exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

My precious.

From powering on to being up to temp about 2 seconds.

My Stuff:
My favourite is the old Maplin one on the left, it may take a few minutes to heat up, but it's so consistent, I just know it will do what I ask of it.

The big black job does have an iron, but TBH I use it mostly for hot air stuff as it's a bit big for my workbench (Desk!). Ok for a clone tbh, the hot air gun is speed and temp controllable and is good enough for my needs. I do like the big LED temp displays too.

Changeable tips on both, which is handy.

No password protection on either, and also known for being burny to human flesh as wel as soldery.....

rubber_jonnie wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 10:53 pm My favourite is the old Maplin one on the left, it may take a few minutes to heat up, but it's so consistent, I just know it will do what I ask of it.

I've actually got the same one! Mine stopped getting hot.. so brought a new iron, then it still didn't seem to be getting hot enough to melt solder... might dig it out and see if it actually works properly or not...

exxos wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 10:56 pm

rubber_jonnie wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 10:53 pm My favourite is the old Maplin one on the left, it may take a few minutes to heat up, but it's so consistent, I just know it will do what I ask of it.

I've actually got the same one! Mine stopped getting hot.. so brought a new iron, then it still didn't seem to be getting hot enough to melt solder... might dig it out and see if it actually works properly or not...

I must have had it 15 years or more, and TBH is wasn't that cheap for a Maplin jobbie, though I think I did get it in a sale. Very robust, great little iron, and once up to temp stays hot, and reacts to temp changes on the dial very quickly.

I usually run it at 370-400C, though I have no way of accurately checking the temp atm.

Anyone ever vamped up a totally oxidized tip with a tip activator?

Here (https://www.weller-tools.com/how-to-car ... iron-tips/) they say you can do it with:

Added one to my basket... Probably won't be long before I burn out my current tip anyway.

https://uk.farnell.com/multicore-loctit ... ngleItem_1

I half recall one of the old guys in my old work using that stuff, but I think he didn't bother with it in the end. I might have tried it once and didn't do anything, but this is like going back 20 years now.

I've found you have to keep the tip well tined when its hot and your not using it. Also when I'm de-soldering with solder wick it sucks the solder off the tip and I need to re-tin more often not to mention its harder to get the solder tip to take solder again.

Thought I'd join in.

Here's mine...

I use a clone similar to the one Exxos uses but from Maplin when they were closing down so got a good deal.

In addition I have a quick and dirty Weller SP80NUK for those big jobs that I need to get to without dragging the solder station around
https://www.weller-tools.com/consumer/E ... ns/SP80NUK

However having a solder station with password protection to stop people changing my settings is appealing

Icky wrote: ↑Sat Nov 24, 2018 10:43 am
However having a solder station with password protection to stop people changing my settings is appealing

Can anyone recommend the psychiatrist, one who deals in soldering iron envy