For decades I have used a 100W or 100/140W soldering gun to repair tube radios. Would like to upgrade and also restore some early transistor radios. It seems several guns,irons would make life easier. Would appreciate recommendations for soldering guns,irons, accessories to upgrade my bench.Main problems with my gun are awkward to get in tight places and too much or too little heat for specific applications.What do the experts use?
Curt
dixierat, hi. I have used different guns/irons but I find that having a 40-80w irons for regular work and a 90w old fashion tin smith/plumber type for heavy chassis work does it for me. The 40W is a radio shack job, 60W weller type pencil and the 90w has a 1/2 diameter copper tip. For circuit board work I think the pencil type is best as it is slim and will get in tight spaces and more accurate to touch small area also components not large and don't draw off heat rapidly. The 90 is an elephant used for soldering directly to chassis mainly. The big tip holds a lot of heat and can off-set the rapid dissipation of heat caused by the mass of the chassis, something your not usually faced with in modern electronics. It is also good when you have a heat sensitive part to solder as on smaller masses it heats the immediate area rapidly before the heat has a chance to travels. I think that if you are going to do a lot of soldering for the forseeable future (and have the money) a good soldering station with temp controls and idle is a good route to go. The one thing that eats up the tips is remaining hot with no load to dissipate heat and therefore it heats and eats itself. You can help a little by making sure you keep a blob of solder on tip when idling but then you waste solder. I still plug it in , wait, work, yank the plug. PL
I went thru a month long MIL-STD 2000 solder school, and keeping the tip immaculate is part of the game. Clean the tip, tin it, make the joint, clean it, tin it and put it back in the holder. Repeat for every solder joint, and leave a blob on the tip when you unplug it. Solder is cheap, don't worry about using it for it's intended purpose. 30 watts is enough for PCBs. Anything bigger will measle the board and lift runs. I've had Radioactive Shack 25 watt irons eat their tips due to the plating wearing away over the copper core in a short time. But the tip in my Unger iron has lasted me over 10 years, and it was used when I "acquired" it. I dunno if I can get another tip for it now, but then again I don't need to. It was good quality and I've taken care of it. Get a well known name that you can get tips for down the road.
Dave
If you want the best and pretty universal (and have some bucks) - Metcal is probably the best (I think today it is called Oki). And - it heats up in 3-5 seconds. You can use tips for about any job: from lifting pins from tiniest pitch QFP chip to solder the quarter inch rod into heavy GND plane. But - it comes with a cost.
Wise - is the next best (similar principle - cheaper version).
Weller may not have enough oomph. Although it is an old respectable name.
Mike
Howdy:
I agree with the last post, in the the Metcal is an amazing unit, even at $800+. The extremely fast heat up (by RF skin effect) also results in very tight temp regulation - a tiny tip can therefore deliver MUCH more heat than others. I'm also fond of the hand held weller hot air blower $150 or so, versatile with paste flux, just keep it AWAY from plastic. My latest fave is a butane 'wind proof grill lighter' that has a 6-8 inch gooseneck-style tip. Sounds strange, but these are a real gem, delivering the equivalent of 200 watts - just enough to solder terminal strips to a chassis, but not light the insulation or rosin on fire (as a propane torch WILL). *BUT WAIT* - there's more! For the few times I need that kind of heat, the <$10 price tag is well justified, and will also enable some grilled burgers as well.
Thanks guys for your comments.I was reminded of one of my bad habits which is to solder several joints w/o cleaning and tinning the tip and I know better.Sometimes I want to solder too fast when restoring radios. Researched Oki and would like to try their irons but price holds me back. Think I'll add a soldering station to my bench. Probably buy an inexpensive Weller WLC100 ,gain some experience with it and go from there. Thanks again.
Curt
One of the most usefull gadgets I have on my bench is a simple lamp dimmer which I can switch into my power supply terminal box (really just a regular plastic outlet box with a six socket adaptor and a switch. One way, the wiring goes straight through, the other way, it goes through the dimmer. I use the dimmer position to slow down the ancient electric drill for tasks that are either dangerous or produce too much heat at full speed, or to manage the heat of a soldering iron when workomg on delicate areas like printed circuits or non-conventional uses like melting the crud out of capacitors so you can stuff them later on with modern equivalents. You can also use this in lieu of a variac to get a gross approximation of a radio's condition for a "first look" inspection. Just don't touch anything when you do this, lest you fry as well.
Down side, if the load shorts, the dimmer will probably burn out or short. So what, replace the dimmer switch for a couple of dollars. For decades I have used the venerable Weller 8200K gun, (I'm on my third example, the 100/140 watt switch burns out after XXX hours, and it will only withstand only so many falls from the workbench to the cement floor), and the there is a larger version, and I have one of them too for chassis connections, and of course the indestructable Weller pencils. A long time ago I had a set of Ungar pencil irons, and they were OK, but have been lost in one of my many moves.
For my recycle operations which include cleaning out tube sockets and other components, I use pencils from the 99 cent store along with the dimmer. When they fail or can't be filed down again and be re-tinned, I toss them. Don't use your good stuff when doing a salvage job. I always clean up and save terminal strips, tube sockets, connectors, hardware, in spec power resistors, good transformers, variable capacitors, coils, knobs, faceplates, and the like when I trash a project, which is not all that often. Ask your dentist or hygieniestfor a worn out scaler instrument to help you pick out the crap from terminals when you are reclaiming components. There is nothing sweeter than knowing you have a nice loctal tube socket in your stash when you need one.
I hope this is helpful!
Ive used everything from the most expensive to cheapest varietys soldering irons-& guns thru the yrs. I do lots of electronics bench work, customers vintage radio sets, amps, etc. I got tired of buying the more expensive weller solder-station tips ( they are good tho!), as I dont have time to stop projects and go to the only place in town usually open only 9-5 ( M-F)to replace them @ $4.95 ea.
Irons types work best for me personally, and I keep spares. Ive settled for the less expensive rat-shack irons as they are cheapos, and generally last for approx 500 hrs each in 25 watt-30 watt ranges. East to handle, and usually gets to the tight spots. If less or more wattage is needed, I use my variac to adjust, either turn-up/ down the heat, but usually not necessary at all.
I make my own replacement tips for these rat-shack irons by cutting solid round copper (small copper rod stock), and threading one end to fit the iron, & grinding a tip on the other with a dremmel. A old local ham-radio friend gave me the rod stock yrs ago, & I just bought my own threader & use a small bench vise. These tips outlast the irons most of the time.
For heavy chassis connections, I also use the larger tinner-smith large ( radiator repair)types with 1/2" dia copper tips. I have some original types from the 40s-early 50s with cloth wire ac cords & wood handles. I found those thru the past yrs at garage-sales etc.
Soldering is a art-form in itself! It just takes practice, and anyone can learn! Not as easy as welding, but several basic principles apply to both. When a cheapo rat-shack iron stops responding well at 120 volts, I can drive abit more life out of them with my variac at cranking them up to around 135 volts. It gets the irons "attention" for sure!! They co-operate!!.. and for under $10 bucks each, the cheapo irons are disposable items anyways.
Well I spent some money today on aWeller WLC100 station, aWeller 200/260W gun and a RS 30watt iron. They should complement my 8200. My mid year resolution is to keep a clean,tinned tip on every joint soldered. I appreciate all the tips from Phorum members. Will use them next on my 38-116 and later on a37-620B found at garage sale.
Curt