I bought this thing.
It has setting to adjust but it does NOT maintain anything like a set temperature.
I left it on one night at the 300 setting.
When I woke up the next day and say that it was on, I noticed that the tip was slightly glowing.
I now use it to melt holes in plastic, pvc, melt a hole thru fabric, etc.
Andy
300 Celsius, that's 572 Fahrenheit.
The elements in our electric oven sure glow at temperatures lower than
572 degrees F. 60 watts is sort of, too much.
You're not supposed to leave them on overnight!
Yes, more than double. 15W to 25W is ideal for electronics.
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I ain't no x-spurt, but 300 Celsius is 573 Kelvin and that is light at a wavelength of ~5,000+ nanometers and human vision is generally accepted to be 400-750 so 5,000 is outside the range of humans.
The electric oven has relatively small volume heating elements that are expected to heat a large area quickly so have to get into the visible range to do it.
It may be that it isn't actually temperature controlled but the dial simply adjusts the power level. If you have a mains power meter you can check quite easily as the control will just vary the current but it will never shut off at temperature.
I got a
-- Regards - Rodney Pont The from address exists but is mostly dumped, please send any emails to the address below e-mail rpont (at) gmail (dot) com
I bet they don't. The oven is set at a lower temperature but the heating elements get much hotter than that otherwise they would never be able to get the volume of air up to 572.
-- Regards - Rodney Pont The from address exists but is mostly dumped, please send any emails to the address below e-mail rpont (at) gmail (dot) com
It depends on the iron. For the simple ones probably. They just depend on heat loss in air to the amount of power they draw to hold the temperature close to what you want.
For a good temperature controled iron 60 watts is fine. You set it for the temperature you want. The small tips for the printed circuit and especially the SMD work loose heat very fast, so they need more power to bring it back up when the tip is touched to the work.
Install indoor fire sprinklers immediately. You can use the iron to solder the copper pipe.
Well that'll learnya. What do you think you get for ten bucks ? The knob, d o you REALLY think there is a thermostat under there connected to a thermal sensor near the tip ? NOOO, that is a rheostat. Those temperatures were ca lculated by someone who may know math but not all the variables.
They always said to use a low wattage iron on circuit boards. Well I used a Weller 8200 gun, 100/140 watts. As I soldered I turned it on and off with the trigger, maintaining the temperature I wanted.
Now my iron is about 60 watts I think but it is thermostatically controlled . Your iron can be five million watts if the temperature is properly regula ted. Of course if you're a real idiot you could burn through a board faster with a temperature controlled higher power iron, but I doubt that's in the warranty.
[just noticed my iron was still on, hmmm]So I thik I paid like $60 for mine which is pretty good I think. Friend of mine paid a hundred and change for a Hakko which is a VERY good brand. I go t an elcheapo but it is a good elcheapo. When it hits the dust I guess I'll have to go with the Hakko because I want it to work right. I need to effec tively solder these boards without damage and I need what I need.
Tell you what, rather than that piece of shit, just get the absolute cheape st thing Hakko has and it will be orders of magnitude better. You'll love i t. I've used them.
Yeah they don't invest a lot of money on those things. But, if el-cheapo hot-melt glue guns can incorporate a thermostat, it is conceivable that a cheap soldering iron may.
Snap-action (bi-metallic) thermostats have come a long way since they were first introduced. My $10 coffee maker has one that manages to do a pretty damn good job of brewing and heating coffee.
I used those in the old days when I wired to tube sockets and terminal strips. They are worse than useless today IMO.
60W is what I use for stained glass soldering. 40 Watts is over-kill for electronics except for some HD stuff.Hexacon irons are a little out of my price range these days, but I built a little iron holder with a modified lamp dimmer to control the power and it works very well. Low setting barely melts solder so I can leave it on for hours and have it ready quickly if I need to solder. On a high setting it can burn the tip in an hour.
Things have changed for soldering equipment over the years. At one time the soldering irons for electronic work (especially PC boards) were not very temperature controlled. You bought a certanin wattage and that kept the temperature to reasonable levels. It was all about how much heat vers wattage that would be produced in still air. As things progressed the irons started having temperature sensors in them. You could then dial in the temperature you wanted. The larger the wattage, the better the iron could maintain that temperature when doing the actual soldering.
A 60 watt iron that is temperature controlled is very useful for PC and SMD work.
As a hobbiest I bought one of the hot air rework stations off ebay. They are about $ 60 now and have a hot air wand and soldering iron. They are temperature controlled. It is ok for home use and works ok. It is not the quality of the Hakos but it is way less expensive. If I had a job that used the station very much I would go for the better quality ones, but the $ 60 one works well for home use.
My soldering iron tip runs at 700 F. It doesn't glow, even with the lights out.
George H.
No, it won't. It needs something of the order of 1,000 - 1,200 degrees C to glow (I think).
-- Regards - Rodney Pont The from address exists but is mostly dumped, please send any emails to the address below e-mail rpont (at) gmail (dot) com
glow becomes visible at about 600C / 1100F
-- When I tried casting out nines I made a hash of it.
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