If the first attempt at making a drawing board had been a failure, what would they go back to?
-- Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ "A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
-
p,
tage
I use a second-hand Metcal STSS power unit with a new MX-500 handpiece and cartridges. It cost me =A3125, including six cartridges.
Leon
that is
be
You can, but i have proper butane powered soldering tools already.
I believe that Xytronics is a based in Taiwan, not mainland China. At any rate, sadly it seems that even Weller is making things in Mexico these days.
So far it is holding up well. Time will tell.
I once needed to resolder a single wire to the cassette player motor in a friend's car. It was incredulous to me to find out that, despite his having an EE degree, he did not, at that time, own a soldering iron. So, I used a couple alligator clip test leads, a steel nail, and the car's 12V battery to "point-resolder" the wire. The stereo was of course disconnected and insulated from the car chassis before attempting this. It worked like a charm and it's still working last I heard. LOL.
Mike Shell
Years ago I bought a cheap soldering gun (god only knows why!), a few weeks later someone donated a nearly new genuine Weller - I can't recall ever having used either!
Yes I remember when Weller irons were worth having (a very long time ago).
A company I worked for bought out a competitor and dumped all the stuff they didn't want in a spare loading bay with a sign; "help yourself". - I grabbed a large box of Weller irons that had been taken apart and not put back together.
That collection lasted me many years, but as the spares got older and scruffier it got harder to maintain a reliable iron - so I bought a brand new one.
By this time Weller had become Cooper Tools and quality had gone down the gurgler. In the new iron, the thermostat went S/C in less than 2 weeks - Cooper Tools sent me a replacement FOC - which lasted almost a month before going S/C and burning out the element.
After buying a new element, I decided not to let that happen again, so I modified an old stat with an opto-interrupter to detect the position of the curie-magnet pushrod. With suitable circuitry to control a triac in the base unit I got a few more years out of it before the cheaper plating on the tip caused a tip to burst with copper oxide inside the element tube - making it impossible to remove without destroying the element.
The only problems I've had with Antex irons is the very fine element wire can be susceptible if your local supply has bad spikes - but it wasn't just irons suffering damage until I installed spike suppressors.
110V versions would probably be much more robust in this regard.The other problem is they can snap if dropped, but the only time I've had that happen, the lead was coiled up around the handle.
They are not bad for checking EMI immunity. ;-)
I used Weller guns for decades, back in the tube days. I bought the first in '66 and still have a couple. I put a 12 foot coiled AC cord on one of them that was kept at the bench. They were used on service calls where you didn't have time to wait for a soldering iron to heat up, then cool down.
I also have a Wen soldering gun like this:
-- Greed is the root of all eBay.
Jim's stone tablets and chisels, of course! ;-)
-- Greed is the root of all eBay.
On a sunny day (Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:36:53 -0500) it happened Spehro Pefhany wrote in :
I did that by switching the Weller on/off, one could make a PC crash with it. (back EMF transformer). I have a much better one now:
The other thing is I used Weller tips at 370°C, but now I solder 60/40 with
320°C, tips live longer.
For the price it sounds good. Looks like it has a small handle, but my Weller may be smaller, and its 80 WATTS.
greg
I have never before owned a soldering station with a temperature control. What's the best setting (60%Sn/40%Pb)? ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Better to use 63Sn 37Pb (eutectic) rather than 60/40-- it doesn't go through 'mushy' on the way from liquid to solid.
I generally use around 600°F. The WES51 auto-shutoff is a nice feature compared to the older WTCPN- it detects inactivity and shuts down after a delay.
My all-time favorite is a Weller EC1302B iron, next choice is the EC1201 for the larger stuff. There are several stations that will run these irons. You can still get cord sets, temp sensors and heating elements as replaceable parts for the irons. The tips are ingeniously simple and quite durable. I don't like their platings as much for lead-free, they need a lot of re-tinning.
But, these are getting quite obsolete, too, so I am moving over to the Weller WSL box and the WMP micro pencil. The tips are reasonable, the heat flow is pretty awesome, I go from 0.4 mm lead pitch micro soldering to fooling with wide ground planes and such with the same iron.
I demand a digital temp readout, so cheapy stations are not useful to me. You can get good stuff on eBay with a little patience.
Jon
Whew, glad you are coming in from the dark ages! I generally use 650 F for general work, but in cases of really fragile boards or parts, will turn it down to 600 F. 63/37 solder melts at 424 F, but you need to account for thermal resistance in the tip and heat sink effects at the joint. Also, it is often better to run the iron a bit hotter and get the soldering work done quickly than run the iron at the bare minimum temp and have to heat the joint for a LONG time to get the solder to melt.
For lead-free work, I have to run the iron at about 700 F for light stuff, and 750 where heavy traces and power components sink the heat away.
Jon
From the mid '60's onward I always had a technician, so I did very little soldering, except maybe patching a breadboard.
So my own tools see rare use only for my "G-job" projects.
Not that I've lost the skills... I hung out in my Dad's TV repair shop from around age 12, and I tech'd in MIT's Building 20 MHD Lab for 4 years for income needs not covered by my scholarship.
I have several BIG spools of 60/40 dating from late '80's ;-) ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Jon Elson wrote in news:rJ-dnRBALPtwIeDWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
no,it melts at 361.4 degF
from
The 63/37 ratio is notable in that it is a eutectic mixture, which means: It has the lowest melting point (183 °C or 361.4 °F) of all the tin/lead alloys; and The melting point is truly a point ? not a range.
-- Jim Yanik jyanik at localnet dot com
snip
I'm quite happy with a ws80, I like the compact handle. If I could find some specs on the tempsensor I'd build a controller for it so I could use it with a laptop power supply. would fit nicely in the bag with the laptop.
though I guess pointy things like that will be trouble in the airport
-Lasse
I generally use 750 F. Hotter than that, you can't keep the tip clean, and cooler than that, you cook parts if they're at all large.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal ElectroOptical Innovations 55 Orchard Rd Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 845-480-2058 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
I can handle Mexico. If you have to off-shore, Mexico has major advantages over China. For one thing, the time zones aren't so displaced. So phone calls or travel are not big events. When you deal with Asia, it can be very open loop.
Taiwan is also OK. They seem to understand QA.
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