Soldering Iron

oops that page didn't give the price. It is $65

Here is the page with the price

Hi Chris, Since you are asking, the unit you link has specs more than suitable for what you need. They make a comparison to a Weller, for a few bucks more you can have a Weller. In my opinion I would buy the Weller. Something like this one:

I haven't used one of those, but I recently bought one of these:

any approval?? don't see it in the spec sheet. rw

I have a very similar iron and would recommend it to anyone. There are two variants over here (UK), one with a straight digital temperature readout and the other with a LED bar-graph. Spares are easy to come by and I haven't had to replace a tip in several years of use. Throw away the sponge though and get some form of brass turnings tip cleaner and/or one of those tinning pots made by Multicore.

Treat yourself. Hobbyist need good tools just the same as the professionals. I ran a large maintenance organisation for many years and if I could have thrown those crappy 'Curie Point' switch Wellers out of the window I would have done so but the military supply chain had standardised on them.

Cheers - Joe

Chris,

While the price is attractive and it might be a great deal, there are a few things that bother me about the specs.

1. No approvals listed.
2. No ESD (maximum tip voltage to ground) spec.
3. No temperature stability spec.
4. They don't know much about soldering iron care if they think you should use emery cloth and alcohol to clean the tips.

I've used Weller/Ungar stuff in the past, but now I would go with a Hakko soldering station. You would pay a bit more ($90 or so) for a 936-12 ESD safe station but you definitely know what you are getting. It doesn't have the direct temperature readout, but you don't really need that for hobby work. Specs for 936-12 are at

you should take a look at this

www.noullogan.home.ro/logan/index.htm

it is awesome

Thanks for the suggestion. That sounds like a better solder station than the one I was looking at and I found it for under $80. Not a bad deal so I added it to my wish list. Hopefully I will get it for Christmas if I don't decided to buy it for myself sooner :)

This model is available through Marlin P. Jones as stock # 15845-TL for $46.95.

John