28 May
2009
28 May
'09
8:46 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Guilty as charged. I am trying to throw the disposable ones away.
On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 9:01 PM, John Foust <jfoust
at threedee.com> wrote:
Argh, here I thought I was in heaven with the recent WESD51 Weller
purchase I made (yes, I used a a RatShack special for 20 years (1977 -
1997) and a $11.00 RatShack "More Special" for 10 more (97-07), and now
I need to check out Hakko and Metcal.
However, I will defend the lowly RatShack soldering iron:
1) $7-$9.00. Say what you will, but you'll never buy a Metcal if you're
not even sure if you can solder.
2) They are cheap and they often break. It's easier to appreciate the
value of a Weller or Metcal if you've used a RatShack iron.
At 04:55 PM 5/28/2009, Dave McGuire wrote:
That's not _too_ bad, but how many and what kind of tips do you get at
that price.
$100 and one tip would be OK, but I remember prices with an assortment
of tips being closer to $300. Perhaps one side of the supply/demand
equation is more favorable to the buyer now.
I didn't think anything could be better than
my trusty Weller,
until I tried the Metcal.
Looks Metcals go for $100-200 on eBay. Is that expensive?
As a teen in the late 70s, I once tried to
assemble a mail-order
electronics kit but it wouldn't work... I sent it back to the
company for diagnosis and was stung by the hand-written criticism
that "it looks like it was soldered with a hot brick."
I still have a couple of projects I assembled in the late 1970s as a
teen... I used a cheap RatShack pencil iron - they _do_ look like they
were assembled with a hot brick. One is a TVT 6-5/8. I keep meaning
to clean that one up but haven't found the time to do it.