Best Soldering Iron and other soldering tools?

[R3DOPS]

Hey guys. I'm new to the hobby like stuff. Im searching for a great kit or products they can help me be good at soldering stuff. I plan on soldering onto PCB and wires together and such. I also plan on making a RC plane from scratch and so on. I already have a "Patec 60W 110V soldering iron" from amazon. Like i stated, im new and only grasp the basics of soldering. I already asked for tips on de soldering witch i plan on doing allot if. (modding and such) Im just asking for any Tips that you wish you had when you started and product recommendations on the Canadian Amazon website. Cheers! 

[shadowbyte]

I've been using some super inexpensive 20 dollar thing from Home Depot

it does have one nice feature, LEDs that help illuminate whatever you're soldering (quadcopters in my case)

[iamdarkyoshi]

Kester lead based solder (60/40) and kester flux are your friends. The thinner the solder, the better.

[R3DOPS]

3 hours ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Kester lead based solder (60/40) and kester flux are your friends. The thinner the solder, the better.

wow most of them cost up to 80$ on the Canadian amazon..

[iamdarkyoshi]

Just now, R3DOPS said:

wow most of them cost up to 80$ on the Canadian amazon..

I'd highly recommend them though. A big spool of solder and a flux pen will last you a long time, and you want lead based solder, trust me.

[Daysy]

If you are planning to solder electrical connections get 63\37 rosin cored solder not 60\40 it will cost you a little more (about 1$ more for a standard hobbyist size spool) but the professional industry moved over to 63\37 decades ago (although obviously not anymore as it's all lead free now) and it is waaay easier to solder with, I seriously couldn't believe the difference the first time I used it. 

My other tip would be to get a temperature controlled "digital" soldering iron as soon as you can, they aren't so expensive as allot of people think and give you a lot more control when soldering things like flight controllers

[Hackentosher]

I used Radioshack 60/40 solder for the longest time. Always worked really well for me. DON'T BUY SOLDER FROM BANGMEGOOD, IT SAYS 60/40, BUT IT'S ACTUALLY LEAD FREE AND IT'S THE WORST THING SINCE SATAN. 

 

As for the best iron, I think the Hakko FX-888D is about as good as you can get for hobby applications, but let's be real: who the hell is about to drop over $100 on a soldering station when they're not going to use it that often? I would recommend the route @iamdarkyoshi took, and buy a soldering station off ebay. You want temperature control, and to spend about $40 that way you're investing in enough quality to not blow yourself up.

[mariushm]

See these :

 

It looks outdated but all the advice and information inside is still valid. WATCH IT.  Then if you want watch lessons 3 , 6 and 7 which talk about what you're gonna do as a hobbyist.

 

 

Another very good and detailed video about what tools you need, what solder to use and so on :

 

 

 

I also wrote a bunch of very long posts in the past here where I tried to explain as best as possible about soldering related stuff

 

Click on the titles to see the full message in the thread.

 

About fluxes and why they are important, various types, what you should use :

 

About different types of solder and what brands i prefer what you should buy, and the thread also links to same videos above (they're really good and informative)

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

On 10/3/2017 at 4:02 PM, iamdarkyoshi said:

I'd highly recommend them though. A big spool of solder and a flux pen will last you a long time, and you want lead based solder, trust me.

Is lead safe to solder with? 

 

Ive seen things saying even houses with lead paint can lead to huge health issues. 

Vaporizing lead and breathing the fumes sounds like a bad idea imo. 

[mariushm]

Lead was used in paints because it made them shiny. It's bad for you in paints, because paint chips can fall off and get in your lungs. It's bad in children toys because children lick things or chew things, so lead can be eaten.

 

When you're soldering, lead doesn't turn into gas, it doesn't get in your skin, it doesn't burn, the soldering temperature is simply too low for the lead to become loose from the solder and get in you through the skin or through the smoke you may inhale. Lead remains in the solder, in the metal that forms the connections.

 

The only way you could get lead into you would be by eating solder or maybe by rubbing solder wire over an open wound (to get into your blood) or pouring very fine lead solder powder in your blood, eye tear ducts etc. Unless you're a total moron, you're just not gonna do that, it's not gonna happen.

 

If you're really paranoid, you can wear some of those cheap nitrile gloves, you can buy packs of 100-200 for 10-15$, here's a random example: https://www.amazon.com/Disposable-Nitrile-Powder-Gloves-Count/dp/B011SGW6LA/

There's also latex gloves or gloves made of other materials but some are allergic to latex or to the powder inside the gloves (starch or whatever they use) so these are generally safe to use.

 

But just washing your hands with soap after soldering with leaded solder is enough to be absolutely safe to use leaded solders.

 

The smoke you see when soldering is actually burnt up flux - flux is a sort of acid which is inside the solder wire and as it's warmed up by the iron tip it becomes liquid and pours over the metal surfaces and becomes acid and attacks those surfaces cleaning the oxides and leaving the surfaces ready to receive the solder.

As the iron tips boils this flux, it evaporates into that smoke which smells funny.  That smoke CAN affect your lungs over a long period of time, if you solder often and for long periods.  Lead free solders are actually worse for you (compared to lead based solders) because they must use stronger fluxes which have more bad chemicals for your lungs

I actually talked about this in more detailed in one of the posts I linked to in my previous comment

 

[juretrn]

The Hakko is a fine choice, but so is Ersa - I use their i-CON PICO and I'm very happy with it - it gets hot fast and can be well regulated. It cost me about 100 €.

 

You want something really good, buy Weller, most professionals use their stuff, but expect a premium price. This is one of their top tier products, and costs over 600 €.