Metcal Soldering Iron

On Mon, 22 Jul 2013 13:17:20 -0500 Jim Brain <brain at jbrain.com> wrote: You may consider a OKi MFR soldering station. Metcal got swallowed by OKi. So my OKi MFR 2241 reads "Powered by Metcal" on the front. You can use Metcal SP200 cartridges on the OKi MFR PSUs with a special handpiece. But this is only usefull if you have a lot of SP200 cartridges already. The MFR soldering station uses inexpensive cartridges, differet to the Metcal cartridges. You can think of the OKi MFR 1110 as the successor to the Metcal SP200. My experiences with the MFR 2241 are very positive. The handpiece is very good to handle. The cartridges are thin and short. Very fine SMD soldering is no problem. Yet the cartridges heat immediately and can deliver immense amounts of heat (ground planes...) - but they do this only when needed. I've used ERSA and Weller in the past. I'll never go back. Especially the Wellers I used are much inferior to the OKi, yet they are more expensive then the OKi MFR! Thermaltronics may be an alternative. They build clones of the Metcal product line since the patents have expired. -- \end{Jochen} \ref{http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/}