28 May
2009
28 May
'09
11:50 a.m.
Ugh! Don't buy those crappy disposable irons.
Quality tools are
important.
As I've said many times 'I am not rich enough to buy cheap tools' :-)
One reason I never graduated to /real/ soldering
stations is that I
kept wondering "what do I do when it goes bad?". What do you guys
recommend?
They generally don't go bad. I've had my Metcal for ten years...I
did low-volume commercial assembly with it for a while; I've probably
soldered a thousand PCBs with it, mostly surface mount. It was used
when I got it.
It replaced a Weller WTCPT (I second Tim's recommendation) that was easily twenty years old when I got it, and I used
it for another
fifteen.
Another thing about real soldering equipment. Once you use a
temperature-controlled iron, you'll never go back to one that isn't.
Agreed. I tememebr trying to use a friends cheapo iron to repair some bit
of hardware. After failing to desolder a connection from the ground plane
I went home and grabbed my Weller. After that, the repair went very easily.
-tony