Basic soldering iron

silraks · February 18, 2018

Well, I am looking at some basic/but still good enough for a starter soldering irons.

This a option (Basic iFixit soldering iron), is it good?

Are there any better suggestions for me in the eu?

Bonus q: Is there a difference between differently priced solders/fluxes?

JaegerB · February 18, 2018

For the soldering iron, I just got mine from a hardware store and it's been fine for 3+ years now. If you want the whole kit & caboodle (i.e PCB stand, iron stand, pad, etc) then find a hobby electronics store near you. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere you shouldn't need to order online.

HOOTSMON · February 18, 2018

i got the cheapest one i could find off amazon and its fine, and ifixit are quite a good brand so i imagine you will be fine with that one.

mariushm · February 18, 2018

That's a lousy soldering station (without feedback from the tip). It's not really worth the money.

You can check out Farnell , they ship to various countries in Europe from EU warehouses: http://uk.farnell.com/w/c/tools-production-supplies/soldering-stations-accessories/soldering-stations/soldering-stations/prl/results?sort=P_PRICE

Check RS-Components as well : http://www.rs-components.com/index.html

And TME.EU has cheap solder and fluxes and maybe also soldering stations https://tme.eu

You basically have cheap soldering stations which have some knob controlling the temperature, but they don't don't actually control temperature, the knob just controls the amount of electricity that goes into the tip and the setting on the knob just guesses what the temperature would be.

So for example, if you set it at 300 degrees Celsius and you try to solder a very thin wire, then it would work.

But, if you try to solder a thicker wire or some big component lead on a circuit board (which has a lot of copper that absorbs the heat from the iron tip), the energy pumped into the iron tip won't be enough to maintain the temperature at 250-300c and actually solder, because the leads and the circuit board will act like a heatsink and absorb the heat.. so these controls are very rudimentary and not very helpful. The amount of energy going into the top is constant, it doesn't vary, you set the peak amount of energy with that knob.

If you're fine with that, you may as well go with the cheapest $13 uk pounds Duratool station.

The next level is proper soldering stations which have a temperature sensor in the tip and the knob or buttons actually control the temperature. You set the temperature and the station reads the actual temperature of the tip and pumps energy in varying amounts to keep the temperature there. So if you put the tip on some circuit board which sucks up the heat and cools the tip suddently, the station reacts fast and pumps a burst of energy to bring the temperature back to the setting and as soon as you raise the tip and heat isn't sucked anymore from the tip, the station lowers the amount of energy pumped. So it's dynamic power control, and knob sets temperature.

Farnell sells Tenma branded stations which are actually rebranded Atten stations, you have there Tenma AT60D-UK at 33 uk pounds (Atten AT60 rebrand) or Tenma SS-207BC-F ( which I think is a rebranded Yihua Hakko 936 clone ) at 35 uk pounds or Tenma 21-10115 UK (another rebranded Atten model) at 38.5 pounds

These come with UK plugs but you can either change the plug or use UK to EU plug adapter or change the whole cable (it's regular pc power cable on some)

They also use the classic Hakko tips you can buy on eBay for something like 4-5$ for 10 tips and the classic Hakko clone handpieces you can buy from eBay and so on...

As for solder wires, yes, what you buy does make a difference, i can write long posts about the differences, let me know if you really are interested and want to me to suggest something

to keep it short, look for 0.7mm thick or thinner (i prefer 0.56mm thick), buy 60/40 or 63/37 or 63/36/2 (overkill and expensive) solder, with at least 2% flux , ideally no-clean or RA or RMA flux (rosin core mildy activated or activated, with or without halides) , stay away from water soluble fluxes (as they're NOT what you may think from the words)

Good brands Multicore, Stannol, Kester, Edsyn , Henkel ..