Differences in cheap solder irons?

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Looking to buy a couple cheap solder irons to fix my x58a ud3r bios chip (use 2 irons to heat both sides of the bios chip) and now i wanna know the diff between these 3 in terms of soldering capabilities

 

A cheap 57¢ iron

 

A cheap 1.4$ gun

 

A cheap 2.4$ "adjustable" solder iron

 

 

Id like to be as cheap as possible as ill be buying 2 and i got a few other things to buy to fix and raise the value of existing boards

 

I think ill only use for basic smd soldering, probs just bios chips for the most part and soldering other small stuff or soldering wires for voltmods when i get around to that, not really interested in trying to desolder vrms

 

Any diff between these 3? assuming i properly tin the tip not be a retard and not tin it, have good solder wire (probs gonna buy mechanic but can tkae suggestions for this aswell) alongside good flux (amtech, maybe fake idk, dont think ill need to swap it out)

[Poinkachu]

26 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Looking to buy a couple cheap solder irons to fix my x58a ud3r bios chip (use 2 irons to heat both sides of the bios chip) and now i wanna know the diff between these 3 in terms of soldering capabilities

 

A cheap 57¢ iron

 

A cheap 1.4$ gun

 

A cheap 2.4$ "adjustable" solder iron

 

 

Id like to be as cheap as possible as ill be buying 2 and i got a few other things to buy to fix and raise the value of existing boards

 

I think ill only use for basic smd soldering, probs just bios chips for the most part and soldering other small stuff or soldering wires for voltmods when i get around to that, not really interested in trying to desolder vrms

 

Any diff between these 3? assuming i properly tin the tip not be a retard and not tin it, have good solder wire (probs gonna buy mechanic but can tkae suggestions for this aswell) alongside good flux (amtech, maybe fake idk, dont think ill need to swap it out)

Aside from the obvious min / max wattage,

 

First one is fixed wattage.

The tip version used is the ceramic long one (forgot the actual name)

https://www.tokopedia.com/cellkit/cellkit-mata-solder-60-watt-lancip-crystal-keramik?extParam=ivf%3Dfalse%26src%3Dsearch

The actual product can be quite huge and/or long. Like your Mom's wooden spatula :x . Therefore, quite unwieldy

The problem I had in the past with a cheap one that uses this tip is that the screws holding the tip somehow got loose when the solder iron is hot enough, which makes the tip jiggling like a jigglypuff when used.

 

2nd one has a "Hulk" mode, whereas if you press & hold the trigger it will rapidly become much much hotter until it reaches max

The tip version used is the ceramic as above I think.

Depending on the type of work you want to do, it can be annoyingly unwieldy due to it's shape. Not to mention the cheap one of this version usually comes with flimsy unreliable stand.

 

3rd one has an adjustable temperature knob. Although how accurate it is depends on the item quality and all.

The tip version used is the , i think the name used for it is 900M type (or in our country sometimes called; solder station tip)

https://www.tokopedia.com/mitra-abadi/mata-solder-solder-tip-jy-900m-t-k-for-solder-tool-936?extParam=ivf%3Dfalse%26src%3Dsearch

Various kinds of tip, various prices and quality too. From dirt cheap 5 in a pack for just 15k to expensive ones.

 

Me personally, would just get the third one.

Since you most likely need it to perform a double iron trick, and that getting one with some sort of adjustable heat gonna be more useful for stuffs that may be ruined due to excessive heat.

 

And yes, most if not all Amtech in our country is fake ones.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

56 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Aside from the obvious min / max wattage,

 

First one is fixed wattage.

The tip version used is the ceramic long one (forgot the actual name)

https://www.tokopedia.com/cellkit/cellkit-mata-solder-60-watt-lancip-crystal-keramik?extParam=ivf%3Dfalse%26src%3Dsearch

The actual product can be quite huge and/or long. Like your Mom's wooden spatula :x . Therefore, quite unwieldy

The problem I had in the past with a cheap one that uses this tip is that the screws holding the tip somehow got loose when the solder iron is hot enough, which makes the tip jiggling like a jigglypuff when used.

 

2nd one has a "Hulk" mode, whereas if you press & hold the trigger it will rapidly become much much hotter until it reaches max

The tip version used is the ceramic as above I think.

Depending on the type of work you want to do, it can be annoyingly unwieldy due to it's shape. Not to mention the cheap one of this version usually comes with flimsy unreliable stand.

 

3rd one has an adjustable temperature knob. Although how accurate it is depends on the item quality and all.

