Soldering station

[Brian Reay]

Weller were always the business but the Chinese ones are remarkable and the bits are a fraction of the price of Weller ones.

[Richard Tobin]

And the answer is... adequately. After a few hundred soldered joints, I now have something resembling a PDP-11/70.

-- Richard

[Bob Eager]

Must get on with mine. But I'm still fiddling with the case on the PiDP-8.

[The Natural Philosopher]

what was the starting point?

[Richard Tobin]

A Raspberry Pi and a bag full of bits.

-- Richard

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ahaha!

Retromodding a Pi eh?

[Richard Tobin]

-- Richard

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If your iron is leaking to that extent, I'd stay well clear of working on electronics...

[Bob Eager]

PiDP-11 kit. Well know, I thought.

[tabbypurr]

or do the old dodge of unplugging right before soldering. Glad those days are gone.

[jkn]

Hi Dave Not sure I said anywhere that my iron was leaking ... just that I prefer not to mix the two. In fact it is also because an 11-year old is watching me and the 'rule' I have (currently) passed on is that 'water and electricity don't mix'.

I'll go back to soldering 0805s now if you don't mind...

J^n

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Any decent soldering iron will be low voltage anyway.

Hope you don't let your 11 year old fill an electric kettle...

[jkn]

Yes, I do - under supervision.

Like all 'rules' (and science), it is an approximation to the truth, to be refined as time goes on and the situation changes.

"I will push you in the buggy across the road" "Never go farther than the pavement" "Never Cross the road on your own" "make sure that you look left and right, and keep looking and listening" "Who's going to get to the park first?" ... "Can you help me cross the road, Son?"

J^n

[Dave Plowman (News)]

But stupid as an example for your son.

It has been practice for many a year to use a damp sponge to wipe a soldering iron on.

[jkn]

Tut tut - bad (and incorrect) assumption there...

I am well aware of that, having done it since around 1980...

[T i m]

<snip>

I had such on my Weller soldering station for years and it worked well but they would often get lost if I ever took my soldering stuff elsewhere.

I now use the pot of brass turnings and now prefer them as they seem to do more of the tip and probably don't take so much heat out of it.

I assembled a little 10+10W amp kit last night with my s/h Aoyue 968A+ [1] s-station but (ironically) couldn't find my tip cleaning pot. I used some damp folded up kitchen towel instead and it worked 'ok'.

I bought a little FM radio kit for daughter (to listen to R4 as she's dog walking) and I was going to get her to build it herself (she was soldering with me when she was 5 <g>) but 1) I want to do it now and

2) I think it might be a bit fiddly for someone not into electronics as such [2].

Cheers, T i m

[1] I can get compatible spares for it locally. [2] On the amp kit there were a couple of component substitutions (a 3k3 as opposed to a 3k4 for example) and one incorrectly marked on the parts list but right on the schematic (1.2 not the 12K shown) that you might only know how to deal with if you knew roughly how things worked.

[John Rumm]

It has, but many now go for the "pan scourer" style in preference... they seem better at cleaning the flux residue that one tends to get at the higher soldering temps required for lead free work.

[AnthonyL]

Bloody hell. At that age if I hadn't got the fire going in the morning before I went to school it would have gone out, and if I didn't get the dinner on the go when I got back we'd be eating late.