Politically correct solder is harder to use and has a higher melting point. I asked one of the professionals at the office about it; her answer was to avoid it unless it was required for the job. In other words, for hobby use and for anything else that isn?t sold, stay away from it. Modern components are perfectly happy being soldered with real solder, even though they are made lead-free. I followed that advice and was very happy with the outcome. Meanwhile, 50 watts isn?t all that much when you have a major heat sink. A ground plane may be enough to give you trouble, but I suspect it?s the use of lead free solder that?s the real issue. paul

Rob, I would recommend a temperature controlled iron, such as the Hakko FX888D. I have one and it?s beautiful. It can compensate for soldering large ground planes by detecting the drop in heat and pumping more power to the tip. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11704 <https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11704> Ian

On Sat, 1 Aug 2015, Robert Jarratt wrote: The Weller just didn't have enough thermal mass and a fast enough recovery for the task. While some people prefer the digital readouts and pushbuttons on some of the newer soldering stations, I find older Hakko systems with a temperature control knob to be far easier to use. For a single sided or double sided plated-though board soldered with tin/lead alloy, I usually run a lower temperature somewhere around 600-650F. For a multi-layer board with large ground/power planes, or a board assembled with lead-free solder, 650-700F or slightly higher is often required. I also suggest using traditional tin/lead alloy solder instead of the lead-free stuff. I only use lead-free where I absolutely have to and prefer to use a 63/37 tin/lead alloy even for repairing lead-free boards. Adding tin/lead solder to an existing lead-free joint before desoldering will also lower the melting temperature and help with the desoldering process. It usually isn't advisable to mix tin/lead solder with lead-free solder unless you are going to remove it though as some lead-free alloys do not mix well with traditional tin/lead. When installing new components on a board where you are soldering to areas with a large thermal mass such as a ground or power plane, you might also want to consider using supplemental flux, such as a flux pen (even with through-hole components). The extra flux will help pre-clean the pads and component leads and will allow the solder to wet quicker. A more active RA flux can also help, however if you are working with a multi-layer board with internal ground/power planes (4 layers or more), a no-clean, low-solids rosin, or non-rosin flux might be required since some of those boards can wick a traditional RA or RMA rosin-based flux between the layers which will leave permanent dark spots inside the board.

Am 01.08.15 um 23:24 schrieb Robert Jarratt: Wellers are notorious for this. I had to use various Weller irons at occasion. They all suffered from the same problem: To high thermal resistance between heater and tip. It is a pain to (de)solder to a ground plane, as the heat can't flow from the heater to the tip fast enough. I consider Wellers unusable for this reason. If you wane go with new soldering equipment I highly recommend Metcal, OKi MFR or Thermaltronics. (OKi bought Metcal and sells Metcal technology, Thermaltronics is a Chinese clone of the old Metcal systems after the patents expired. A Thermaltronics TMT-2000S is around ?160 in the UK.) They use a unique inductive heating with Curie effect temperature regulation. I bought a OKi MFR and it is by _far_ the best soldering equipment I used ever. The iron is small and easy to handle, but is able to deliver lots of heat instantaneously if needed. p.s. As others noted: Stay away from lead free solder. It is harder to work with and the fumes from the flux aren't that healthy... -- tsch??, Jochen