Soldering Station - What to Buy?

[Kevin L]

Hi, all.

I've done some soldering in the past (very little) and need to do some on some circuit boards now. Since I won't use it often, I'm not looking to spend a bundle. Any suggestions for a soldering station for occasional circuit board use?

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

This will come down to personal preference depending on skill set and technique.

Weller is the best you can get with Hakko coming to a close second. Stable adjustable temp control is a must.

I have an older Hakko soldering station (Hakko 936-12) with a few different size tips and have had reliable service from it for many years.

As I've aged, I've found I needed a magnifying lamp as an essential piece of gear for soldering boards (of course YMMV).

This will give you professional results. There are some cheaper hand held/pencil type Weller units out there that you can get (with a couple different size tips).

How much were you willing to spend?

Some suggested items you need are:

Soldering Station with a few different size tips
Holder/Base
Magnifying Lens (lighted preferred)
Tip cleaner
Alcohol (for cleaning/board prep)
Flux (I like the liquid over paste)
Flux remover (I like the spray cans)
De-soldering tool

For your convenience I've attached some links for you to look over below. Perhaps others can chime in as well with their experience.

http://www.amazon.co... soldering iron

http://www.amazon.com/Weller-WP25-Professional-25Watts-Soldering/dp/B000B63BTU/ref=sr_1_7?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1350404873&sr=1-7&keywords=weller+soldering+iron

http://www.gotopac.c...tion_s/3893.htm

http://www.amazon.co...pd_sbs_indust_3

http://www.amazon.co...&keywords=hakko

http://www.amazon.co...LOURESCENT LAMP

http://www.amazon.co...n/dp/B000BRC2XU

http://www.amazon.co...esoldering tool

 

[Kevin L]

Thanks, BSR. I just ordered what you recommended, including the Hakko 888 and the PanaVise 201. I appreciate the quick and thorough reply.

Kevin

 

[gatchel]

Pace MBT250... :rockon:

 

[Chassmain]

I ordered one of the Weller WES51 Analog Soldering Stations from Amazon for like 90 bucks a few months ago. Have had pretty good luck with it overall as long as I use a nice fine gauge solder like BSR mentioned.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

One of the things I should have asked is are you going to do any surface mount soldering? Actually, gatchel's suggestion got me to thinking about that option.

 

[az1324]

Aoyue

 

[Kevin L]

Pace MBT250... :rockon:

Wow, are those expensive! At those prices, I'd just hire someone to do the little bit of soldering I'll do.

Kevin

 

[Kevin L]

One of the things I should have asked is are you going to do any surface mount soldering? Actually, gatchel's suggestion got me to thinking about that option.

Probably not, BSR. Mostly through-hole soldering and wiring.

Kevin

 

[drvnbysound]

I've done a little bit of soldering from time to time...

One of the biggest tasks I've taken on was this:

That's the primary gauge cluster from my car. I de-soldered and removed the OEM LEDs and replaced them.

Here is a shot of a dime beside one of the LEDs to compare the size:

From the factory, the interior looked like this: http://imageshack.us...ryinterior4.jpg
With the swap: http://imageshack.us...3216resized.jpg

All that said, I did this with a standard iron from Walmart which I've had for probably 10 years I did pick up a stand to hold some of the smaller boards (e.g. individual switches). I've thought of picking up a soldering station from time to time... However, I've just realized that I wouldn't end up using it as often as my standard one. I do quite a bit of in-car automotive work, and being tethered to the station just wouldn't work well for me...

 

[Kevin L]

Nice work! I like the blue much better, and dislike red lighting in a car, even though red helps night vision better.

Kevin

 

[drvnbysound]

Nice work! I like the blue much better, and dislike red lighting in a car, even though red helps night vision better.

Kevin

Thanks! The primary reason that I didn't care for it was that the exterior of my car is blue... I felt that the red lighting clashed with it. If the exterior would have been red, white, silver, black, etc.. then I would have had no issue with the red, but as it was it just didn't work for me.

 

[tmbrown97]

OK that's determination! Looks great though. Can I mail you all the modules in my suburban that've had the little rice bulb burn out so you can put Blue LED's in there too? B) so many of the steering wheel, door panel, climate, and other buttons have had those stupid little bulbs burn out. I'm so glad LED's are taking over!

 

[drvnbysound]

OK that's determination! Looks great though. Can I mail you all the modules in my suburban that've had the little rice bulb burn out so you can put Blue LED's in there too? B) so many of the steering wheel, door panel, climate, and other buttons have had those stupid little bulbs burn out. I'm so glad LED's are taking over!

Ha! So, I'm a member of a forum for my car as well... after I posted pictures of what I had done I was asked by so many people to do theirs as well. I ended up doing it for the first person who had asked, and it was such a pain! I obviously wanted to make sure that theirs was going to work before I sent it back, which meant I had to remove all of my panels, etc again so that I could plug them in. I told myself that I'd never do it again... and I don't own a Suburban to test yours
Fortunately, about 85% of the lights in my interior were LEDs which meant they were a direct replacement - those were pretty easy. The rest were the incandescent bulbs like you referred to... which is more difficult when you have to find a location to place an in-line resistor to drop the voltage to something the LED can work with... Oddly (to me at least), a large majority of vehicles still seem to use the incandescent bulbs.

BTW, I did do all of those that you mentioned... my A/C cluster (horrible picture, but you can see that they are blue) , switches on the door for the windows, even the little ring of light around the ignition (another bad picture)... if it WAS red, it's not anymore! When I as replacing my rear speakers I also added a plexiglas ring around the speakers, embedded it with LEDs.

 

[Kevin L]

I'm jealous. I wish I could find the time do something like that, especially so well. I've crossed some cars off my shopping in the list because of the dash lighting.

Again, very impressive.

Kevin