Solder iron recommendations

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Douglasr

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My soldering iron has died and I am seeking recommendations for its replacement. I do light to medium jobs, the toughest being soldering tabs on rechargeable battery rebuilds. Anybody have any current favorites? Thanks
 
Hi Douglasr,
Weller irons is pretty much what i have in my toolbox and in my service truck,
but i have a SPC Technologies digital bench soldering station that i do most of my soldering with at the shop

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I'll second the Weller irons, particularly the older TCP (Temperature Controlled Pencil) - simple and reliable, you can select the temperature range you want (by fitting different tips, different Curie points to operate / not operate the magnetic switch) and there are lots of tips/temperatures to choose from. I have 4 of 'em, even one dedicated to plastics welding :)
I've been using them for nearly 50 years and have never had one fail, other than one that got crushed...

Dave H. (the other one)
 
Rechargeable batteries need spot welding but can be soldered.

If soldered you heed real hot and real clean iron to allow fast heat transfer and solder flow to get it soldered before the battery gets hot.

Anything Weller is good stuff.

For actual soldering on the batteries themselves a helper of good fix turning to hold the matériel with pre-tinning of the conductors and batteries with a Weller 250 watt GUN.

Having the tip clean and get it hot which only takes seconds then touch battery with iron and solder for maybe a quarter second to tin it.

Place and hold tinned conductor on battery and repeat with the iron to solder it.

A large iron also works but too hard to keep tip correctly clean and it takes too long to get hot.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk
 
Ah, this discussion brings back fond memories of the Allied Radio catalog and Weller 8200 soldering guns of my mis-spent childhood, and the smell of rosin core flux wafting hither and yon. <sigh> And I was amazed when the radio shop guys I haunted in my youth showed me how to make my own tips out of 12-gauge copper house wire. A miracle!

You can't go wrong with Weller - I still have two W-TCP units (and what is I think my original 8200 somewhere) but replacing the tips or replacing the whole shebang got way too spendy for my pocketbook. Sadly, the Asian units are quite good and at about $25 per complete station they last a year or so and can be thrown away without much remorse.

Check eBay and search for '936B' and 'soldering' and a bunch of pretty decent clones of the Hakko solder station will turn up. Thermostatically controlled and adjustable, fast heating and mucho cheap-o.

The tips are cheap also - but with the new-fangled lead-free solder they need to be a bit hotter and oxidize faster so don't last as long as you'd like. If you can stay with 63/37 solder you'll be much happier.

Regarding NiCad batteries - there's a rather corrosive but miraculous flux (used to be marketed under the name 'Sal-Met') that will almost solder anything to anything with tin-lead solder. I've used it with great success on battery terminals. just clean the bejeesus out of it after soldering to neutralize the flux. The 'Sal-Met' flavor of flux now seems to be marketed by Esab as All-State #509: Soldering Flux for Aluminum and Dissimilar Metals.

Just my $.02

Stu
 
My go to soldering iron is a butane powered unit by Porta Sol. The convenience of not having a cord is a handy when doing trailer wiring and repairs out of the shop. I have used it for everything from antique radio repair to plastic welding. It has multiple tips and an adjustable heat range
They are available on Amazon and I'm sure other vendors. Portasol 010589330 Super Pro 125-Watt Heat Tool Kit with 7 Tips
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gr8legs said:
Regarding NiCad batteries - there's a rather corrosive but miraculous flux (used to be marketed under the name 'Sal-Met') that will almost solder anything to anything with tin-lead solder. I've used it with great success on battery terminals. just clean the bejeesus out of it after soldering to neutralize the flux. The 'Sal-Met' flavor of flux now seems to be marketed by Esab as All-State #509: Soldering Flux for Aluminum and Dissimilar Metals.

Just my $.02

Stu
Click to expand...

For those of us in the UK, "Baker's Fluid" liquid flux will do much the same - but it's corrosive (Zinc Chloride based) so needs clean-up afterwards and shouldn't be used on stranded copper connections (it gets in betweenthe strands and corrodes the wires away...)
It's about the best there is (afaik) for Tinman's work, soldering up tanks etc.

Dave H. (the other one)
 
I like the 40 watt basic weller iron that's available at any box hardware store. A nice feature is the led lights. I believe that they even have a 80w version. I have a more expensive weller station with variable temp and a low watt hakko for tiny stuff but the basic 40w iron is what I tend to use for 99% of my needs.
 
Weller WTCP for small wires and for big wires a propane torch with the big copper chisel tip attachment
 
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