Preferred soldering iron

[TBurst Std]

You're welcome.

It's tough to find a good heavy duty stand. I like the design of this one...

...it's priced well and I may end up ordering one to replace what I have, but I need to find a way to add some weight to it. It's only 12 oz., which to me is too light. Probably wouldn't get knocked over easily due to its footprint, but I could see it moving around the benchtop in normal use. Plus, that American Beauty has a fairly heavy duty cord on it, so the typical springy stands tend to be a bit saggy under the weight. Don't want something sitting at 700+ degrees to be anything but well-placed.

I have that stand and it's OK. The footprint does help.

 

[Cagey]

Yeah, I was trying to think if there would be a sagging or positioning problem with something like this:

The one you pictured is very similar to the one I'm currently using, but that one has a rod running lengthwise under the spring part, so maybe it wouldn't be so springy. Have to try it to be sure, but I'd still go back to the idea that the beauty is kinda heavy for its size and has a heavy cord on it, which is gonna try and move the iron on its own.

I probably just worry too much. But, I've burned enough things that I didn't want burned and don't want to do it again.

 

[ghotiphry]

TBurst?  How large is the opening?  This iron seems to be twice as wide as a "standard" pencil iron

 

[ghotiphry]

I probably just worry too much. But, I've burned enough things that I didn't want burned and don't want to do it again.

That's what I'm trying to avoid.  I'd hate to have this thing roll off that little stand that they send with it.  Burn a hole right through to the eastern hemisphere.

 

[Cagey]

It's kinda funny that we can all get so worked up about a soldering iron 

They're like pocket knives or girlfriends. You inadvertently get attached to them. They're around all the time, they get handled a lot so there's the physical familiarity thing. They make you happy when they help you do something good, and piss you off when they wreck something. They make you sad when you lose them, and they've usually physically harmed you at some point. Lotta emotions tied up in a little tool <grin>

 

[ghotiphry]

It's kinda funny that we can all get so worked up about a soldering iron 

They're like pocket knives or girlfriends. You inadvertently get attached to them. They're around all the time, they get handled a lot so there's the physical familiarity thing. They make you happy when they help you do something good, and piss you off when they wreck something. They make you sad when you lose them, and they've usually physically harmed you at some point. Lotta emotions tied up in a little tool <grin>

I didn't watch it all, but this guy has a 25 minute video about a hoe.  Perfect analogy, Cagey.
[youtube]P1dA5ppeM7w[/youtube]

 

[ghotiphry]

Going to try this one from Amazon, designed for a 100 watt Weller, which also has a larger shaft.  A bit more expensive.

 

[Cagey]

Looks like it'll hold a soldering iron, and that's the object of the exercise.

 

[rgand]

I have one much like this I got at Radio Shack many years ago. This one looks like an updated model. It works great.

 

[bagman67]

Lotta emotions tied up in a little tool <grin>

...that's what she said?

 

[Cagey]

Hehe! Yeah, I'll bet she did.

 

[mayfly]

Going to try this one from Amazon, designed for a 100 watt Weller, which also has a larger shaft.  A bit more expensive.

That's essentially the same one that I have, but I removed the 'springy' bit from the base, discarded the base, and bolted the springy bit to the wall of the workshop.  Very secure  .  I did have to drill out the middle cup though...

 

[TBurst Std]

TBurst?  How large is the opening?  This iron seems to be twice as wide as a "standard" pencil iron

It would hold the heating element and tip.

 

[mayfly]

Necropost!

For several reasons (which will be relieved in future posts), my current weller soldering iron is running out of jam.  I'm thinking of replacing it with a couple of American Beauty soldering stations:  a 20 watt and a 60 watt

The 20 watt looks perfect for fine electronics on PCBs (which I seem to be doing a lot of), and the 60 watt looks like it has loads of jam for, well, the thing that I'll tell you all about later...

here they are:

what do you think?  :headbang:

 

[Cagey]

Personally, I have no use for temperature controls on soldering irons. I need the thing to get hot enough melt solder. Anything below that is useless, anything above that is a waste. If the iron hasn't got enough ass behind it to heat up larger parts, then it's probably either the wrong size tip, or possibly the wrong size iron. For what American Beauty charges for their standard irons, I'm afraid to look up what those variable power units cost, but you might be able to save a decent chunk of change by forgoing the controls.

 

[Steve_Karl]

Ungar here ... 33 watt element ... great for guitar electronics and general cable ends etc.

Looks just like this one:

http://cdn3.jensentools.com/images/p/112-004.01_s500_p1._V2eafbf25_.jpg

except the tip isn't clean

 

[mayfly]

Personally, I have no use for temperature controls on soldering irons. I need the thing to get hot enough melt solder. Anything below that is useless, anything above that is a waste. If the iron hasn't got enough ass behind it to heat up larger parts, then it's probably either the wrong size tip, or possibly the wrong size iron. For what American Beauty charges for their standard irons, I'm afraid to look up what those variable power units cost, but you might be able to save a decent chunk of change by forgoing the controls.

I most confess that these would be my first temperature control irons, having spend a lifetime with free-range types at various power levels.  However, I'm inspired to get a temp controlled one after using the iron at work, which is one of these:

This thing is a freaking joy to use.  But at $600 it's out of my price range.  But after thinking of it I recognize that the big one probably does not need to be temperature controlled - I just want to move some thermal mass with it.

Perhaps a non-temp for the high-watt one, and a temp control for the little guy (I'm soldering a lot of ICs lately...)

 

[ByteFrenzy]

Having temperature control on the smaller iron and not on the big one sounds like a plan. If you're doing lots of finer work on PCB's it's real handy but if you ever switch to silver solder it's a must have.

 

[Cagey]

Those big, fancy units like you showed from work have feedback loops so they're temperature controlled. They keep you from overheating things that are very sensitive or have very short leads and can't/won't dissipate heat fast enough to protect their innards. The AB units don't have feedback, they're just variable voltage supplies. Not really anything to be gained there other than the ability to throttle the thing down if it's going to be sitting for a while, but you want it to stay warm enough to heat up quick if you have a sudden urge to solder.

Incidentally, if you really want a controller, you can buy that unit separately and plug in any of their pencil irons. Or, for less than half that you could just buy an arguably more useful Variac...

Fry's has that unit (500VA) for $69. Plus you could use it to lower the voltage on your AxeFx to get that "brown sound"  :laughing7:

 

[Sovereign_13]

I'll throw mine in here, although it may be a bit...well under-specced for some of you.

I have a Hakko FX-888D.  It's a digital soldering station.  Looks like this:

Everything about this is pretty sturdy - the base is about 2lbs, the iron itself doesn't get hot after extended use, and it heats up pretty quickly.  I've not yet figured out if it's actually temperature-controlled, but for $100 on Amazon, it's not a bad find.  Hakko is a pretty reputable brand, on par with Weller as far as I can tell.

You can also get add-on stuff that works with that base if you're into that kind of thing.  They sell an iron that feeds solder via trigger mechanism, hot tweezers, and a nitrogen gas system that all plug directly into the base.