I'm looking for a soldering station. Any recomendations? I need a variable tempature station for working with tempature sensative circuits.
I personally prefer Weller's. I've have a WTCPT for several years and love it. I don't know if they have ones with a temp dial but my tip's temp is set by the type of tip (each one has it's own specific temp it'll heat up to).
If you can afford one, the Metcal soldering stations give truly excellent performance. These too use different tips that operate at different temperatures, and have (quite literally) a 'hot swap' feature that allows one tip to be switched for another within seconds, even when hot. Other really good features are their durability, (main block is made from diecast aluminium) and their accuracy - you can safely hold the iron within about 1.5" of the tip, and it is thin enough to hold like a pencil, giving superb control over the position of the tip. These irons are used in industry for reworking of surface mount and other sensitive components, because they have virtually no temperature overshoot and never need recalibrating. If you can get an MX500 or an SP200 on Ebay for under £120 then you've got a bargain. (Don't buy the older models, spare tips are hard to find for these now) If you cannot stretch that far, Weller soldering irons are also pretty good, and aren't so expensive. Details for the cheaper SP200 that I use: http://www.metcal.com/products/1.2.2.2.htm http://www.metcal.com/products/1.2.2.2.1.htm Second link is probably the more interesting to you, as it explains why the SP200 is good for temperature sensitive components.
I second the Metcal soldering stations been fantastic, i am a terrible solder, terrible dosen't go far enough, i am useless, i shake like a recovering alcoholic whilst sweating like a pedofile in mothercare when trying solder surface mounts, but on the metcal stations i still manage to botch it together. We have some wellers too, but i've never bothered to use them on the recomendation their useless, if only our postgrades wern't so mean about not letting us use the metcals without begging.
I have used lots of different wellers, and i think they are pretty good... I have a Stannol myself and it works nice enough for my use... it depends on what you are going to solder though... The Animus: try soldering SMD LED's with a 3mm tip... (believe it or not, it IS possible... but it's not actually recomended..)
Smilodon did some SMD capacitors + resistors when i was at my perants, they tend to be smaller than the leds, only iron i had was a 3mm cheapo thing (cost £5). One very ugly botch'd job later, and it all works
http://www.elfa.se/elfa/produkter/no/2021860.htm those... i know they are a little bit bigger than some resistors, but the LED's don't have pads as much up the sides... (i did this when changing LED's in my phone aswell (look at sig.) but this time i used a smaller tip... not the best soldering in the world, but it worked 8and still does ))
ah this was a nice big space on a pcb (otherwise i woudln't of tried it). Also on a side note i've ordered a cold heat soldering iron which should get to me as soon as my mate buys it for my brithday (gifts have no import, so nice of him too). I'll let you know what i think of them, i had to buy one just to see the gimic myself !
/me should get a better soldering iron too, but yesterday i soldered a 8 pin soic with my ancient russian one Just some adjustment to the tip, and the last 4 pins look almost perfect.
radio shack pos over here. At least it melts the soulder . I should prob buy a better iron but yeah i tend to spend my money on parts not tools. JEEVES
Forgot to mention the Hakkos in my post. I've used one of these at work. I cannot remember the model number, but it had a credit card that had to be inserted before it could be used, which remembered the temperature you had set it to previously. It had digital controls to set the temperature to the nearest degree! (Don't know how accurate it really was though) It was pretty good, but the handle was too thick for me; since I usually use 'slim' soldering irons, I felt like I had less control with the thicker handle on the Hakko. Also forgot to mention the cheap Antex 18 Watt irons. I really don't like these, and have had a dislike of them ever since trying to use one when doing GCSE electronics. It was finding out that Uni only supplies Undergraduates with Antex 18 Watt irons, and the fact that 'Health and Safety' forbid me to use my gas iron at uni that drove me to find the cash to buy my own Metcal. Incidentally, does anyone know of a cheap UK source of Metcal SP200 soldering iron tips? (Ebay doesn't have them very often )
Not saying the others aren't bad, just saying that I use a 10mil (.010") tip on my weller and have never had any difficulties soldering 0604 smt led's and tqfp's, although some of those rpack's can be a bugger. Maybe I'm just blessed though... Oh, and another thought, get a flux pen, they can make your life much easier.
Hakko 936 iron, forget which kinda base. I need to get new tips for it... but I managed to do QSOP surface mount with a 1.5mm chisel tip :-D Darn good stuff, and it was free! (A guy at my old work gave it to me when he retired)
I've used both Antex and Weller soldering irons in the past, but the Antex TCSU-D2 soldering station was the best soldering iron by far. I've never really liked Weller irons that much. I shall soon be purchasing the Antex 690SD, which I'm hoping will be just as good.
I have the Hakko 936-12. It works very well for me, I'm quite satisified. And it was onl 84.95 shipped from http://www.kiesub.com/ including a Hakko 599B tip cleaner. It's the only soldering station I've ever used though, so I can't offer any comparisons.
thanks for all the info. I like most of your suggestions but some of them are too pricey for my low budget. What are you oppinions for http://www.action-electronics.com/wewesd51.htm