soldering station upgrade Advice and opinions please

[Kevin Mitchell]

I was fortunately enough to get a variable soldering station from RadioShack for pennies on the dollar right before they shut down. I know it's probably just a rebranded unit but I love the hell out of the thing. I'll post a link if I can find an alternative model.

310W!

Menus?

I used to use one just like it for my more intricate SMT stuff

[duck_arse]

At some point about a decade ago, I decided I needed an upgrade to a "proper" soldering station (I'm now not entirely sure *why* I thought this). I bought an Atten 938D. I can't recommend it. The handle has started to fall to bits after less than a decade of use, so in my view that's inferior! At some point I'm going to junk it and will probably get a Hakko or Weller instead.

here, we call those Wavecom WCM-118. I used to have a weller, replaced nearly all of it over the years, but finally the parts become too less reliable, hard to source locally, and MASSIVELY expensive. but they were good irons. I replaced it with the wavecom, quite cheap, and it's doing alright.

I don't really understand the chinglish instruction manual or the why it needs calibrating, but I've got it to a reliable soldering temperature, and it has tips, so good enough for me. also, it's black all over, not blue and yellow.

[GGBB]

I was looking at the Hakko FX-888D on amazon here in the usa, a lot of reviews said it was hard to use the menu in it

GGBB can you tell me more about it
Thanks
Guys

Basically what others have said already - the menu is a bit counter-intuitive, and you can mess up the calibration - which I actually did because I was trying to go by my memory . (I bought a knock-off Hakko tip calibration tool for $20 to fix it since I'm anal/ocd about these kind of things.)

But you will probably never need to use the menu (I haven't touched it since it was new and I had to try all the settings.) Turn it on, in one minute it's at full temp - which I think is 750F by default - and you are good to go.

The only thing the menu is useful for is if you need to use different temperatures. It has five presets and you can step through them. Where you can get into trouble is when you want to change what is the default preset or what the stored temperature presets are - make sure you follow the instructions if you try to do that. The instructions are easy to follow, but again, they are not really intuitive so if you're like me and think you remember everything there's a strong chance you'll do the wrong thing.

[mozz]

Weller is my choice. WTCPT, WESD51 and just bought a WE1010NA. They stopped making the WESD51 and the 1010 is a replacement, same tips. I don't know about the longevity but they are common enough parts should be ok. I have a cheap Hakko knockoff and it's tips and temp regulation are  garbage. You can get the 1010 for a little over $100.

[WoundUp]

Jeez. You guys are out of my league. I've just got the cheap Weller WCL100 or whatever it is with the 40w iron and adjustable power supply rated up to 300w. Before I got this 6 or 8 months ago, l was using a Weller D650, 300w soldering gun. I've also got a separate 25w weller pencil iron and a different 40w Weller iron.






You know...the kind everybody says not to use to solder on/near your pickups because you'll degauss the magnets/pickups. I used mine multiple times and never degaussed any pickups. That's because you'd literally have to lay the soldering gun directly on top of the pickup while holding the trigger for a certain amount of time. And nothing in the guitar would cause you to solder with the gun laying on your pickups.

I still use it on some things like soldering to the back of pots or soldering to the trem claw in a Strat. Like previously stated, having that extra wattage lets the tip get to temp quicker and lose less heat during soldering. It's definitely a plus as long as you know what you're doing. And if it comes down to it, I can use it with the adjustable power supply that comes with the 40w iron if I want to dial down the wattage on the 300w gun.

Being that the power supply handles up to 300 watts, it works perfectly. I figured out you could use that with multiple, different wattage soldering irons when I asked Weller customer service about using a lower wattage iron with it and they said it was fine. That's when I realized it  just supplied different amounts of voltage/amperage(I forget which) depending on where the control was set and that it would work with anything under the 300w rating.