Wiki: Soldering articles

[Owain]

You have only one soldering iron?

I keep one for "good" work (soldering) and one for "rough" work (melting things - most recently drainage holes in the bottom of a wheeliebin)

Owain

[Arfa Daily]

The DS900 is a single hole vacuum desoldering station with a footswitch operated vacuum pump in the base unit. The desoldering head set is a specially shaped Magnastat collar with the solder collection tube and vacuum attachment point built in. Instead of a hole in the end of the collar that the bit normally pokes through, the attachment point for the desodering bit pokes through there, with the magnetic slug / heat coupling rod inside. Thus, if anything happens to the slug / head / magnet, you are up for a whole new assembly. In my case, the slug seized into the element tube, and sheared off when I had to apply brute force. I had had it happen once before. A new head was only about 40 quid or so, so with a new element, 60 quid would have seen it back in service. It was a £700 unit new, and is now little more than scrap, because Cooper won't continue to make parts for it. I could have got a replacement on eBay, but I was thinking that I might go down that route, only to find that in 3 months' time, the UNF threaded tips are no longer available ...

Arfa

[Clint Sharp]

In message , Alang writes

Ahh, trigger's brush. I've actually got 3 W60s and a desktop station which was kindly donated to me, they're all very good, apart from the occasional tip and a few magnastats they're all original. Very well made tools and very hardy. Must have earned me a couple of hundred thousand quid over the years so I'd definitely replace them if I ever need to.

[James Salisbury]

The best iron I have used is a 80W close thermaly controlled iron. A Weller WSP 80 good for fine smt and the chunky stuff so long as you fit the correct tip.

[Adam Aglionby]

=A0 London SW

Use an Antex TCS personally, temp controlled with no base station makes it transportable.

Might be worth pointing out that a new tip should be tinned as it heats , not after its hot.....

Multicore tip tinner cleaner is an excellent product,great for cleaning tips that should have been tinned before they got hot, not fond of their solder in general otherwise though.

Adam

P.S. thanks for the timber FAQ helped save me from looking a total plonk down at timber merchants recently.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've got a cordless iron for use outside the workshop. And a gas one. But if you have mains a base station isn't that much more effort to transport than an iron plus stand.

Sounds like it's getting too hot.

At the right temperature a wipe on a damp sponge followed by tinning with your usual multicore should be ok.

I always feel uncomfortable in a timber merchants. And they usually give me their rubbish too - first time around.