Which Soldering Iron?

andyg_prs

I have a an old gas powered soldering iron which is getting a bit tired.....no cables is useful.....but what soldering iron would you recommend?

For the most part this will be for guitar electronics - and I guess the most power I will need will be to heat the back of a pot sufficiently that I can solder an earth to it....without cooking it.....  I recall that abrading it with sandpaper and using a flat tip for heat transfer was recommended.....but there's the play off between getting it good and hot quickly...and cooking it

Then occasionally I might need to replace a component on a circuit board so need to be more delicate.

There's cleaning your tips with brass wool to keep them clean.....and overdoing it and wearing the tip out but anyhow....

There are USB powered ones, gas ones, soldering stations that have a scale of 1 - 5 or whatever....and then ones with a digital print out.

I don't want to spend hundreds but I will consider spending a little on a setup that's gonna last and last....

Let me know your thoughts!

Cheers,
Andy

Deft

If you want to spend a bit more then Hakko are well regarded (about £200). That said I've made loads of pedals and done a few guitar rewires with a Draper 40w one, about £30 + a set of spare/different shaped tips

BillDL

I have used the same 30 or 35W soldering iron bought from Maplin 30 odd years ago.  The details rubbed off the side years ago, so the wattage is a guess, but I'm sure it's the yellow-bodied Antex iron.  It eventually packed in a couple of weeks ago.  I had £50 left from a gift card in my Amazon account and decided to buy this 25 watt Antex one:

https://www.antex.co.uk/products/precision-range-soldering-irons/xs25/

https://www.antex.co.uk/media/77514/XS25-4.pdf

It comes with a 2.3mm tip but I bought a couple of other sized tips as well.

I wondered if it would be powerful enough for the back of pots and trem claws, but it goes up to 390 degrees C, heats up really quickly, and works fine for those jobs as well as with the narrower tip for finer jobs.  The only comment I would make is that the silicone rubber coated cable, while great in that it doesn't melt if touched and is of a useful length, is a little bit heavy and makes it harder to hold and balance.  I'll get used to it though.  It feels like good quality that will last me for many years just like my last one.

You mentioned abrading the back of pots with sandpaper.  I have found that also applying a smear of rosin flux to the area also helps greatly, even if you are already using rosin-cored solder.  It helps the solder to flow quickly and adhere.  I still prefer my big old roll of rosin-cored solder with lead content because it melts far more readily than some lead-free solder, but I believe that if you choose lead-free solder with a higher content of silver? it melts easier.

Kittyfrisk

This was discussed again recently here https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/255445/question-on-wiring-grounding#latest
The idea of not soldering to pot bodies, impressed me & makes a lot of sense to me. Plus, you won't need a high powered soldering iron 

Sporky

I like my Weller soldering stations. WS51 maybe, but they'll have been superseded. Lots of different tips available, loads of spare parts (not that I've needed more than tips), keeps temperature, won't burn out if you do many, many hours on the trot.

Byt yes, don't solder to the backs of pots. There are easier, quicker, safer (for the pot) alternatives. 

FelineGuitars

I still maintain that an Antex XS25 25watt iron with a #52 oversize chisel tip and 3.7% silver content lead free solder works just great .
That oversize tip is a good heat reservoir and gets the job done nicely on pots
the silver solder is a god-send too ( bought from rapid electronics)

andyg_prs

Kittyfrisk said:

This was discussed again recently here https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/255445/question-on-wiring-grounding#latest
The idea of not soldering to pot bodies, impressed me & makes a lot of sense to me. Plus, you won't need a high powered soldering iron 

That's great, but so far I've only found 8.2mm inner diameter max and most of my pots are 9.3mm diameter or so...

andyg_prs

Not quite the same but maybe these would work, get 20 of the size I need for £6

andyg_prs

FelineGuitars said:

I still maintain that an Antex XS25 25watt iron with a #52 oversize chisel tip and 3.7% silver content lead free solder works just great .
That oversize tip is a good heat reservoir and gets the job done nicely on pots
the silver solder is a god-send too ( bought from rapid electronics)

interesting....I'll have to check out the silver solder you've used....I got some supposedly silver solder, lead free once, and it was terrible....

BillDL

There is this method of neat and clean soldering without soldering multiple wires to the pot casings:

Sporky

FelineGuitars said:

I still maintain that an Antex XS25 25watt iron with a #52 oversize chisel tip and 3.7% silver content lead free solder works just great .
That oversize tip is a good heat reservoir and gets the job done nicely on pots
the silver solder is a god-send too ( bought from rapid electronics)

I absolutely do not doubt that you can reliably solder to the back of a pot! 

For most hobbyists it's just faffy and irksome and I'm trying to think of another suitably lovely word to use. 

Kittyfrisk

FelineGuitars said:

I still maintain that an Antex XS25 25watt iron with a #52 oversize chisel tip and 3.7% silver content lead free solder works just great .
That oversize tip is a good heat reservoir and gets the job done nicely on pots
the silver solder is a god-send too ( bought from rapid electronics)

Shock horror!  Talented & highly experienced maker of bespoke guitars knows how to solder properly? :-D