP is getting a new iron then this may be the
time to get a combination unit. A vacuum-pump sucker is SO much easier
than wick or the spring-loaded suckers.

 

[tm]

I'd spend a lot more and get a Metcal.

I second that. Best soldering iron I ever owned.

Also, consider the DS1 desoldering gun.

 

[notbob]

I'd spend a lot more and get a Metcal.

You ain't kidding when you say "a lot more". From the prices I've
seen, 2X-4X more! For those prices, do they come with a sexy babe to
hold the iron?

nb

 

[miso]

Ditto on Hakko.

Metcal has their fanatics.

 

[miso]

I second that. Best soldering iron I ever owned.

Also, consider the DS1 desoldering gun.

From the Metcal owners I know, they work well but need repair often.

 

[gregz]

From the Metcal owners I know, they work well but need repair often.

I don't know what these irons are without looking up. I do know a pencil
thin iron is the way to go. After using a pencil thin iron, those big
things are a joke. That weller was also very high in watts.

Greg

 

[Nico Coesel]

I'd spend a lot more and get a Metcal.

I wouldn't This guy says exactly why I like Ersa so much:
http://soldering-stations.blogspot.com/2010/12/hakko-metcal-pace-ersa-jbc-edsyn.html

I've never tried Metcal but I have experience with Weller and JBC and
I still prefer Ersa.

 

[Nico Coesel]

Still using the Ungar, do they still exist? pencil, but not so thin,
iron purchased circa 1959, WITH the original gold plated tip. And
we're talking pretty constant use, too.

After some difficulty soldering components, learned to use larger iron
than thought necessary. Went to one of those tiny, tiny thin pencil
types once and discovered the thermal mass was a bit too low for
discrete components. When the thermal mass is too low, it takes longer

Many people choose a tip which is too small. When soldering doesn't
work they crank up the temperature which ruins the tip. If the tip is
big and the temperature right (so the flux doesn't burn) the surface
tension will do the job for you.

 

[qrk]

From the Metcal owners I know, they work well but need repair often.

We use the cheap Metcals. In the 4 years we've been using them, no
problems yet. Wonderful irons.

 

[tm]

The (older) ones I have switch the secondary so you are just seeing
transformer losses. I don't know any reason why the primary could not be
switched. Also, I find the report of bad cable killing solid state devices
pretty remote. Even a lose connector will cause the unit to shut down and
require reseting the power to get it back on again. They monitor the vswr
for faults.

Everything in my lab runs off two big Isobars--I just flip them off when
I leave the lab. At some point I need to install a 12-way splitter and
distribution amp on my Rb frequency standard so I don't have to wait for
all the 10811As in my HP boat anchors to warm up.

Why not slave everything to one of the boat anchors. Don't they keep power
supplied to the OCXO when off? At least the 856x does. They all have an in
and an out for their clocks as far as I remember. Then you just need to keep
power supplied to that device.

The Rb should always be powered as it takes a long time to fully reach a
stable equilibrium. But maybe your requirements are not that demanding.

Next you should get one of the Trimbel Thunderbolts for < $200 and have a
GPS traceable reference.

tm

 

[tm]

I have this nice Rb standard available, though, and it needs only a few
watts.


Centre frequency stability, usually not. Phase noise, definitely.

Those are pretty nice gizmos, it's true. However, generally speaking
I'm much more concerned about the phase noise than the exact centre
frequency, so a Rb standard is fine for my purposes. I have a bunch of
friends in the atomic clock business, but that isn't my gig.

Phase noise on the Rb is worse than the OCXO in the Thunderbolt, especially
if you get one with the Trimbel OCXO.

Stability is mostly moot for what many of us do.


tm

 

[tm]

Snipage


I don't know--the Rb is about -130 dBc at 10 Hz, which is good enough
that it's hard to measure, and is certainly better than the divider
chains of the synthesizers it's controlling. It also has the great
advantage that it's sitting on my shelf already.

But you need a spare so you will not know what one is correct .


tm

 

[miso]

Do rubidiums have low phase noise? I'd suspect that the low-end ones
wouldn't. The xo discipline loop is very slow, so the phase noise
mostly depends on how good an xo they used.

Here's the manual from my ebay unit:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53724080/Circuits/Efratom.pdf

It does have an ovenized xo.

Talking to the local Meinberg rep, DGPSO wins over Rb for phase noise.
DGPSOs are quite cheap on the used market, but you do need to set up an
antenna. The advantage to Rb is if GPS lock is lost, it will be on
frequency much better than a crystal.

Most of these DGPSOs have a similar command set. You don't need the
manufacturer's software. Just run Lady Heather.

 

[miso]

Metcals are nice but there is one flaw that you have to watch out for,
or at least be aware of, that can happen.

Since they operate by using RF, if the coax connection goes bad,
the iron can break ICs. We had a Metcal a few years ago that
was being used for PCB mods and almost every 74HC14 added to
those boards died, but not necessarily right away. It was
like a nightmare until we figured it out. We don't use them
anymore because of that.

boB

Yep. It seems like an overkill method to generate heat. But like I said,
Metcal has its fans.

I see busted Metcals in the surplus shops often. If you are in the
valley, there is a guy who sells repaired Metcals at the DeAnza swap
meet. Harold (blank). He comes up from Santa Barbara, so you can imagine
he does a decent business selling repaired irons.

 

[miso]

I've never tried Metcal but I have experience with Weller and JBC and

I still prefer Ersa.

The big advantage to Hakko or Weller is I can just go to Frys and buy
the tips.

When I am soldering, I leave the iron on. I don't get the heat up contest.

 

[Nico Coesel]

I just order the tips from Farnell. Next day delivery.

One commonly needs to change tips, e.g. to desolder some SMT, or to
replace a chisel point with a hoof for doing some TSSOP or something
horrible like that. With Metcals, you use the plastic pad, hoick out
the old tip, cram in the new one, and you're soldering again in a few
seconds.

Same with Ersa. The tip is held in place with a spring-hook
contraption. Replacing the tip is a matter of seconds. I often change
tips when working on a project. There simply is no way you can use one
tip for all soldering jobs.