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Soldering iron and tips

I'm thinking of getting a new soldering Iron,
It'd have to be pretty cheap though, and variable temp would be nice.
I need a new one because for the last god knows how long I've been borrowing my Dad's.
Eventually the tip wouldn't even get hot enought to solder!
Modding my sega megadrive was hell. I sort of had to hold the Iron sideways to use the parts that were actually hot enough.

Heres one I am thinking of investing in. Less that half price :xmas:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=35016&criteria=solder station&doy=8m4

What say you?

I know its cheap but I can hardly afford the Rolls Royce of Soldering Implements!
 
Compared to their budget priced simple irons (£6 and upwards), it looks like a decent price, about as much as I would be willing to pay for a such iron here in Sweden. I found a similar station with manually adjustable temperature for approx £22 (Swedish mail order). The second cheapest station was £37, and I found an iron with variable temp but no holder for £29.
 
bbcmicro,

The secret to soldering success is to keep the tip clean and shiny at all times. Wipe it on a damp sponge frequently and then reapply a small amount of solder. Make sure the tip is tight, as well.

Kent
 
Yeh, We do a lot of soldering in school in Systems class. Its really annoying though cos half the school irons dont have sponges, or the tip is bent, or they just aren't hot enough.
My Dad's, I think he used ot for plumbing for something. It had a really big flathead tip so I bought a new one for a few quid.
One kid in my classs was banned from praticals for the rest of the term for making solder balls!
 
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I bought it in the end. Its a nice little unit and will be good for electronics. Also I can switch it off without having to climb behind my desk and unplug it. :D
 
Good. I have some extention/expansion cords going from the wall wart to the underside of my desk, so I can easily plug in and out stuff. I currently have two spare outlets for i.e. soldering iron, temporary computers etc.
 
At home I have a Hakko variable temp soldering Iron. It's the shit. At work I use a Metcal RF iron. The metcal uses RF to heat the tip making for a very precise temperature control and excellent joints. A metcal iron is just what you need for those vintage computer repairs. Then again since a basic unit approaches $2,000 I suspect that thay will stay the province of hi-tech aerospace soldering.

http://www.okinternational.com/product_soldering/mxRework
 
That Metcal sounds like a nice setup. I had my employer ready to purchase a surface-mount device soldering/desoldering station so we could repair the inverters that were used on a lot of the machinery. In the end, we couldn't find replacement output transistors for the inverters so that plan was abandoned. At $600 a pop (with "pop" being the operative word) that station would have paid for itself in not time at all.

Kent
 
carlsson said:
Yep, I also know to heat the post first, then carefully apply the solder. Maybe if I bought myself a new iron with fine tip.. is temperature control a luxury or a neccessity?

This topic originated in the Apple 8-bit subforum, but since the discussion moved on to soldering in general, I thought to move it to a proper area.
Click to expand...

hi, you can actually add a dimmer to control the temperature of the soldering tip. you can visit this link for the story of the diy project on the soldering iron modification. http://www.bustatech.com/adjustable-soldering-iron/
 
Wow, old thread! But since we're here anyway...

I like Hexacon's temperature-controlled low voltage irons. We use the Select-O-Temp and Select-O-Trak series at work, and both use the same bits (tips). They're 24V irons with grounded barrels and bits. The Select-O-Temp (three switch-selected temperatures) sells very cheaply on eBay anymore, my boss recently picked up a lot of 4 for $20.

If anyone gets one without tips and wants to buy some, let me know. We bought over 60 pounds of tips at a surplus auction, and will sell the ones we don't need at really low prices!
 
I have at least 6 soldering devices, none of which I'm happy with. Perhaps it's my soldering skills which are lacking. All of course were cheap, within the price-range I can justify. I'll have to see if I can acquire a Hexacon. At least I'd have a good source of bits. Thanks.

Lawrence
 
For what it is worth since I am the thread starter, I bought a cheap Velleman soldering station about three years ago. It serves most of my purposes, has a sponge to wet and some temperature control, but I may need to exchange the tip soon.
 
