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Soldering/Soldering Guns

Drey

Drey

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Man I suck at it...but Im getting better.

Killed my old mans gun sunday night. He had an old weller. Worked good...up until it quit working. So I picked up a blue point monday morning from the "starvin tool guy"

Damn is it nice when a gun heats up in like ten seconds!

Whadda you guys all got?
 
Drey said:
Man I suck at it...but Im getting better.

Killed my old mans gun sunday night. He had an old weller. Worked good...up until it quit working. So I picked up a blue point monday morning from the "starvin tool guy"

Damn is it nice when a gun heats up in like ten seconds!

Whadda you guys all got?
Click to expand...

You sure the gun is bad and not a bad or dirty tip? When the tips become pretty full of solder they take a LONG time to heat up. You should pull the trigger and wait for 20-30 seconds then while holding the trigger run a wire brush ofer the tip to clean it.
 
I put a new tip in it...after the holding the trigger for a minute and a half you could still touch the tip bare fingered and it was no warmer then room temp. I didnt toss it Im sure dad will tear it appart and piddle with it to get it going again somehow.
 
I suck too. There is a thread in here already i think about guns though.

I just bought the Powerbuilt gun style at kragen's 50% tool sale. Probably not the weller, but $8.50 instead of 40+, i'll give it a shot. Haven't really tried to solder since i was in an electronics class at about age 10. And even then, i quickly skipped soldering, tied my wires together, and heat shrunk. Instructors couldn't inspect mine fast enough to realize i never soldered them
 
I've got a couple.. big D650 Weller... and a couple butane pen style ones for out on the boats...
 
No guns for me. T130K is what I have. Butane pen style setup. Had it for years now. I was always TERRIBLE at soldering until I bought that thing. I was just too impatient to get proper heat I now realize. I used to thaw the lock on my big truck when it freezes up too, ha. I love going from soldering to heat shrinking in a matter of moments(as long as your fingers are thick skinned).
 
I have a Weller WES51 bench top unit that works awsome for most jobs. It has interchangale tips and controllable heat. It can handle big jobs and still have the precision to re-solder programable proms on the ECU's memcals.

I have used, but do not like the soldering guns. They actually get too hot and are too big and clumsy to do good work for general wiring. They defently have their place for bigger/heavy guage jobs. You will have best results from a pencil type tool like the Weller SP40L. It is 40watts, which is plenty for most things we need to do.
With the soldering guns, they get too hot and actually burn the flux. That results in a messy job. The key is to use the soldering iron to heat the wires, then add solder to the wires to melt. Another problem with the guns is that they are always on and off. It is hard to get a good constant temp with them.

Good luck,
 
sled_dog said:
No guns for me. T130K is what I have. Butane pen style setup. Had it for years now. I was always TERRIBLE at soldering until I bought that thing. I was just too impatient to get proper heat I now realize. I used to thaw the lock on my big truck when it freezes up too, ha. I love going from soldering to heat shrinking in a matter of moments(as long as your fingers are thick skinned).
Click to expand...

x2. Been using Big ol Weller for a long time and once you go butane you wont go back! electric pencil style is still good for small electronics though (circuit boards and such)
 
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