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Questions about soldering

Jedi Master Thrash - Aug 13, 2004

		Jedi Master Thrash	Aug 13, 2004
		Well, the actual soldering part I have down pretty well. My problem is trying to figure out what soldering iron/station to buy. I did my soldering back at the electronics lab at college, and they had a soldering station with a dial that you could pick a temperature up to like 5000 degrees. They had solder of all gauges. Now I'm home, and the only half-decent selection of soldering supplies I can find is at Radio-Shack (the home of amazingly overpriced electronic supplies). My choices there are: Regular soldering irons in the 15-40 watt range (6-10$) Soldering guns (much higher wattage) (15-40$) A soldering station with a digital temperature selector up to 2000 degrees (70$). My first part of confusion, is that some are rated only in wattage, and some are weighted only in degrees. I haven't been able to find anything anywhere that gives a relation between wattage and degrees such that I could compare them. I current have a 15/30w soldering iron, and some silver bearing solder. Apparently the silver bearing solder requires higher temparatures, and it doesn't solder easily at all with a 30w iron. It won't melt unless you touch it directly to the iron for a minute. But it was the only choice at radio shack for the small gauge I needed (for soldering mods on video game chips). In an unrelated story, my wife wants to do jewelry soldering. She wants to be able to solder onto metal foil. Best I can find on the internet says that's nearly impossible since it dissipates energy too fast. But she has a beading book that claims you can do it with a 50w iron. So, pretend I don't know anything and just throw all the info at me you can. I would like to know if the soldering station which has selectable temperature would be able to put out significantly more energy such that we could accomplish our tasks. Or if she needs a high-wattage soldering gun for her tasks. And if I just need different solder for my task? Thanks, JMT.

		ExCyber	Aug 14, 2004
		I haven't been able to find anything anywhere that gives a relation between wattage and degrees such that I could compare them. The reason for this is that only temperature-regulated irons have a stable temperature. Unregulated irons burn a constant amount of power; their temperature goes down when they come into contact with something conductive enough to pull a lot of heat away and goes back up when that "load" is removed.     I current have a 15/30w soldering iron, and some silver bearing solder. Apparently the silver bearing solder requires higher temparatures, and it doesn't solder easily at all with a 30w iron. If you're talking about Radio Shack 64-035 "High-Tech Silver-Bearing Solder", I'm not sure it has any flux, which might help explain your difficulty (most solders have a flux core to clean the joint as it is being soldered). Apart from applying flux and keeping everything super-clean, I can't think of any suggestions for that particular solder. I don't think the iron is the problem; I used to use lead-free solder with a 15W iron (though it certainly wasn't as smooth an experience as the regular stuff).

		dnguyen800	Aug 14, 2004
		I use a Radioshack 15W iron with rosin core solder to hook wire onto controller PCBs. If you're good, you can probably use 30W--15W might be too weak.

		lordofduct	Aug 15, 2004
		the "high tech silver bearing solder" has no rosin in it, and its really small... i prefer it though, its easy to control and i hate rosin... crap gets all bubbly and everywhere.

		Jedi Master Thrash	Aug 16, 2004
		Howcome this thread shows "--" for Posts and Views? It's like the listing in the General forum hasn't processed any of the posts that happened since I originally started it.

		ExCyber	Aug 16, 2004
		It's because the thread was moved.

		Jedi Master Thrash	Aug 17, 2004
		Oh, I didn't even notice. Why is my thread about soldering now in the CD burning help forum? And why is there still a link to it in the general forum? Ah well. Doesn't really matter I guess.

		ExCyber	Aug 17, 2004
		Oh, I didn't even notice. Why is my thread about soldering now in the CD burning help forum? It's the Tech Help forum, which includes CD burning.     And why is there still a link to it in the general forum? When a moderator moves a topic they can leave a link in the old forum so that it doesn't look like it just disappeared.

		Area-51	Aug 18, 2004
		I use a Radio Shack solder iron that has a 33watt element. It's a model that has screw in elements of different wattage ratings. It screws in to the handle part similar to how the colored light bulbs on the outdoor christmas strings do. And it has interchangeable tips that screw onto the end of the heating element. I don't even know if they sell it anymore. I've had it for like 10 years or so. I think it's really made by Weller. http://www.cooperhandtools.com/brands/well...g%20I... Anyway it works great. As for Solder you should use 60/40 Rosin core solder of like .031 diameter see here: http://www.matelectronics.com/acatalog/Mat....html...