Be aware that even high-price irons will need the tips exchanged now and then. The expensive ones degrade a lot slower than the cheap ones. This is because cheap tips have a copper core with a thin plating, while expensive ones have a copper core with either very heavy chrome plating, or iron and then chrome. Copper is easily leached out of cheap tips as soon as a scratch that penetrates the outer plating happens.

We use a Plato AB-3 Polishing Bar to remove oxides and such from our Hexacon tips at work. They're around $14 from most distributors (I think even Mouser carries them), but they'll extend the life of a tip many times past its otherwise useful life. You have to re-tin the tip after you polish it, which you can do with regular solder; however, the best way I've found is to coat the tip with solder paste like ChipQuick. This ensures the whole tip is covered and no air gaps allow for fresh oxides to form.
 
Not quite accorate, glitch. Chromium or nickel-chromium is plated only on the non-working areas of the tips. This is mostly to keep the soldering area confined. If you've got an iron-plated tip, the most important thing is the temperature control. Too-hot temperature cycles lower the lifetime of the tip.

FWIW, both the Magnastat Weller and the Metcal irons have no direct temperature control. The Weller uses a magnetically operated switch in the handle and the Metcal uses RF absorption by the tip. Both are controlled by the Curie effect, so there are no temperature sensors to go wonky. I like the simplicity of the Weller, but many like the fact that the Metcal has no active contacts and temperature-cycles are a bit less pronounced.

Similarly, a 600F degree tip will last longer than a 700 degree one (60/40 solder melts at about 350F). I've never used anything but 600 grit emery paper to clean a tip (followed by tinning) and my tips last for years. Scotch-brite might also do the job; I haven't tried it. But the tip cleaners (mostly intended for stained-glass and jewelry workers) that use ammonium chloride will destroy a tip in no time at all.

Back in the bad old days of big irons and copper tips, we used to extend the life of a tip by applying hard solder (silver solder) to the tip using an acetylene torch. That would probably destroy a modern tip. I do have an old Ungar 777 iron to which I fitted a nickel-silver tip (no silver in it; just a copper-nickel alloy).
 
Chuck(G) said:
<snip>
Back in the bad old days of big irons and copper tips, we used to extend the life of a tip by applying hard solder (silver solder) to the tip using an acetylene torch. That would probably destroy a modern tip. I do have an old Ungar 777 iron to which I fitted a nickel-silver tip (no silver in it; just a copper-nickel alloy).
Click to expand...

Chuck, would that silver solder "tip" work to extend the life of this DIP desoldering tip I made? I cut off and threaded the end of an original tip on the lathe, and the block is a hunk of copper bus bar.

dip-tip.jpg

dip-tip2.jpg

I used this to remove 36 static column DRAMs from a board to fill up my Deskpro 386.
 
I seem to remember that we used 56% silver solder, when silver was pretty cheap (the stuff flows at about 1000F; copper melts at about 1900F). The scheme worked well then, but might not be as cost-effective today.

If you don't have an acetylene torch, you could probably use an ordinary propane torch with a MAPP gas cylinder. I still do a fair amount of silver soldering, but it's with 10% silver now.

Another option may be plating iron over your copper tip. I understand that plating iron onto other metals is s little tricky, but tips are commonly plated with it, so it's not impossible.
 
Ok I admit I am no solder genius. I was using acid solder flux to clean everything up until I starting asking on this forum how to solder the XTIDE. In short I found out acid solder flux is nasty.

So I got a new tip for my weller 25W pencil and I have some nice Kester 60/40 that was recommended for XTIDE. Starting it up for the first time I know I have to put solder on a new tip to stop it from oxidizing. I don't think I have ever used solder with flux in it before! I noticed some places on the tip have this yellowy looking fluid on it after tinning. Am I to assume that this is the flux and not oxide? I thought the flux was supposed to evaporate and atomize?
 
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