I would say half my soldering days were with Ungar soldering irons, with the screw-in heaters and screw-in tips. They work if you select the right wattage or use a variable triac heat control, or just use the diode trick to reduce wattage to about a third.
greg
That thermostatic action causes a change in the voltage at the tip, making them unsuitable for ESD sensitive components. Microdyne had at least 100 stations in storage, after they were all replaced with Edsyn "Loner" series stations to eliminate their problems. we also set a 3 ohm maximum resistance between the tip, and the ground where the worker's ground strap was connected. The heat and different metals, generated a small DC voltage that goes up, along with the resistance.
I've fixed a lot of those cords, and reused the plugs.
"GregS" wrote in message news:f75s1c$ohl$ snipped-for-privacy@usenet01.srv.cis.pitt.edu...
Ah ... The diode trick ... We used to have a really scruffy worker at one place that I worked as a youth. He used to repair, amongst other things, high power audio line amplifiers on a television distribution network, where vision was fed round on a low frequency carrier, and audio was demodulated, and fed round at audio. You could always tell amps that he had worked on. Most of the print around the output transistors would be missing, and bridged with whatever bits of wire / nails / welding rods that he could lay hands on. We used to say that they had been "Cottle-ised" (his name wasn't actually Cottle, but that's near enough ). Anyway, the irons that the company used were Adcolas. These were clunking great things with a polished bakalite handle. If you were skilled, they could actually be used with surprising delicacy, but in Cottle's hands, it was a poker. One day, when he was out to lunch, we had the brilliant idea of removing the fuse from the plugtop of his bench iron, and soldering a BY127 diode across the holder. This left the iron plenty hot enough to melt solder to tin the tip, but as soon as he applied it to a joint, iron, solder and joint all stuck together like superglue. We all fell about listening to him cursing and banging about. He eventually found the diode, but not before spending the afternoon replacing the element, and checking the mains voltage and the isolation transformer on his bench. We suceeded in pulling the same trick on him at least another twice as I recall, and also did the same to his bench light, which resulted in an annoying 25Hz flicker that he couldn't solve for a couple of days.
Workshops used to be such fun in the 70's. Now it's all legislation and health and safety ... Anybody else have fond memories of long hair, a copy of NME in your back pocket, and workshop tricks ?
Arfa
I wish I could find a source for that nice flexible silicone rubber insulated wire Weller uses on its soldering irons. Andy Cuffe
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com
On Jul 12, 7:31 am, notbob wrote: > On 2007-07-12, Robin wrote: >
My first Weller WTCPN had the connector break like many others. Some folks at ABC changed it to an XLR. On my own, I took a piece of a paper clip (largest size that would fit inside the pin) and soldered it in there around 1982. Still works fine. Had a heater failure but no time to fix it that week and bought a WTCPT also. But I like the Metcal I have at home and at work.
GG
This cable is available here in the UK. e.g.
I fitted one to my 15W Antex some years ago. It's a bit heavy in my opinion (unbalances a small iron) but a big improvement on the old cable (white PVC with notches melted along it ;-)
Mike.
Most Antex irons are available with silicone leads which is similar in size and weight to the PVC type. They cost more, of course.
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required