recommend me a soldering iron

mark123

with these dark nights rolling in I'm going to do a bit pick up swapping so I'm after a cheap soldering iron ,lidl or aldi have one in at the minute  including solder ,are they any good ?

mike_l

I got a Sealey one for around £15, with solder.

I made a stand out of an old wire coathanger.

Flink_Poyd

Im sure theyll do the job.The main thing is to practice first on some old wire, head over to YooChoob and some boring bloke will have a tutorial on soldering or if hes American sardering

midlifecrisis

ibought one from maplins for £9.99, worked for a month of very light use then stopped working. I took it back , but because I didn't have a receipt (even tho its their own brand so I couldn't have a bought it elsewhere) they refused to replace or refund.

simple, I bought another one and used that receipt to return the duff one for a full refund, assholes

ajax

Buy a used Weller on Ebay, you'll never need anything else for as long as you live

xSkarloey

Maplin. The bloke on the counter even told me I'd picked up the wrong solder and told me which type I needed. 

I bought a Draper iron once. That was awful. 

streethawk

Cheap but hot is fine. Use the chisel tips. Buy some tip cleaner. Wipe the tip after every solder with a damp cloth/sponge thingy they sell in a kit.

Maplins.

Or buy a used weller.

NervousJohn

Used Weller, one of the baby blue ones. They are virtually bombproof and temperature controlled (and adjustable with different tips).

A cheap iron will probably work for a while but even out the box is unlikely to as stable thermally. So you get cold joints or dead components.

lasermonkey

+1 on the Wellers. I've been using them pretty much every day since 1983 and while I have briefly used better (Metcal), they are industry standard for a reason.

TheMarlin

THIS SOLDER STATION

Fantastic price (they used to be around £100, now £39.  Great build quality, excellent temperature conrol, just all around amazing.

Makes life a lot easier than a crappy £9.99 soldering iron.  I've struggled with cheap soldering irons in the past, this sodr station kicks ass.

Marlin

p90fool

Don't over think it, unless you're really getting into it you just need a hot thing to melt shit with.

But buy two, a 25w for general work and a 100w for quickly doing pot grounds and pickup covers.

Yes I have a fancy solder station (I build 6-10 effects pedal PCBs per week), but I often just use an old 25w Weller I found in a box of crap at a car boot sale.

It's more important to learn good technique tbh so watch a few videos, but you'll soon get the feel for it.

OilCityPickups

TheMarlin said:

THIS SOLDER STATION

Fantastic price (they used to be around £100, now £39.  Great build quality, excellent temperature conrol, just all around amazing.

Makes life a lot easier than a crappy £9.99 soldering iron.  I've struggled with cheap soldering irons in the past, this sodr station kicks ass.

Marlin

Exactly the unit I use

streethawk

Can't believe I'm getting soldering iron GAS.

:-S

p90fool

Apparently Shitehawk do a good one

mark123

that solder station one looks the one ,it says it has 3 heat settings ,which ones doyou use for pick ups and which for melting solder off the pots when removing old pick up wire ? is it trial and error ? sorry if its a daft

mark123

sorry if its a daft question but I am a newbie at soldering

NervousJohn

Not a daft question if you don't know. The temperature should be set to the right temperature for the solder you're using. Lead free needs hotter typically unless you spend money for extra materials in there to make it behave. It will be written on the packet and if in doubt go a little hotter. Trial and error is good here so having a few practice parts is always good.

The power indicates how well it will hold temperature when soldering something big and metallic like the back of a pot, which radiates off all the heat. Big tips help here as they dump in heat faster than it radiates away.

Rigsby

Weller WHS40

mark123

thanks for all the advice ,one final question would the maplin solder station be powerful enough for melting and unsoldering onto volume pots (hope that makes sense)

equalsql

TheMarlin said:

THIS SOLDER STATION

Fantastic price (they used to be around £100, now £39.  Great build quality, excellent temperature conrol, just all around amazing.

Makes life a lot easier than a crappy £9.99 soldering iron.  I've struggled with cheap soldering irons in the past, this sodr station kicks ass.

Marlin

Yep, for the money these are great. Picked one up last year and used it to build a valve amp. Plenty of heat when needed, The stand is a bit loose but generally...it's a bargain.

t1000

I have used countless soldering irons in the past and never got decent results. Got the maplin solder station and it's by far the best I've used and now my soldering is not to bad. I have used it for guitars and for tiny connections on an Xbox also.