The tip version used is the , i think the name used for it is 900M type (or in our country sometimes called; solder station tip)

https://www.tokopedia.com/mitra-abadi/mata-solder-solder-tip-jy-900m-t-k-for-solder-tool-936?extParam=ivf%3Dfalse%26src%3Dsearch

Various kinds of tip, various prices and quality too. From dirt cheap 5 in a pack for just 15k to expensive ones.

 

Me personally, would just get the third one.

Since you most likely need it to perform a double iron trick, and that getting one with some sort of adjustable heat gonna be more useful for stuffs that may be ruined due to excessive heat.

 

And yes, most if not all Amtech in our country is fake ones.

2nd one is probs not gonna be very useful since im not really gonna solder on a powerplane of a mobo that absorbs tons of heat

 

3rd one is like 3-4x the price and besides this is more of a temporary thing, once i get more serious id problably buy a couple 300-400rb solder stations

 

And is the fake flux any good? i mean good solder wire should have lots of flux in it anyways, if its no good what kinda flux should i buy?

 

 

Another thing ill need to buy is solder wicks but i think gootwick will do just fine, or i just salvage some powersupply cables and turn those into solder wick

 

Also what kinda solder wire should j buy cause i dont wanna get stuck with dogshsit wire that wont melt

[mariushm]

Just don't buy any of those soldering irons, they're not worth the money.

 

All of those don't have temperature sensor inside the tip, any temperature control is just controlling on - off time on the heater element and they can't react to sudden temperature changes, they just pump constant energy amount into the iron tip. 

 

Also they're not ESD safe, you risk damaging chips with the irons.

 

The first version has no power control, nothing, it's just a coil of wire in a ceramic tube running straight on 220v heating up constantly. The heating element is away from the tip so the heat won't transfer well, and the conical tip is quite bad and doesn't have enough thermal mass to stay hot - as soon as you put it down on some ground trace, the traces will absorb heat like a heatsink sucking heat from the tip and the iron has no way of detecting that and no way of boosting the heat amount to counteract that, so it's just awful to use.

 

Third variation is just like the first only it has that potentiometer which doesn't actually control temperature, it basically chops the ac input using a triac, so depending where the potentiometer is the heater element gets a percentage of the input ac , like for example from 0v ac to 80v AC and then cut off for 10ms and repeat.

 

 

If you want very cheap, find some 24v AC transformer and buy the parts for a Hakko 936 clone separately.. you can buy the base pcb with the components for a few dollars, here's some examples

 

 

There's a couple of heater elements, the most common one is A1321 ... if you search ebay for "a1321 circuit board" you'll find plenty of these

 

2.79$ base pcb   : https://www.ebay.com/itm/22549718390 or https://www.ebay.com/itm/201945411293

 

another board design, shrunk : https://www.ebay.com/itm/381997519736 or https://www.ebay.com/itm/204428755804

but i think they work with the front plates

 

~10$ pcb with the front plate (there's 2 versions, one with male connector, one with female)  : https://www.ebay.com/itm/115590282952

other examples https://www.ebay.com/itm/385222964820

 or https://www.ebay.com/itm/275550214073

 

example hand piece  (search for 24v 50w iron handle soldering iron  or  24v 50w hand piece  or 24v 50w 907)

 

$5.27 plus shipping : https://www.ebay.com/itm/253116723787

$5.3 plus shipping  : https://www.ebay.com/itm/363435829767

 

$7.5 free shipping (choose between the two connectors) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/275726299203

 

the tips are the standard 900m you can buy in packs of 10 for a couple dollars.

 

So you could make a proper soldering with as little as $10 plus a transformer, the front panel is not needed so just the bare board plus hand piece is all you need.

For transformer any 24v AC transformer that can output at least 25-30w would work, the heater element is 50w so ideally you'd use a 60-75va transformer, but the cheapest hakko clones use a 30va transformer and they still work well, the heating element just takes more time to heat up and recover.

 

 

 

 

 

Have to decide what hand piece you use, because based on connector on the handpiece you pick the front plate

 

 

Heating elements (5 for 10$) : https://www.ebay.com/itm/225056581989

 

 

[Poinkachu]

26 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

2nd one is probs not gonna be very useful since im not really gonna solder on a powerplane of a mobo that absorbs tons of heat

 

3rd one is like 3-4x the price and besides this is more of a temporary thing, once i get more serious id problably buy a couple 300-400rb solder stations

 

And is the fake flux any good? i mean good solder wire should have lots of flux in it anyways, if its no good what kinda flux should i buy?

