are the variable heat soldering irons really that useful, or is it just smoke and mirrors?
are the radio shack 25w soldering irons any good? they are 30% off for the next week, and i am kind of tempted by them
i know for a little more i can get a hobby king station, but im wondering if its really worth it over a basic iron. would like to spend about $100 on a nice station sometime, but dont have the cash for it right now. always had cheap and/or gimmicky irons, and just want one that works good every time and not a crap shoot
I had a 25W Antex iron, which I sold soon after getting my Aoyue station. Honestly, it was okay for repairs and I did some quite detailed mods with it too, although it would have taken a lot less time with a decent station since I was soldering a lot of tactile microswitches.
If you are at all fussy about the quality of your soldering or hate melting plastic on switches etc. then buy a temperature-controlled station.
Also, at the time I bought the Antex there wasn’t these nice Hakko clones, only expensive Weller which were beyond my budget.
which aoyue do you have? dont got the cash for one right now i dont think.
this one i have now is a cheap like $6 bargain store iron. the first two tips worked great, this one refused to tin and i cant find tips for it now
before that i had a pretty expensive butane iron. it worked great also, but you had to be careful you didnt burn/melt anything where the exhaust vented out the side, and i constantly had to take it apart to adjust the flame.
I have this 936 (I think clones only have one LED now), which cost me around 35 Euros. At the time I also considered a second-hand Weller (which seem to retain their value) and a no-name station from Maplin (I think Don has this station).
The ones from Hobby King look a bargain at first but they don’t include shipping in the price until you check out. :~
I ended up with an Aouyue (from Amazon - mainly due to Chloe’s recommendation) which is working fine, and that uses Hakko tips, some of which can be bought from FT (see the thread). I do miss my old Wellers though… nostalgic :), but we gotta move on, right :)?
I bought a clone last Christmas , a Yihua 937D off Epay. It came with 5 tips( 2 identical med point, 1 fine point, 1 wedge tip, 1 oval, and 1 heavy angled wedge). For the first few months the display would frequently display “E5” with no heat. Finally got fed up and opened up the wand and found a cold joint on one of the connections, soldered that with my old 20W pencil and it’s been perfect since. The temp control and the ability to switch tips has really improved my soldering though there’s still plenty more room for that. No idea how well calibrated it is.
Sal Ammonia (Ammonium Chloride) Tip tinner would fix that. Amazon- Sal Ammonia
Rub the hot soldering iron tip on the block while adding a bit of solder & you have a nice clean tinned tip.
They also sell Tip tinner in tiny cans but those are really over priced. Those tend to have flux & solder mixed in.
You can do a lot with a cheap iron and a lamp dimmer. But I'd suggest something more than 25W, after all with the dimmer you can easily turn it down if need be. Hard to solder chunky stuff with a 25W iron even with good flux and all the other tricks.
My non adjustable Antex 15W with fixed fine tip heats up really quick and works perfectly fine for all driver connection soldering. For heating up large chunks I use the butane torch.
I am hoping that in the near future I can get a good soldering station, and this will be a backup. I know I can get replacement parts for it locally, so that was a huge plus. I'm not good at keeping extra anything on hand.
I don’t know which generic ones you mean, but I’ve certainly used some terrible tips in the past. Like literally falling apart after some use! I think it’s worth buying good tips. The Aoyue tips are good quality.
Also, for my Antex I once made the mistake of buying the wrong kind tip that was meant for higher temperature lead-free solder and my 25W iron just couldn’t get it hot enough to melt solder. I can’t recall what the tip was made of though.
Sorry Pulsar, I just saw your question. I don’t have calipers, but I was able to fit a 4mm drill bit into the hole with enough room to wrap some paper around it for a tight fit. Depth I don’t know, the heating element protrudes around 20mm.
a guy in another thread said it was about 4x24mm. i think i will buy one to try, and if it works then stock up.
tried the radio shack iron tonight... love it. this thing really does heat up fast. i think i am going to buy some electrically conductive adhesive to attach the drivers to aluminum pills though. still sucks. could not get it to attach to my c108 pill.
There’s no substitute for experience when soldering. I have the MS-2000 (20w) and was able to solder 18 gauge wire to an 18650 even with the smallest tip.
I think it’s worth buying good tips. The Aoyue tips are good quality.