I went out and bought a $20 cordless "cold" soldering iron today from Radio Shack. I figured it would come in handy working on DDI with. Sadly I must say this thing sucks.
The tip has two contact points, when they hit a conductor they create a circuit and a ton of juice goes through it. This makes the conductor really hot really fast and thusly melts solder onto it. After atempting to use it for a good five minutes, I went and grabbed one of our temp controlled soldering irons.
if you're working with something small, like a 2mm end of a tiny copper wire, getting the two contact points on the tip of the cordless iron to touch is extremely annoying. And when you think you've got it and see small sparks appear, as soon as you bring some solder down, you lose the contact and it's cold again.
Anyone played with any cordless soldering irons that don't suck?
The tip has two contact points, when they hit a conductor they create a circuit and a ton of juice goes through it. This makes the conductor really hot really fast and thusly melts solder onto it. After atempting to use it for a good five minutes, I went and grabbed one of our temp controlled soldering irons.
if you're working with something small, like a 2mm end of a tiny copper wire, getting the two contact points on the tip of the cordless iron to touch is extremely annoying. And when you think you've got it and see small sparks appear, as soon as you bring some solder down, you lose the contact and it's cold again.
Anyone played with any cordless soldering irons that don't suck?
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Better cordless soldering iron?
Tue, May 29, 2007 - 1:59 PMstay away from toys ---
wsta3 is what i have used -- great stuff
i haven't ttried the wst2
i don't know the others -- but weller i would think would not put out junk
www.lashen.com/vendors/Co..._solder.asp
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Re: Better cordless soldering iron?
Mon, July 2, 2007 - 10:04 PMI have one of those, and it is next to useless. In a pinch, I have used a propane torch to heat up a small titanium rod and used it to solder. Steel would surely work also, but it'll transfer heat to your hand faster. Just don't use 'loominum, it transfers heat super fast and when you get it too hot, it crumbles.
I've seen cordless butane powered soldering irons, but never tried one.
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Re: Better cordless soldering iron?
Tue, July 10, 2007 - 4:05 PMThe Butane ones work really well but use heat sink clamps with them or you will be frying components like resistors...
www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...item.taf
If you are not sure about the heatsink clamps, they are like a little tiny spring loaded tweezer with heavy lead jaws and you put one on each side of the component so the thermal heat is absorbed there instead of in the other components... -
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Re: Better cordless soldering iron?
Mon, July 23, 2007 - 4:30 AMI got one of those "Cold soldering irons" they sell on infomercials for Christmas. The tip broke quickly and is not easy to replace. May work in some situation, but the fragility of the contact points is a definite design defect.
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