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Which do you use, soldering iron or soldering station?

Soldering Iron or Soldering Station?

  • Soldering Iron

    Votes: 12 19.0%

  • Soldering Station

    Votes: 50 79.4%

  • Gun

    Votes: 1 1.6%
  • Total voters
    63
Yeah, regarding the duties, I'm just speechless. If I used it once and sent it out, then it should be listed as "used electronics parts". I've sent speaker parts and auto parts the same way, but I'm not sure what the end cost was. I'm sure this is nothing new for my friends in the far South.
 
I have the BlackJack BK2000 soldering stations for a decade if not more now. Works great and besides some paint peeling from the holder, I have only but positive experience with it. The price is good too.
 
Now I use a brass brush to clean the tip, and what is noticeable, that does not hurt the tip as much as a steel brush.

And with the 120 ohms thermistor mod too, my tip really last longer, I used the same tip at least a dozen of times, and he is only half worn.

I written that the Mastercraft soldering station takes 10 minutes to warm up with the added 120 ohms thermistor, this was an approximation, but it's more real like 5 minutes, running slightly lower than the specified 40 watts.
 
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I had been thinking of getting a soldering station for quite some time but last Christmas my wife got me a battery powered Hakko FX-901 and I love it. I haven't used my plug in iron since. It heats up so fast and I don't have to worry about having an outlet nearby or catching on the cord and pulling it off the table or anything like that.

Admittedly I don't tend to solder for hours at a time and for quick jobs it is so fast so it works well for me.

I use Eneloop pro batteries in it and got a set of Ikea rechargables as back-ups. The Ikea ones don't last nearly as long but they work to cycle into it when the Eneloops run low.
 
I stumbled on an old rat shack station on flea-bay that looks like it was made in the 70's or something. Still in the original box, still had the solder, wick, extra tips (unused) and kit of tools that came with it. Very functional. Best $25 bucks I ever spent on soldering gear.
 
YES -
Weller Soldering GUN for building crossovers for speaker projects, connectors, and larger wiring issues
Weller Soldering Station for finer detail work (pcbds, etc).

Got a pair of older Weller rechargeable irons somewhere, lost amidst the sands of time,
they were not a good solution for my rare moments of heavy project useage.
 
saabracer23 said:
Is that the FX-100? What do you think about it? Anything you don’t like?

I appreciate that no matter what I put it through the day before, it’s always there the next morning to politely greet me.

View attachment 1469034

Dan
Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't see this.

Good timing though, as I drug out the FX-951 a couple weekends ago to tin some 12AWG, and thought, what's wrong with this thing? The 951 being no slouch, and markedly better than the 888, that was telling.

Very fast heating, remarkable control, and top-notch recovery. It'd be nice if it were dual-port as the RF connectors are bit finicky, but I don't typically need to change between micro and and regular handpieces that often, at least nor during the same session. Last I checked no hot tweezers for it either.
 
I use both a 35 watt rat shack pencil iron, and a 350 watt weller gun. The gun makes nicer joints and wastes no time heating up. When you need a good chassis ground, the little pencil cant possibly produce the required heat. I do my best to stay away from circuit boards. Soldering guns and circuit boards dont mix well. My repair work is mostly on point to point tube amps, and the stuff i build gets built the same way. People who work on circuit boards will likely use different equippent, as will the SMD crowd.
 
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