soldering station recommendation

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Junk

Junk

Joined
Dec 13, 2002
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buggerville nj
Ok, those butane jobs are great for portability, but over the next month or two I'm going to be sitting at my kitchen table soldering 14 and 18 AWG copper stranded for about 5-10 hours a week.

So I'm looking for a decent soldering station and need up to about 40W. I don't know anything about these, but are any of the $80-90 stations decent? I've seen Weller and Hakko. Thx.
 
Another vote for Hakko. Weller use to make a good industrial iron but I've never like their consumer models. The last round of Weller irons we bought for production didn't last very long. The Hakkos we replaced them with are still in service.

If you are soldering wire consider getting a small solder pot to pre-tin the ends, the investment will pay off in time saved.

And please tell me your not soldering stranded wire.
 
I'm kinda curious about this myself. I have soldered some for my RC trucks and it was stranded wire. So is that bad?
 
I've had a Radio Shack brand (no idea who their manufacturer is) soldering station for almost ten years now and it has been bullet proof. Cost I think $65 when I bought it, and it's got a selectable temperature with digital display that'll tell you either what you have it set to or what the current temperature at the tip is. With all the electrical work I've done (recently branching into soldering PCB components) it has performed flawlessly. For soldering wiring, I would buy the current version of this in a heartbeat. The only complaint I have is I wish I could find a slightly smaller tip for PCB work, but I haven't had any luck there.
 
We use stranded wire because it has the ability to flex with minimal metal fatigue. As soon as you fill the spaces between the wire with solder it for all intents and purposes becomes solid wire. Crimp connectors are designed to make a durable connection and preserve the stranded wires ability to flex. They actually make a more reliable connection than solder when used with stranded wire.

Please don't take my word for it, NASA, JPL, JEDEC, and IPC have all done extensive studies on this topic. You will not find solder used with stranded wire in any space vehicle, military or commercial aircraft or any other high rel application. Google it.


Get a proper wire crimp tool. Klien, Channelock, and Greenlee all make good ones. Learn to use it correctly. You will make a better, more reliable connection and do it much faster than you can with solder.

Save the soldering iron for repairing printed circuit boards.
 
Spook50 said:
..... The only complaint I have is I wish I could find a slightly smaller tip for PCB work, but I haven't had any luck there.
Click to expand...
This is why you buy a higher end soldering iron, you have an almost infinite variety of tip sizes and styles to choose from. At the end of the day I think you will find that the Weller or Hakko irons will give you much better service than the Radio Shack ones for not a lot more money.

If you want any pointers on PCB assembly let me know. I've been in electronics manufacturing for over 25 years.
 
rusty_tlc said:
This is why you buy a higher end soldering iron, you have an almost infinite variety of tip sizes and styles to choose from. At the end of the day I think you will find that the Weller or Hakko irons will give you much better service than the Radio Shack ones for not a lot more money.

If you want any pointers on PCB assembly let me know. I've been in electronics manufacturing for over 25 years.
Click to expand...

I've been looking into something like the Weller linked for that very reason. When I bought my Radio Shack soldering station I was only working on vehicle electrical, which even then was limited to soldering connectors for better electrical contact (crimp, solder, single wrap with elec. tape, shrink wrap). Now that I'm comfortable soldering PCB for electronics repair, I'm looking into a higher end soldering station.
 
rusty_tlc said:
We use stranded wire because it has the ability to flex with minimal metal fatigue. As soon as you fill the spaces between the wire with solder it for all intents and purposes becomes solid wire. Crimp connectors are designed to make a durable connection and preserve the stranded wires ability to flex. They actually make a more reliable connection than solder when used with stranded wire.

Please don't take my word for it, NASA, JPL, JEDEC, and IPC have all done extensive studies on this topic. You will not find solder used with stranded wire in any space vehicle, military or commercial aircraft or any other high rel application. Google it.


Get a proper wire crimp tool. Klien, Channelock, and Greenlee all make good ones. Learn to use it correctly. You will make a better, more reliable connection and do it much faster than you can with solder.

Save the soldering iron for repairing printed circuit boards.
Click to expand...
Good to know thanks, but in this case I'm soldering to save space.
 
Junk said:
Good to know thanks, but in this case I'm soldering to save space.
Click to expand...
So provide adequate strain relief...thin-wall adhesive-lined heat shrink, overlap length on the wire insulation should be at least 5x the insulation diameter if you have the room.

I have a Hakko station and love it...I might want something >40W for 18 awg. I've also owned a Weller iron for a very long time, tips are interchangeable and temperature controlled. Little guys with low temp for pcb, biggies with high temp for big stuff.

rusty_tlc is correct with comment about crimp v. solder...you won't see solder joints in airframe wiring anywhere but in shield terminations, and that's a whole other thread.

PM if you have more ??

Steve
 
To bring it closer to home, I've never seen a solder connection in factory vehicle wiring either, outside of boards.
 
Spook50 said:
I've been looking into something like the Weller linked for that very reason. When I bought my Radio Shack soldering station I was only working on vehicle electrical, which even then was limited to soldering connectors for better electrical contact (crimp, solder, single wrap with elec. tape, shrink wrap). Now that I'm comfortable soldering PCB for electronics repair, I'm looking into a higher end soldering station.
Click to expand...
You might want to consider the Hakko FX-888 it replaced the Hakko 936. We have at least one if not two 936's on each bench in the factory. I have two on my bench at home, one with a fine tip the other with a heavy tip. Pace makes a similar product, they make good high quality products.
 
If you want to spend some $$$ then Metcal (now part of Oki) has some excellent soldering irons that leave the standard hakko/weller stuff in the dust. But you'd have to be a real soldering snob to require a Metcal :) Yes, I own one :)

+1 on crimp versus solder for most vehicle connections. A well formed crimp with the CORRECT crimping tool provides a very reliable long term connection with stranded wires. Invest in the correct crimpers for the lugs/connectors etc that you are using and there's no need to solder them.

cheers,
george.
 
george_tlc said:
If you want to spend some $$$ then Metcal (now part of Oki) has some excellent soldering irons that leave the standard hakko/weller stuff in the dust. But you'd have to be a real soldering snob to require a Metcal :) Yes, I own one :)

+1 on crimp versus solder for most vehicle connections. A well formed crimp with the CORRECT crimping tool provides a very reliable long term connection with stranded wires. Invest in the correct crimpers for the lugs/connectors etc that you are using and there's no need to solder them.

cheers,
george.
Click to expand...
Pace makes a higher end soldering station that is equivalent to the Metcal products (which I love BTW). I'm a huge fan of the temp control concept used by both products.
I have two Pace ST-70's on my bench at work. I use two irons for removing surface mount components. The tip size and fine heat control allow me to work with parts down to .040"X.020".

Kind of overkill for the average guy though. :lol:
 
Yeah, the metcal stuff is nice. I have an mx500 system and can't imagine using anything else.

The <10 second tip warmup time and the ability of it to put heat at the surface of the tip versus a heater cartridge far from the tip allows for near instant response to temperature variations due to the object you are soldering.

When I've had to go back to using prehistoric cartridge heater based irons like the typical weller/hakko stuff I'm reminded just how superior the metcal system is. But it certainly costs far more than an $80 - $150 soldering station :)

I've always use a hot air tool to remove SMT parts unless they are near things that shouldn't be heated up too much...

I tend to use 0603 size as my smallest form factor discretes, 0402 is getting a little tiny for my eyes, even with a good magnifier :)

cheers,
george.
 
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