On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:00:35 -0600, Ignoramus31882
wrote:

Interesting. My regular $3 soldering iron is fine for wires, but too
large for circuit boards. I will indeed look into soldering stations
and will check out my station thoroughly to see what soldering
possibilities it offers.

Hey, you want to borrow my 175W American Beauty "war club" pencil
iron for doing circuit board repairs? It'll go faster... ;-P

(That iron was great for tying cables down on terminal strips all
night, but the absolutely wrong choice for PCB repairs.)

If you are doing any sort of delicate board repair soldering you
really do need a temperature controlled station. Too much heat can
either ruin the components, or lift the traces off the circuit board,
or both - and now it's trash or a huge patch job. And if the tools
aren't ESD rated, you can wipe out static sensitive components in no
time at all.

I bit the bullet and bought a Weller WESD-51 pencil iron when I
needed one. and the table static mat and wrist straps, etc. But as
you well know there are bargains out there if you can wait and watch.

-- Bruce --