 

 

Another thing ill need to buy is solder wicks but i think gootwick will do just fine, or i just salvage some powersupply cables and turn those into solder wick

 

Also what kinda solder wire should j buy cause i dont wanna get stuck with dogshsit wire that wont melt

Why bother askin the difference of the 3 then ?

 

Flux is not only for soldering.

I've no idea which one you should buy @ Indo, mine was sent to me by a friend in other country.

 

There is a solder wire that doesn't melt? Or you just have sucky iron ?

I bought no brand to mechanic brand, never encountered "It doesn't melt"

[mariushm]

Good solder wire has flux in it.  But the problem is that flux is useless if you use those cheap soldering irons.

 

The idea with the flux is that it's solid inside the wire, but as you bring the solder close to the hot iron handle tip, it starts to melt and become liquid BEFORE the actual solder becomes liquid, and the flux pours onto the pad or leads or solder you want to heat up and as the flux heats up from the iron tip heat, it becomes acidic and attacks the surface and basically breaks apart oxides and crap that sits on top of the metals which would block otherwise the chemical reaction between solder and those metals.

 

With these cheap soldering irons, the problem is they don't have temperature control, they just control how much energy goes into the heater element.. so their behavior is to heat up to 400-450 degrees Celsius and as soon as you put them on a contact or whatever on a circuit board, that cool metal will suck the heat out the small tip, and cool it down to maybe 300c, and if you put the iron tip down on a thick ground plane, the iron tip temperature may drop below the melting point of the solder, around 220 degrees Celsius.

 

But if you have a small lead or pad on a circuit board, the iron tip will be too hot at around 400c and as you bring the solder wire to the pad or tip, the 400c temperature of the tip basically boils away the flux from the wire BEFORE it gets a chance to actually work and clean the area where you solder.

This is why you use a soldering station with adjustable temperature ... you set the temperature to 300-350c, knowing that when you put the tip on the pads or leads, the temperature will drop to maybe 250c for a couple of  seconds until the station reacts and pumps more energy in the heating element to raise the temperature back to 300-350c range you set... but in the meantime, that 250c is low enough to liquify the flux inside solder and heat it up and not burn it for a couple seconds it needs to work.. then the solder wire melts and can chemically react with the pads or component leads.

If you have some old solder joints or thick ground planes , where you may have to raise the temperature of the iron tip, then you use separate flux because the amount inside the wire is not  enough

 

You also use separate flux when you try to desolder stuff, because as I said, flux helps break the oxides on the surface of existing solder and makes it easier for the iron tip to transfer heat into the existing solder, making it easier to desolder something.  oxides and crap on the solder are like an insulator, preventing heat from transferring from the iron to the pads/leads/pins

 

watch video below from around 2:00  - the information in the video is still valid even if the tools look outdated, everything still applies

 

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

9 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Also they're not ESD safe, you risk damaging chips with the irons.

Is it a non existent risk or does the fact that theres actual electricity running through the iron make it an actual risk?

 

esd doesnt do shit for me since i throw my boards on my bed very often and none have had any issues, so i wonder if having a soldering iron changes things up or not esd wise

 

Kinda curious if i can make em esd safe

 

 

Is this the thingy you are talking about?

Still like 5$ over 3x the price of buying a couple of those cheap wood irons, unless i can make this thing run with 2 solder tips instead of just 1

[mariushm]

Yeah, that would work.  That's the control board for the soldering station.

You need hand piece separately and a 24v AC transformer.

 

The chip on the board is used to adjust power sent to the heating element based on the temperature measured using the temperature sensor in the soldering iron tip and adjusts the power sent to the heater element. It also adjusts temperature based on the potentiometer position. 

So as soon as the tip temperature drops, the chip can send more power in the tip to recover and when it gets too hot, it can automatically send less power.

 

Stop being so cheap, you buy or make such soldering station to last you 10-20 years, you don't buy it for one time use.

 

Those cheap irons will practically break after a few uses because they run the iron tip too hot and the tips basically oxidize and burn out. The AC cable on the first iron is so cheap it's dangerous .. if you cut it open you'll see it's practically a few strands of steel wire inside that cheap insulation.

 

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

4 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Stop being so cheap, you buy or make such soldering station to last you 10-20 years, you don't buy it for one time use.

I mean i did say this is temporary not permanent

 

5 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Those cheap irons will practically break after a few uses because they run the iron tip too hot and the tips basically oxidize and burn out. The AC cable on the first iron is so cheap it's dangerous .. if you cut it open you'll see it's practically a few strands of steel wire inside that cheap insulation.

