Soldering Station Review

[Peter Snowberg]

Anyone who has listened to me long enough knows that I love my Xytronic temperature controlled iron. This thing served me well for about 18 years I think it's been.

After a very long service life, the iron crapped out finally. The heater is what went, but the thermocouple has been showing age for a while and the new iron heads are totally different from mine.

I decided it was "time", so I got a new Xytronic 137ESD along with SMD tweezers.

This thing is AWESOME! :mrgreen:

The first part I touched with it was a through hole crystal. I used the tweezers to desolder it by heating both leads at the same time and it just about fell out of the board. I have a vacuum pump desoldering station too, but this was far faster and cleaner for part removal. From there I went on to some little electrolytics on an old motherboard. They fell right out too. I love it!

The only thing I'm not wild about is the color. My old ion has a blue-cyan top and the new one is all black. Isn't that funny when all you can say you don't like about a utilitarian tool is the color of the case? :lol:

The other difference is that the new iron says it has tighter temp control. The old one would cycle the heater every couple of seconds while the new one cycles a couple of times PER second. The heater light is a little annoying because it just sits there and blinks rapidly, but maybe that will remind me to turn the iron off more. I think it needs a little larger resistor for the heater LED.

It was a little over $140 including some extra tips, and I'm SURE it will be worth every penny and more. BTW: I bought it from http://www.circuitspecialists.com/

[Mark F]

I got my 137 ESD a week or so ago but haven't had much time to use it ,a stay in the hospital, but that's another story. I did use it on my old Hafler preamp though. I had to desolder the volume pot , disassemble and clean it then replace it. This is the first temp controlled soldering station I've ever owned. I was very impressed withe almost instant heatup time. I'm used to waiting while touching solder to the iron to see when it's hot. :roll: I got the free meter with it too. I have a really good Fluke but it doesn't have a HFE tester , the free one does.As you stated the heater indicator light is a bit annoying but I think I can put up with it. I also got the free tip cleaning thingy All in all for the price,I think it was like $79.00 or so, you get a IMO really nice soldering station, a pretty decent free DMM, and a tip cleaning thingy that looks like it will work fine, Pretty Good Deal! I can't wait 'til I'm fully recovered to really put it to use on some projects! Thanks to all the folks who have been reccommending it.

[Phorhas]

While on the subject of controlled stations - did anyone ever built/uses this DIY controller:
http://members.shaw.ca/roma2/iron.pdf

I'm thinking of building this station of my gun style HAKO Iron.

BTW, this guy has a TON of great stuff for the work-bench!

[MartyMart]

That makes me feel like a "Cheap skate" !!
I have 2X "Draper" $12,  25 watt irons .....  :oops:

Oh well, I have good "tips" on them and they seem to work well !!

Marty.

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

it's all about the ratshack 15 watter.  



























:oops:  :cry:  :oops:

[Peter Snowberg]

Connoisseur, been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

Eat $0.15 packages of noodles for a month if you have to. It's like upgrading from a push lawn mower to a Porsche.

[formerMember1]

I use a Weller $50 soldering iron station, variable from 5-40 watts.  I used to use the radio shack but went through three of them in a year and a half.  I only had the Weller for 3-4 months but I like it.  I kinda wish it had variable temperature but I didn't know about that when I bought it.  I don't really need that anyway.  


while on the subject i gots a quick Q?

How come when i wipe the iron off on the wet sponge to clean it, sometimes it takes all the solder off and the tip turns black, then rapidly turns from green to purple to orange. :shock:   Is this because of the mineral content in the water?  Other times the tip stays nice and clean and silvery.

thanks

[Doug_H]

?

How come when i wipe the iron off on the wet sponge to clean it, sometimes it takes all the solder off and the tip turns black, then rapidly turns from green to purple to orange. :shock:   Is this because of the mineral content in the water?  Other times the tip stays nice and clean and silvery.

thanks

Keep the temp turned down when you are not using it. If you leave the temp up when it is sitting there, the solder used to tin the tip evaporates (or whatever solder does) and the tip turns those funny colors. Not good for the tip... The nice thing about the temp-controlled DC stations is you can get the heat quickly when you need it- on demand. So keep it down to the lowest setting most of the time, and just turn it up when you are actually using it. (I had to get used to thinking this way when I moved on from my old Weller soldering iron, which took forever to heat up.)

BTW, Peter, I still love my 379, recommended on here a couple years ago. I still have the original tip and it works like a charm. I would have gone through 5-10 tips by now on the iron.

Doug

[jimbob]

I want one! That would be cool! Temp control. I buy my Weller from Homedepot 20$. I wanna learn more about these one that work for the smt stuff. Seems thats the direction that effects are going towards.

[MartyB]

Mark F, hope it's over for you.  Peter, wow. SM tweezers!  I feel even more amateurish (if that's possible).  Your recommendation for the Xytronics irons was a great one for me. I ended up getting the 379 - more of a toyota, a free multimeter and a free AC outlet checker.  Don't forget to find and enter the special code for the free goodies if you buy from Circuit Specialists.

[formerMember1]

now that i think about it, sometimes the light won't go on.  The iron will be on and HOT!!   but no light.  I am gonna take it back, cuz i learned that as soon as you have trouble with something electronic when you buy it.  It ussually never goes away.