Decent Soldering Iron??

[Keegan1014]

I use a butane one it works the best for me, no wait time and butane is cheep and I can even get it at a gas station.
Its very hot and fast soldering so I can hit the joint fast and get off of it.
I set up all joints to be solderd and solder all of them in about 30 sec.
I use this one its about 16 dollars
http://www.lowes.com/pd_246066-717-19132_0_?productId=3133275&Ntt=soldering&Ntk=i_pro ducts&pl=1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?newSearch=true$Ntt=soldering$y=9$x=31

[schaedj]

my iron was new, I let a friend use it, and they returned it all black on the tip. I gently ran a razor over the surface, trying to clean it, and thought I got the bulk of the "gunk" off, but I guess not. I will try to clean the one I have, and still search for a better one in the mean time. I will have to check out those links. Thanks everyone for all the great advice!! this forum ROCKS!

Friend? Man I hate it when people return tools they've abused. I had a "friend" use my soldering gun to melt a hole in some plastic once. It took 2 hours with sandpaper and a file to get it back to functioning again.

[jambandphan03]

I think I will go with a butane one since we will be traveling and camping for the summer. We already have one here, but the tip is gone, not sure if I can replace the tip or not. There is a "geek" store in town called EPO (electronic parts outlet) all the parts for any kind of electronic project you can think of in there. I will pay them a visit tomorrow see what I can find. I will also keep an eye out for good switches and anything else that might work in a mod. I'll be in there a while...it's a geeks candy store. I was hoping to be able to do the quick solder, I managed to bead some up on my connector, and then on the end of the wire, but after that, I could not get any more to melt and bond together, it just wouldn't do it. I thought it should melt pretty much on contact. I even cleaned the tip to the point of it looking shiny again.

[waneeb]

The solder is as important as the iron, too. I recommend avoiding the lead-free cheap junk. I have found that it has a mind of it's own and avoids contact with anything but the floor. It's worth it to spend a couple more dollars on good solder.

[jambandphan03]

Can you recommend a good solder to look for? I don't know much about it myself, and all we have here says this on the label:

Lead free
Very Fine Electrical
Rosin Core Solder and Dispenser
A Low Melting Alloy with Fast Acting Flux
96% tin 4% silver .032 dia

[jambandphan03]

Went to the EPO store, we found a Weller brand Magna-Lite, Auto-ignite Butane soldering iron and Lead Free Silver Solder 21 gauge .032 dia. so hopefully this will do the trick. They also had good prices on battery boxes and momentary switches, so I grabbed a few of those items too. Thanks again for all the advice! I won't have time to mess with my projects today, but I will tomorrow.

[jambandphan03]

just ran into another problem with my new iron... the vent is so close to the tip and so hot it is melting my plastic case that I was trying to mod, so strike 2 on the iron. This will be a keeper for other kinds of projects ,but I think I still need another style for working on these mods. I am also having trouble getting down into the connector to get the + wire into the center. I tried popping out the middle piece, but it just broke the rubber gasket that was keeping the + and - separate, so I can't use those connectors that I broke trying to remove the middle. I am sure I will eventually get the hang of this, but I sure would be happy to pay a little more for connectors that are pre-wired.

[groovy]

You might try some sandpaper to clean up that dirty tip. That's what I use. Once you get down to bare metal, heat it up and melt some solder with it to "tin" the surface.

I've been using the same "cheap" soldering iron for 40 years. Paid $5 for it at RadioShack and originally used it to build fuel tanks for my model airplanes.

[Rocketman]

groovy,
my kind of "don't never throw anything away thinking.

My U.S.Navy borrowed iron died just recently, and had to replace it. I don't do shack (unless absolutely necessary).
I bought both of the ones in one of my previous posts (MPJA). I think the LED one was like $6. I like it. Iron plated tip, hot, nice.

and I got out of the Navy in 79.

Rocket

[Keegan1014]

jambandphan03 pay atention to what your doing every mod I have made
was with this type iron.
but then again I braze for a liveing with oxy acetylene on very small copper tubeing.
around tons of wires so im used to it.
think of it as welding you must control the heat
remember heat rises