This Hobby Is Actually Useful!

[Jochen Kunz]

Am 01.08.15 um 23:24 schrieb Robert Jarratt:
> PS A related question. I struggled somewhat with the Weller Magnastat No. 8
> tip, when trying to solder leads to the ground plane, I could not get the
> solder to stay molten very long.
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...
-- 

tschüß,
       Jochen