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Old 8th Nov 2019, 9:22 pm   #13
Radio Wrangler
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Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: Fife, Scotland, UK.
Posts: 22,801
Default Re: Soldering Iron For PCB's

As a schoolkid, I had a 15W Antex always in my inner pocket of my blazer. I was playing mostly with valves. It was awful, but that's what I thought all soldering irons were like.

At uni, the toolkits in the lab had antexes so that's what I used there. No better!

I then had a period as a student at HP. The first day, I was led down to stores and issued with a toolbox and all the usual hand tools... and a brand new Weller TCP1 setup. Good grief it was good. There was no going back.

I let it be known I wanted to collect dead irons, so failed ones being replaced were passed to me instead of the bucket. After a while I had built one good iron out of the bits. My junk box turned up a 24v 3A transformer which got mounted in a tupperware sort of commercial mayonnaise tub. Not pretty, but I was on the road. I now had the power to do hefty joints quickly instead of stewing things slowly, and it didn't get too hot for light work.

Scour amateur radio rallies and look at club stands, look under the stalls in the junk rummage boxes. Find yourself one or a few Weller TCP 1 irons and make up a good one. A bit of effort and a bit of luck and you can get one going cheaply. Look out for a transformer with a meaty 24v secondary or a suitable tap. It'll do instead of a Weller base.

If all you've used are hobbyist irons, you won't know what's hit you. Life will have got an awful lot easier.

Now for Metcals:

I have two. I use one in each hand under a stereo microscope for SMT work. All they cost me were the bits, though those are about £18 apiece.

Metcal bases, the power units are very expensive indeed. But they are also staggeringly unreliable. This doesn't sound good, does it?. People leave soldering irons on all day. Metcals are designed to be switched on right before soldering and straight off afterwards. Tey heat in only a few seconds. They are intended to let you swap a tip and be going again in under 10 seconds. Leave one on as a habit, and the base will die. Firms chuck out dead bases
So here is an opportunity for someone who can do a bit of electronic repair. The base unit supplies up to 70W at 13.5MHz into a nominal 75 Ohm load and throttles back the power into a mismatch. The use international rectifier hexfets as their power amp stages and that's all they usually need to get them going. Schematics are on the web.

So don't believe these things are too expensive. Collect some dead junk and hit it with some thought and engineering. You can have a dream setup for little cost. It will take time, but keep word out and keep your eyes open. You wouldn't want to miss an opportunity.

David
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