Well, its time I do some mods to my case, and get my watercooling all integrated with a fanbus - so I'm gonna get me a soldering iron for christmas Question is - Butane powered or Electric? Pricewise they are about the same, and butane is very cheap (probably less than electricity ) Anyway - what do you guys recommend? Also what power rating should I be looking at for a general purpose soldering iron that I may one day use to solder a few components onto PCBs (although probably not Surface Mounted components) Cheers, Ian
i use a 50w Draper soldering iron for everyday use you can get them pretty cheap, just make sure its over about 40w and it should serve you well. hope this helps
well the butane one I was considering is 75W variable temperature, which I liked the sound of Sadly the only choices I have are the ones available at Maplin, as its about the only place I know that'll be open tomorrow. Here's the gas one, £49.99, 75W variable, and here's the electric one, £44.99, 50W variable temp That might help narrow things down a bit
I use a 25W Weller pencil, it was ~US$20. For PCB work, you don't need a lot more IMO. You may want to have a glance at these soldering tutorials: http://www.epemag.com/solderfaq/default.htm http://www.fanbus.com/thelab/Soldering/soldering.htm
Oh, and I wouldn't recommend a butane iron as your primary tool. They're great for carrying around in a toolkit though. I carried one a few years ago and it saved the day a time or two. Make sure you carry solder too....
Any particular reason why? I've been looking for someone who's used a butane one before, get some first hand comments on one
I agree. Butane is not really suitable for the kind of soldering you are likely to do around your PC. You will probably do more damage burning stuff than making things work. a 25W electric iron with a small to medium tip , (1/8"), would be plenty for most jobs.
maybe I should cancel my order of my 2 80GB maxtor HDD's and get one of those for christmas instead then
Ive got both and the butane one is great for in the garden shed or carrying arround in your tool kit and heats up in about 15 seconds. Electric is a bit better indoors but takes much longer to heat up.
to tell the truth I am not so bothered if the gas ones arent quite as good as the electric ones, as long as its sufficient for simple soldering jobs for now I'm happy. If it had some major flaw I'd think again, but the convenience of not needed a socket to plug it in, and the lack of cord (and the blow-torch feel ) make me think it may be worth the few downers
If your soldering anywhere near transistors or PCBs, you want something like 15 to 25watts... Butane does sound cool, but you can't leave em on for an hour at a time... If you're doing a whole project you can leave your electric in it's stand while you place stuff and not worry about it. =)
you really need 2 soldering irons. I have this one: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/show...&St3=-57048561&DS_ID=3&Product_ID=10663&DID=7 for tinning wires and bigger projects and this one for small electronics projects: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/show...&St3=-57048561&DS_ID=3&Product_ID=10668&DID=7 the stick type soldering irons lose heat faster so you have to wait sometimes but you dont have to worry about burning up parts with excessive heat.
I got a 100w electric soldering iron but it is crap because the end is kind of a loop of wire (bout 1cm top to bottom) and it heats up too damn quick- as in 5 seconds ket a slow small one 'tis much better. Maplin do ones with interchangeable ends so you can use fat or thin ends when soldering.
My Antex 25w has seen me proud through the years and it's British made so that can't be bad. Personally I've never seen the need for anything with a higher wattage but there you go
