On Friday, 26 October 2018 00:28:33 UTC+1, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:
On Thu, 25 Oct 2018 19:12:24 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
wrote:
I got one. It works fine, can be set in increments of 10C with presets
of 200, 300, 400. It displays the current temp rather than the set
point, which is a plus. For what it is it's remarkably cheap.

But... The tips are oddly shaped for electronic work. They work though.
The sponge is maybe 2mm thick, and the sponge holder similar, so that
feature is fairly hopeless. FWLIW there are 2 solder reels that can sit
on the base unit - they're tiny. But the no 1 limitation is that the
bits screw into place, they're threaded. So there appears to be zero
hope of it lasting decades.


A solder station where you can't buy a selection of bits easily is a
waste of time IMHO. You might as well just have an ordinary soldering
iron.

Indeed. Just bought a Weller!

I find Weller slightly clumsy to my taste - having used them at work. But
of course any personal choice might be down to hand size, etc. My
favourite by far is Antex for the hand piece.

I agree I've always thought the wellar to be a bit nmore expensive than they need to be. Designs by both seem to change more frequasntly now and that;s a pain because I have two antex stations that I can't get irons for.