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Re: smoldering irons



Getting iron-clad tips is worthwhile in MY book.

Unclad tips (copper) will slowly dissolve away in the liquid solder.

At 5:16 PM -0500 on 2/19/02, John S. Denker wrote
Hi --

A couple of people have asked me what I consider a
"good" soldering iron, and why.

Desiderata:

1) REGULATED temperature.
If there's no regulator, the power level is either
waaay too low (can't solder anything) or
waaay too high (burns up tip and/or whatever you're soldering).

2) Plenty of power. Fifty watts is enough for typical
electronics projects, and a lot of non-elecronics
stuff as well. If I need more than that, I'll get
out my torch :-).

To say it another way, if there's plenty of peak power,
you don't mind turning it off, because you know it will
heat up immediately. And ironically, if there's a good
regulator, you don't need to turn anything off; it will
sit there for hours without burning itself up.

3) An assortment of tips.
A too-small tip won't deliver enough power to a
large object.
A too-large tip can't get to the right place on
a small object.

Lesser considerations include:

4) You want a nice sponge and sponge-holder and iron-holder.
Typically this comes with the iron.

5) In a research or teaching environment, you can plan on
doing a certain amount of desoldering. Therefore:

5a) You want a nice solder-sucker. You know, the hand-held
thing with a spring-loaded piston and a trigger. Make sure
you get one that you can cock single-handed, by thumping it
on the table. (I once saw one that you couldn't. Unbelievably
inconvenient.)

5b) You want a roll of "solder wick". This is a fairly
drastic technique, reserved for situations that the
solder-sucker can't handle. You have to sorta rub the
solder wick against the part, and the combination of
heat and rubbing sometimes (1 time in 100) can destroy
printed circuit traces. Guess how I know.

=======================

Specific recommendation: Weller is the big name in this
area. Their WES50 seems pretty reasonable. Street price
$100 for the basic station, plus another $15 or $20 for
two or three additional tips.

http://www.coopertools.com/brands/weller/soldering_stations.htm
http://www.lashen.com/vendors/CooperTools/Weller_WES50.asp

PS these things last many years in all-day every-day use.

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