"Craig Hart" wrote in message ...
NEVER NEVER go past a hakko.

Best iron, ever.

wrote in message
...
I just had a chance to use an ancient Hexacon TOT1002 to do capacitor
replacement on a motherboard where I was soldering in the middle of
massive ground planes.

I have a whole bunch of other irons and none of them could come close
to getting that job done.

Unfortunately, the Hexacon was buzzing like crazy and finally went
dead. (I determined that the transformer and triac were good and then
gave up. It's a simple board but there is an IC and I don't know the
effect of a broken wire in the iron will cause. So I pretty much gave
up on it.)

I really liked it so was thinking find another one on eBay.

Of course, then I read about the Hakko 936, Edsyn 971HA, and some
Wellers.

The Hexacon is insanely priced, but it sure is old school.

Any suggestions?

NOTE: I kept getting the feeling that the Hexacon was actually
boosting the iron WHILE I was soldering that ground plane.

I don't think, even though termostatically controlled, that any
stations response time could be quick enough to boost power DURING a
2-3 second soldering.

Have you tried a Metcal?. Metcal is melting solder in 7 seconds. Got
mine on Ebay for $125. Metcal is a 13 MHz transmitter working into a
soldering tip that only absorbs power when its below temp. After using
a Metcal, everything else seems like a 'tusk'.
GG