New Soldering Iron

[waitup]

After years of battling on with the same crappy iron, saying 'it does the job', I've stepped out of the darkness and into the light...

DSCF2443.jpg

[Alastair Reynolds]

You can't go past good tools
They pay for themselves 10 times over in the fact you don't waste time or damage components or worse still PCBs by using cheapies

[rick]

soldering irons ..i hear you nick
only it took me ten years of battling on with my old one to get as smart as you

[waitup]

My new one isn't really the rolls royce like yours rick, but if it was a car it would be red and it would go fast.

When I was a kid my dad was a sparky and he had one of those big berthas that could solder an earth cable to an earth stake... I remember trying to do work on my guitar with that thing!

[Ben M]

I really like my digital temp read out too nick. It's a long way from the old iron i had..... that was like a wrought iron fire poka.

What's your favourite temp setting?

[waitup]

Still getting a feel for this iron Ben, but I've been sitting at around 310 for soldering on PCBs, and more like 340-50 for XLR connectors and things

[rick]

i use a lot of silver solder and i run it at more like 410 -20
some times i forget to wind it back for the normal stuff .. ( not your best idea rick )

[lonearranger]

Hey Nick,

Thanks for posting about this. I took the plunge and grabbed one last week.

I have a collection of irons, including my dads old scope iron he used for TV repairs for many many years. All a bit hit and miss.

Fired this thing up on sunday arvo, and was able to transplant a beesneez capsule (I purchased months ago) into my old Rode NT2. It was so good to be able to have the iron at the right temperature and have it all work so nicely.

The other upside is that the NT2 is actually quite usable with this capsule.

Anyone got any other suggestions as to easy mods for this I could try?

Cheers

[Stephen C]

Personally I can't go past the nice, light Weller soldering stations. Every now and then Farnell (oops, I mean "element 14") or RS have a great deal on them. I bought the WES51, this model was made in Australia! Only $199! Before that I spent about 20 years using an old 25W 110V Weller iron with a clunky old step down transformer! (did heaps of work with it too!) Now I'm in heaven

Oh and yeah, I usually use about 350 for general PCB stuff and about 420 for XLR's. 450 for PCB work on big ground planes (some of those ground planes are like heatsinks!) Gotta watch out on the cheap connectors, the plastic can melt pretty quickly. (if it was up to me I wouldn't be soldering the crappy cheap connectors!)

[Sorr]

My first iron was an Australian made Royston or Royel dual iron unit. From memory I purchased it in 1982.
Much better than the Wellers of the day!
They eventually went out of business and I couldn't get any more spares.
I now use a JBC , wouldn't use anything else.

[kalkman]

... Now I'm in heaven

lol @ you guys hehe