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Nice soldering station, Breaktru. I'm sure you will enjoy it. Weller certainly is one of the best irons you can buy. One thing you might want to consider is using a low abrasive tip cleaner rather than the wet sponge. You can find it on the Jameco site, part # 156777. Comes with a weighted base that won't slide around and the brass "Brillo pad". Several advantages with the brass vs sponge to me. Biggest is you don't lose temp cleaning the tip with a wet sponge, so you don't have to wait for the tip to come back to temp after cleaning. Also, the shavings on the "pad" tend to get more junk off the tip than the sponge. After cleaning the tip in the pad, it comes out nice and shiny. They last a long, long time and all you have to do once in a while is fluff up the brass. It tends to get flattened down after repeated use. But new "pads" are less than $3, so to me, it's a very worthwhile investment to keep your tips in tip top condition. Another good place to find all sorts of soldering equipment and tools is SRA ( http://sra-solder.com/ ) . Hope adding the link was OK. They sell a liquid flux that is sticky and hence is great for holding down surface mounted parts prior to soldering. Forget the name of it, but it comes in a 6 or 8 oz bottle and is not terribly expensive. You can use a small bore blunt tip needle to apply it to the PCB for good accuracy. Great for drag soldering. Thanks so much for hosting this wonderful forum. So many great ideas. Just my couple of pennies worth of thoughts......lol
Ya think thats the one Break got. Id love to have it but like I said just have the $50 sears gift card to spend this close to xmas. Hopefully yhe one at sears I linked would do the trick. Hopefully someone is familiar with it. Still trying to figure out if I should just buy the $20 weller 25 watt instead and buy extra's. I just dont know if I am gonna solder enough to utilize the station. What difference will there be in soldering ease/quality between lets say that station and that 25 watt marsman? BTW this is just for mods. I really dont solder anything else.
You really need more than 50 watts? I thought 40 watts would tin 12 gauge or higher without issue? That is a cheap station though is the quality decent?
In a perfect world every tool I have would be top of the line but as I have said the reality is I have $50 to spend on a iron and if I am lucky some flux and maybe a extra tip. I'm just trying to buy a decent iron that will last me til the spring. Its easy to say don't cheap out but I got xmas as everyone does and I also have all my bills plus my grandmothers insurance premium I pay as well as half of a funeral for my grandfather who passed last Saturday so I will say again I have $50 to spend and am trying to find the best iron I can that will last me to the spring when ill be able to afford a better one.Im not stupid and know full well a iron that costs that little isn't gonna be high quality but it doesn't mean if I look hard I can not find(or I hope I can) find a decent quality stop gap iron that will do a better job that the crap radio shack I have now that doesn't work very well. Just trying to get the opinions of those who might have tried some of these or who have the experience to gauge what I can expect out of them so I don't totally waste what little money I have to spend on it.I am just not familiar enough with all the different irons and types to know what to look for in the cheaper irons.