Soldering tips?

[sled_dog]

Its this pen soldering iron thats is cordless. You touch it to metal and it instantly heats up so you can solder. Take it off, touch it to your finger and its already cold. No idea how it works, just see the commercials on TV all the time.

 

[gravdigr]

It uses 2 pieces of carbon graphite for the tip with a small gap between the pieces. When you bridge the connection with metal the carbon heats up rapidly with very little power. We used to burn our name into our shop tables in tech school using a 12v power supply and a couple pieces of lead from a mechanical pencil using the same theory as the cold heat iron. Here is a review from a friend of mine that does a lot of electronics projects...

gravdigr wrote:
Lemme know your thoughts on the cold heat soldering iron. It was reviewed on TSS (rest in peace) and Yoshi didn't seem impressed. You always give good information when you 'review' an item.


My succinct review is that it is a piece of ****.

I've been spending the last 15 minutes just trying to tin some wire and it ain't happening. So I tried to solder the wire straight to a circuit board. Ain't happening - it just doesn't transfer the heat well among three surfaces (the solder, the wire, the board).

Since I actually want to finish my project today, I broke out the old soldering iron and will be retiring the Cold Heat. For all I know, it fixes jewelry in some incredibly awesome way, but it sucks for electronics. (Based on my experience today, anyway.)

I've read a few sites and it sounds like maybe my technique is just wrong for using the CH. I have another electronics project coming up soon (some guy is paying me $200 to build him one of these), so I'll try it again. But I was really impatient today.
_________________

I guess it might just come down to personal preference.

 

[diesel4me]

old school

I saw an article in an old popular mechanics magazine how to solder using a car battery,a pencil sharpened on both ends,with wire wrapped around one end and the negative wire on the workpeice!--they showed them soldering a radiator with it,and said it worked great!...I am skeptical of the new "cold heat" soldering guns--I'm going to wait until someone with more disposable income than I buys one,and see how it works for them--I'll stick with my trusty old Weller gun my dad bought in the 60's..still works perfect!

One thing to remember--DONT use acid core solder left over from that plumbing job on wires--it WILL solder them just fine--but a few weeks later,it WILL be all corroded,and wont conduct squat!--looks like battery acid at the battery terminals!--use ROSIN core on wires!--and resistance wire and some other wires on cars like the O2 sensor are not copper,but some other metal that isnt solder-able!--gotta use "crimp" connectors...I get some grief from my mechanic friends because I like using "wire nuts" on my wiring --they work good for me,espcially on those 10-12 ga wires,when you need to join 2 or 3 together..

 

[CyberSniper]

Get yourself a cheap Weller or RadioJack 100 watt soldering gun kit. I have one from when I was 7 or 8 years old and still use today (I'm on like my 3rd gun though) and I use it for pretty much everything down to 12 gauge. If I'm trying to solder more than 2 wires of 12 gauge or solder anything heavier than that I bust out the 120/200 watt soldering gun I've got. That puppy will burn the insulator off most wires if you're not paying attention. It also weighs more than most small pets.

I never really used a soldering iron until I started doing surface mount stuff. You learn how to be quite deft with a soldering gun if you're impatient and don't want to wait for an iron to warm up.

 

[Grim-Reaper]

Right tool for the job.

I have the following soldering apparatus.

Weller Pyro Pen WSTA3: http://www.cooperhandtools.com/bran...ane Products&att2=Pyropen Irons/Hot Air Tools Butane powered. I use it without tip (open flame) for anything over 18 gage. The trick is to heat for just a couple second and hit it with the solder. If you heat too long you will tool the wires and the solder will not flow.

Weller mini pyro pen. For travel box. Same as above.

Weller 2002 (current similar model is WESD51PU) infinitely adjustable digital solder station. General soldering on bench. for wire 14 gage and smaller.

Metcal MX 500 s-11 ....THE FINEST SOLDER STATION MONEY CAN BUY. http://www.metcal.com/ Instant heat. From cold to soldering in 10 seconds. Fine electronics work. I mean very fine as in use a microscope so you can see what the hell your doing fine. I have tips rated 1/64". There are IC tips that can take 64 pin chips on and off the board in one shot.

Now I have this because I have been doing electronics repair for the last 16 years. When they closed my shop I bought it out. I got a hell of a deal on it too.

Really I think your problem is two fold. You need to learn to tin the iron and possibly a junk iron. 40Watt is a good size iron on the cheap side. That said a butane solder iron might be a better choice. If you are using a soldering tip Clean the tip and retin often. If you don't keep the tip tined you will have poor heat transfer and end up baking the wire an tooling it before you get the solder flowing.

 

[jekquistk5]

Yup grim covered it all. The cold heat iorns dont work worth a crap on anything over 22AWG wire. The gap at the end of the tip(two electrodes) that produce the energy to heat the wire up, is very small, and makes it very difficult to use. Its a cool thing to have, but I wouldn't use it for anything but simple stuff. For everything else I'll just stick to my adjustable weller