good soldering iron suitable for all things robot

[psycho_fling]

hi all

can people recommend a soldering that is suitable for the tough world of roboteering? i have had mine for a number of years and it needs replacing it was an 80w one

i'm thinking antex for maker but want peoples advice as i have only had 1 soldering in my life

???

thanks alex

[George_TeamZog]

I don't know too much about it, but Homebase sell some good soldering irons. I've got one now, does the job properly.

[widow_twanky]

Depends what you're using it for but i prefer to have an adjustable one with a range up to 50W. Means you can put it on quite low if you're soldering any pcb's etc as it wont lift the tracks and so on or you've got a bit more beef when you need it. I have one from Maplins but I seem to remember it was a lot cheaper than the one you see here but one similar to that would be good.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=35016

If you're doing batteries then we use 100W for the battery bars and a 200W for the leads because it does it a lot quicker.

Andy

[evristow]

The cheapest way to cover all robotic soldering is to have two irons, one about 20~30W for small jobs and wires and the other >100W, to solder batteries packs and thicker wires and connectors.

One thing that I did, while still living in Brazil, was to get an 180W soldering iron and use a dimmer switch to control the power output. Since soldering irons and conventional lamps work almost the same way, it is a cheap and effective way of having more control.

Since I moved to the UK last year I've got an 25W Weller, that is a really good soldering iron, and an 150W generic, to use on the A123 packs.

If intend to do some really fine electronic work, a good temperature control soldering station might pay off

Cheers,
Eduardo

[typhoon_driver]

Eduardo, love the idea with the dimmer switch!

After going threw a couple of small soldering irons I would recommend spending a bit of extra cash and buying a temperature controlled model. I think mine cost around 35 quid from farnell during one of their sales. One of the best purchases I ever made! And I can plug different sized irons (from the same manufacturer of course) into it.

[evristow]

That was a McGuiver* moment, I needed a less powerful iron and had a dimmer switch available

I can be used to dim the rotation of power tools as well, just observe the dimmer switch's power rating for inductive charges. My 15 years old single speed Dremel is controlled as such.

Cheers,
Eduardo

* I don't know if McGuiver ever aired here in the UK, but it was a TV series where the lead solved every problem with common things and a paper clip, really clich and completely out of sense, but fun.

[daliad100]

If I can find my real robots magazine soldering kit I might try that. Don't really need a second soldering iron but I remember it's much smaller than the other one we have.

[psycho_fling]

is it best to get a variable power soldering iron

or one which is a variable temperature?

whats the difference????

alex

[typhoon_driver]

Temperature is a measure of how warm something is (at the atomic level how fast the atoms in the material are vibrating)

Power is a measure of work. The uni for power is watts which is equivalent to Joules/second. Basically it's a measure of how much energy the soldering iron can put into a material in a given time.

So if you have variable temperature then you have an iron that will reach a specific temperature but it may not be able to pass on the heat quick enough to the object if it is low powered and actually cool down.

If you have variable power, the iron will have that level of power delivered to it and reach some form of temperature equilibrium when the heat input to the iron is equal to the output to the environment.

To be honest all you need for robot work is 2 irons, one at around 25w for smaller jobs and one around the 100 to 150w mark for the bigger stuff. I got a 25w variable temperature one. Not for any other reason than my own perverse curiosity to know what temperature it's at. I use a big 150W one for the bigger jobs