Metcal iron models

I can't speak about the Metcals other than that the brand is really good, have used them at clients a lot. However, I'd strongly advise to avoid building your own prototypes if you can. Especially at our age where the eyes just aren't 20:20 anymore.

Unfortunately the small businesses that do hand-solder prototyping are over 100 miles away and the local ones have croaked, probably your state is as "biz-friendly" as ours in that respect. So, nowadays I urge my clients to farm out prototyping. This company did a great job for us:

On the last run we had them build five units so we have enough to play with, plus several dozen bare boards for future runs. They even purchased all the parts. IOW you really just toss them the keys. All I did was solder on very few through-hole parts because they had to be in exact mounting locations that I didn't know at the time we placed the order.

Hello Phil--

I've been using the PS-900 soldering stations for about a year now, and I find that these are quite good for "general" SMT RoHS-compliant work:

I've been soldering components as small as 0603 using these stations.

Note that this iron has Metal technology for a less expensive price. It is a fairly good unit, but be warned that the front power button and back AC receptacle can become slightly loose over time.

For particularly small components, I would get a higher-end Metcal. I've heard that most Metcal irons are quite good. A better criterion for picking one should include availability of tips and handles for the technology that you are working with.

I don't think that you'll have problems with any of the Metcals. Pick one that you can obtain, and make sure that tips are available (and will be available) for quite a few years.

Nicholas

P.S. I just ordered the second edition of your new book on optical systems. It's now sitting on my desk. IMHO, it's very well written!

Thanks. Read it in good health!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Say Phil,

Could you provide a paragraph or two blurb on what's changed between the two editions of your book?

Thanks,

---Joel

It's completely revised. There's about 100 pages' worth of new material(*), but not so many new topics. A lot of things are explained starting from a more elementary level, e.g. the signal processing and electronic subsystem design chapters, where the first edition went over a fair number of people's heads completely. So the new edition explains decibels, for instance, and spends a lot of time on similar sorts of elementary confusions, for instance in diffraction theory. I didn't dumb anything down, just added little ramps for folks who weren't otherwise able to get there. A decade's worth of emails and phone calls made it pretty clear where they were needed.

I put in a lot of things I learned in the interim, e.g. how to make really sensitive, low resolution pyroelectric cameras for very cheap, more material on sources and detectors, and a fair amount more on weird and wonderful front ends.

I was going to have a mechanical design chapter too, but as it turned out I spent most of the intervening decade doing plasmonic antenna devices, and didn't do any mechanical things at all. Thus I didn't have much to say that wasn't just parroting Yoder and Vukobratovich, which wouldn't have been too useful.

Of course at this point I'm hip deep in optomechanics, so maybe it'll make the third edition!

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

(*) Wiley switched to a smaller font, so the book is only 40 pages or so longer. And of course it has the now-obligatory astronomical constellations on the cover. ;)

Thanks Phil, sounds like a worthwhile "upgrade!"

Metcal MX series. Fifteen years ago is was challenged at a show to solder a penny to a Copper clad board. The tip was unimpressively small. Based on past experience I did not think that it was possible. I took up the challenge and was so impressed that I bought the demo model on the spot. It was the last day of the show. I still have it and it still works.

Some "tips"

Occasionally the tip will fail or go intermittent. A sharp tap on the tube housing, just behind the tip will often restore it. Metcal will exchange flaky tips as long as the iron plating is not warn off.

My stand is cast aluminum. I discovered that if I am sloppy, I bump the small tip into the stand and bend it. I have silicone rubber sheet and as soon as I can find a suitable adhesive I will line the front end of the stand with it. BTW Silicone rubber baking sheet is solder proof.

Question. Does anyone have Iron electroplating recipe? I would like to restore some worn tips. I tried Google but all I get is how the electroplate on Iron not with Iron.

-- Boris

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third hit searching for "iron plating soldering iron" on google:

-Lasse

I know metcals are great but what package can be soldered with a metcal and not a regular weller etc. ?

-Lasse

With the appropriate-sized Weller, probably nothing. Metcals are nice in that there's virtually no warm-up time and you can use the, e.g., ~100W base to solder everything from tiny little components (that normally you'd want to use a small 15-30W traditional iron for) to something beefy that requires all 100W (whereas you wouldn't want to use a traditional 100W iron to solder 0603s). Hence you're primarily buying versatility and convenience, but there's certainly nothing wrong with traditional Wellers either.

(Traditional soldering irons are relatively slow to respond, thermally, and hence use an appropriate-sized chunk of metal as a heat resevior. Metcals have a high-bandwidth [well, relative to heating coils] 13.56MHz power supply and hence require very little in the way of a heat resevior, which is why you can use them on tiny parts as well as big parts.)

Weller has done a good job in the past decade of bringing down their prices... something like this:

---Joel

TSSOPs, for a start. Metcal makes really pointy tips that don't go cold on you the way the long skinny Weller ones do.

SOICs are no problem with the Weller--you just stagger the pins like saw teeth.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Thank you.

-- Boris

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seems most try to solder like this:

-Lasse

Yeah, but those are SOICs. And I'm doing dead-bug anyway. Entertaining with SMT!

Cheers

Phil

I use a second-hand STSS power unit with an MX-500 handpiece and cartridges, they cost me =A3125 (GBP). They should be quite cheap now that the current top of the range model is the MX-5000.

Leon

For SMT use you only need to look at the 13.56MHz range ( the one that uses STTC and SMTC seroes tips)

MX-500 and STSS-002 are the 'basic' supplies - the only difference is the 500 has 2 switchable outputs (for 2 irons - can't use both at once though.)

The brand-new MX-5000 has higher output power, giving even faster warm-up ( about 20secs from cold on a small tip), and a built-in power display.

I think the 5000 may be replacing the 500

The other big plus is the very small tip-to-hand distance, giving very good ergonomics.