Well i guess theyre good for plastic work atleast since that janky ghetto loop used a cheap iron to plastic weld all the bottlecaps and tubes together

 

But really just need a temporary solution to hold me over for a use or 3 as i havent really gotten into soldering yet since i barely know anything about electronics, besides 10$+ for 2 of these stations that ill need over the 1$ for 2 of those cheap wood irons, course ill pick the cheap one till i get serious and actually buy/build a solder station

 

But are the 936 stations any good? Heard that theyre kinda meh and id be better off buying a t12 instead, unless i can simply just upgrade the 936 to not suck

[bezza...]

idk it it helps much but i got the third one on amazon uk a few years back and it works

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, bezza... said:

idk it it helps much but i got the third one on amazon uk a few years back and it works

For what kinda soldering tho?

Smds or just basic stuff like soldering wires?

[bezza...]

9 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

For what kinda soldering tho?

Smds or just basic stuff like soldering wires?

nah yh true just basic stuff. just saying it works no stupid shit or anything

[mariushm]

So basically the T12 soldering "stations" are better than those Hakko 936 / Fx-888 stations (clones) because the heating element is sealed inside the actual tip, so the heat transfer between the heating element and the metal tip is better, and the temperature sensor can also read the temperature a bit better.

 

But it's basically, like the difference between  the Hakko clones reporting 350c when the tip is 335c , compared to the T12 tip reporting 350c when the actual temperature is 345c - they're more precise but you don't really care about 5-10c difference, you set your tip to higher temperature than melting solder temperature, accounting also for the thermal mass of where you solder. If the lead of a capacitor in a VRM, you know that capacitor is soldered to lots of thick copper layers in the vrm, so that stuff will absorb heat, so you need to set the iron at higher temperature.... if it's a 2 layer board, you know to reduce the temperature in order to not burn your flux away.

The T12 also reacts faster to temperature drops and brings the tip faster back to the normal temperature.

 

It's a bit better, but it's more expensive, and because the heating element is sealed inside the tip, the individual tips are more expensive compared to the 900M style tips, which can be bought in packs of 10 or more on eBay for a few dollars.

For example, here's a 10 pack of T12 tips for 29$, so around $3 a piece - https://www.ebay.com/itm/234306503257 -  , and here's a 10 pack of 900m tips for 7$ so 0.7$ each : https://www.ebay.com/itm/234306503257

 

A T12 station is maybe 30$, WITHOUT the power supply  (24v 4A ,  but will probably work with a 19-20v laptop adapter style power supply)

Here's an example listing : https://www.ebay.com/itm/373958899237

 

A 936 clone can be as cheap as a 20$ in some stores (but with a weak 25-30VA transformer inside, which means it will heat up slower, react slower to heat variations, changes, you'd want to replace with a bigger transformer)

 

Let me put it like this ... on a scale of 0 to 100, the Hakko 936 clones are in the 60-70 depending on what transformer you use, and the T12 may be somewhere around 80-85 ... there's much better soldering tools above these.  Even for an amateur, that only needs to solder once or twice a year, I wouldn't recommend anything lower than something with a 40-50 score.

 

Stations like this - https://uk.farnell.com/duratool/d01843/soldering-station-48w-230vac-uk/dp/2542914 - score a 20-25 in my book, they're a bit better than the 3rd picture product and at least you can order different tips from the same site, which have a bit higher thermal mass, and the thing has a stronger transformer inside to pump energy in the heater element to recover fast.

 

Hakko 936 clones made by Atten and rebranded as Tenma (Farnell's brand) are 35 pounds ($45) and come with 50w transformer and warranty : https://uk.farnell.com/tenma/21-21305/soldering-station-50w/dp/4161412

 

 

But the first soldering iron is maybe a 5 ... it's that bad. The second maybe a 8-10, and the third maybe a 15, IF it can actually use the 900M tips the Hakko clones can use.

You'll have a seriously hard time even desoldering a SOIC chip on a motherboard with the first because the conical tip is horrendous and can't hold any heat, it doesn't have any heat reservoir - the moment you put that iron tip on some lead or circuit board trace, the temperature of the tip will drop, potentially below the actual melting point of the solder.

 

Strongly believe that a good soldering station is something worth investing in, as you may use it for 10+ years.  A bad soldering iron like the ones in your pictures may put you off soldering completely, thinking it's too hard, too difficult, you may damage your board with those irons.

It's way easier to apply techniques explained in the video series I linked above with a proper soldering station ... these cheap irons aren't good enough to work as the irons work in that video above.