Truth be told I am in awe at all of you who are fluent in all things electronic. I would love to develop my knowledge in this area so that I have a better understanding of what I'm working with and how it works.For now......
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Tool Soldering iron recommendation
- Thread starter DavidR8
- Start date
Tool
slow-poke
Ultra Member
Be careful it's a slippery slope, on one of the electronic forums I visit one of the popular threads is the TEA thread, Test Equipment Anonymous(TEA) group therapy.I'm sure it won't surprise you to know that this will be the most advance piece of electronics related gear I own
Common diagnosis is for GAS Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
Fortunately I have a mild case, some have it pretty bad.
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Is that all yours? Holy CRAP! Some really cool stuff there. Especially that POJ Analog Randomizer in the bottom right corner. I have several of those. Incredibly useful.
Begs the question: What do you do with all that?
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
That's the same way I feel, and what got me started playing around with electronics again a few years ago. Get a few project kits from banggood/ali to practice with, and end up with something cool like the oscope one. I still don't really "know" what I'm doing, but I know a lot more than when I started
You'll love having a bench station vs iron. Now if I could just find time to clean off my bench and work through all the electronic projects sitting around I'd be set lol.
slow-poke
Ultra Member
I sold a lot more than I still have, and trust me I have plenty of POJ analog randomizers ;-)
I'm retired now but spent most of my career designing electronics from the 70's on. Later part I helped companies commercialize their half baked or non-compliant equipment. I kept some basic gear because I continue to do the odd hobby project or respond to a few old but good clients. One of them from Texas still sends me a turkey every thanksgiving.
you win.
Canadium
Ian
What is your favorite source for replacement tips on the Metcal? I have one (SP200) I acquired at an auction ages ago but its missing the tip. Was always meaning to get one but my Hakko was my standby so never got around to it.
I think that's a bit hilarious to be honest. That's a bit like one guy owning 23 mills and 17 lathes with no tooling.
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A large part of my career was the same. My job for many years was converting automotive electromechanical systems to electronics and digital systems. At first all my really good tools belonged to the company. But as good equipment became available on the used market, I started to build my personal capabilities. Just like machining, I also built some of it myself. Virtually nothing I have today was purchased new.
I had no real "clients" except for the corporation I worked for until I retired. Today, everything I do is for others, for the farm, or for the fun of it.
slow-poke
Ultra Member
I have never used the SP200 it's smaller and lower frequency than the MX-500's I use.
I purchased both Metcals used on eBay and one of them came with about 10 tips, since then I picked up a couple of tips at Digi-Key. The Thermaltronics tips are compatible.
Go to tips for 90% of what I do:
STTC-145 for most small PCB related
SMTC-0147 for larger connections
My hunch is after you use it once, you will never want to use your old iron again. The technology is just that much better.
It's like using a Starrett 91B vs. a dollar store tap handle, it just works better in every way.
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slow-poke
Ultra Member
I agree. That being said I think there are some parallels to machine tools WRT quality and serviceability of some of this older equipment compared to the new equipment. The ability to source some of this kit (especially when it needs repair) for pennies on the dollar also has some appeal. Almost everything in my picture was purchased as for repair or not working. Good quality old DMM's actually drift less than brand new versions of the same with the same references because they have had years to stabilize, just like a seasoned engine block is more stable than a brand new one. I just keep what I continue to use and sell off what I don't to keep the stack in check. I have found some people go on an on about how great a particular piece of equipment is and then I get one, fix it and find it's okay but lacking compared to some other similar piece of equipment, so it gets sold. When I can't reach it from my chair, the stack is too large and needs to be purged.
I never worked professional on anything mass production automotive related, I think I would have enjoyed that. Seems like it could be quite challenging from the mass production perspective. If something gets missed during evaluation, not so easy to fix when there being pumped out like jelly beans. I mostly worked on lower volume quite expensive systems. Did do some higher volume smart meter design for power utility metering.
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Chicken lights
Forum Pony Express Driver
Scopes on bang sticks, yesEveryone needs a scope right
Scopes on bang sticks, yes
well ya that to! PEW! PEW!
Chicken lights
Forum Pony Express Driver
I’m commonly soldering 14-20 gauge wires, if it’s bigger than than I’ll usually just use a butane torch.
I haven’t had any luck with the pencil style torches, for what I do, they don’t seem to have enough heat
I’m pretty sure I’m using lead solder, rosin core. I don’t know anything about lead free solder, hadn’t even heard of it until this thread
No worries @Chickenlights.
Your gun is is just fine for electrical wires like you describe. And just as you have found, a pencil unit won't work well for that.
The pencil style units are for soldering transistors, resistors and integrated circuits. Your big gun generates too much heat too fast and would damage these delicate components.
On the other hand the small pencil units don't generate enough heat to properly solder big wires.
They each have their place. It's sorta like using a 3/4 inch ratchet on a #6 screw.
Lead free solder has been around for a while. It mostly an environmental thing. Very common in electronics and requires a bit higher temperature. If you have lead solder it's ok to use it to join wires.
140mower
Don
Some mornings a bottle of scope comes in handy as well.......Scopes on bang sticks, yes
Yep, horses for courses. After all this talk I tallied up my collection and I have 8 including a couple of those big Weller guns, a variety of others good for soldering tanks on rads down to things for fine work on PC boards. I even have one of those WTCP stations like below that I picked up for peanuts about 30 years ago. Still going on strong thanks to the last (now obsolete) TC201T iron that Weller had in stock and gifted me when I asked for a warranty replacement for a defective out of the box thermostatic switch. Just used it to assemble the interface boards for my DROs.
Looks a lot better than @slow-poke 's link.
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