what watt soldering iron would you reccomend?

MrDude_1 · Post by **MrDude_1** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:11 am

what watt soldering iron should i buy to assemble my megasquirt?

the choices i have are 15,20,30, and 40.. what one would work best for me?

TT350chevelle · Post by **TT350chevelle** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:22 am

You can assemble your MS with a simple Radio Shack iron. I bought a cheap station with 2 heat settings (40 and 25 watt) and it worked OK, but since then there was a group purchase of a very nice, high quality station that alot of members joined in on, as a matter afact they still might offer a bit of a price break to the MS members.Anybody remember the details? Heres the iron http://www.howardelectronics.com/xytronic/379.html
it looks like it's on sale too!

Brad J.

porschespeed · Post by **porschespeed** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 8:59 am

If you are looking at never using it again, something in a 20-30 watt pencil tip style iron will be fine and cheap.

If you want to use this things for years to come and be able to get a multitude of tips and such, a station unit such as the unit TT350Chevelle suggested is probably the way to go.

I have a variety of pencil irons, a coupla guns (Rat Shack and Weller, the Rat Shack is almot 30 years old now, bought it as a kid), and one Weller soldering station. They all have a purpose, but I use the Weller station the most (~$50).

Greg

MrDude_1 · Post by **MrDude_1** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 9:34 am

thank you for the link..
ive assembled stuff since i was in high school, but i never had a choice on irons... i just called my old high school electronics teacher, and he informed me that the ones we used to use in class were 30watt... im going to buy a 30 watt one since thats what im used to.

that station thing looks neat though. i like how you can turn it up for big things, and down for smaller jobs....

Rich Jones · Post by **Rich Jones** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 11:21 am

30w is enormous!!!

I used 12w with a pointed tip. Always do for fine work. I wouldn't go over 15w, its just too difficult to get a good neat solder..

Jeff20B · Post by **Jeff20B** » Mon Sep 13, 2004 12:31 pm

I used a 15 watt on the MS. My old 30 watt would have been too much.

Rodney Sparks · Post by **Rodney Sparks** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:07 am

I use a $7 25W iron. It might be overkill for some of the electronic components (I just move quickly, I guess), but it barely gets the job done when it comes to soldering 14-gauge wire to the harness. It takes a little bit of time for the heat to penetrate through that large mass. Has anyone soldered wires this large with one of the smaller irons?

I should probably get a smaller iron for PCB stuff, so I don't end up lifting a trace or something...

-Rodney

vrg3 · Post by **vrg3** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:24 am

I bought this iron a couple of years ago and have had a great experience:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl ... er=370-340

The tip is fine enough for light surface mount work, the heating element is adjustable to get hot enough for pretty big work, and it was inexpensive. I actually found a stand to go with it at the dollar store.

Oh, and this cheap 12-volt iron is handy to have around too:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl ... er=370-330

slappala · Post by **slappala** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 5:34 am

I just bought new tip for my 40W and used light dimmer to control the heat how I wanted..

. Works nice and you can adjust the tip temp rouchly how you want it. Nice and cheap system worth about 15$.. 40W is too much otherwise..IÃ‚Â´m not going to weller station yet..this works nicely for random work. Plus you can use the dimmer on normal lights etc. when not using it with the welder...

Rodney Sparks · Post by **Rodney Sparks** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 5:56 am

slappala wrote:I just bought new tip for my 40W and used light dimmer to control the heat how I wanted.. . Works nice and you can adjust the tip temp rouchly how you want it. Nice and cheap system worth about 15$.. 40W is too much otherwise..IÃ‚Â´m not going to weller station yet..this works nicely for random work. Plus you can use the dimmer on normal lights etc. when not using it with the welder...

Great idea! If I don't get around to getting a nice Weller station, maybe I'll try this. However, you can't beat the availability of nice tips for the Weller...

-r