On Tue, 12 Apr 2016 10:20:51 -0400, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:
There are plenty of times that I grab my 50 year old Weller gun.
I don't own a soldering gun. I abandoned soldering guns about 40
years ago and never looked back. When I "inherit" one, I clean it up,
install a new tip, and either sell or donate it. Instead, I have a
variety of soldering irons and tips. If I need to do something big, I
have two big copper chisel tips, a few odd irons, and a benchtop
propane furnace, like these:
http://stellartechnical.com/101benchfurnace.aspx
I use these mostly for sheet metal work, where bigger is better.
Just can
not beat it when I want to solder a couple of antenna wires and don't want
to wait on my 100 watt iron to heat and cool down.
I don't solder my wire antennas, so that's not a problem for me.
Soldering interferes with my ability to make changes in lengths.
Those puney PC board
irons will not hold enough heat to solder a pl259 coax connector.
I use a Weller TC-201/202 with a 750F 1/4"(?) chisel tip. It takes
about 5 minutes to warm up and does a good job with coax connectors.
I have
used one to solder to a PC board,but the irons are usually beter.
Yep.
I guess that I did remember correctly that there were some tips that were
sort of flat on the ends instead of having that bump on the end where you
soldered.
Weller 8125N or 8125W:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201553866393
The older ones that the ends are bent to an L shape and go through the nuts
are the best. The newer ones with the screws that go in the sides are crap.
One of my larger guns is that way. Works ok of you take the tip out and
clean the connections, but most of the time it will work loose and not heat
as well. I ran some tests on the current "wattage" used by the guns and
found that it was almost half when the connections were bad.
The tip resistance is much less than the xformer winding resistance.
I've been tempted to use a capacitor ESR meter to measure the contact
resistance, but never had the need or opportunity. Try it next time
you run into a suspected bad connection.
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558