A decent soldering iron

[torqueon]

Whats a good brand ?? I want an iron that will have good heat and not burn up the tips so fast,

 

[GMUseless]

Weller WES51 Soldering station. I've been building synthesizers with it for years.

http://www.amazon.com/Weller-WES51-Analog-Soldering-Station/dp/B000BRC2XU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1326517741&sr=8-2

 

[amberwolf]

what do you wnat to do with it?

big irons for big jobs, small ones for regular stuff, teensy ones for smt, etc.

different amounts o fheat needed.

 

[torqueon]

Thank you for the info

 

[newb]

how about this: 20w to 130w at a touch of a button

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=TS1554

 

[veloman]

I wish I could make good solders, most of mine never seem to get hot enough to connect properly. Is it the gun or my technique? I'm using a basic 30w pen style gun.

 

[TylerDurden]

I wish I could make good solders, most of mine never seem to get hot enough to connect properly. Is it the gun or my technique? I'm using a basic 30w pen style gun.

A hotter iron will help, if the joints are cold (dull, weak, un-adhered).

The dual-heat ("boost") irons are very handy for ebike work.

There are threads here on technique; but briefly I will say that I try to hit the joint with solder when the fluxed work is hot enough to melt the solder, but not so hot that the flux burns. As usual... practice makes perfect.

 

[chisixer6]

I use a hakko fx-888

http://www.amazon.com/Hakko-Soldering-Station-FX-888/dp/B004M3U0VU

 

[jonescg]

My 80 W iron gets plenty hot for soldering big stuff like 2 mm copper plate terminations and the like, but it seems to get too hot for maintaining a respectable layer of tin. I find I dab with solder, wipe it off, repeat 3 times and then I might have a shiny surface ready to solder with, only to have it burn and become solder repellent.

I think it needs a simmerstat turned up to 9/10ths to maintain a good temperature.

Otherwise, for soldering really big stuff, I wish I actually had a bigger one. 175 W would probably do nicely. So I can blast the copper plate, melt it onto the battery tabs, and have very little of the heat make it into the cells before being chilled with a ice-water sponge or something.

 

[Spacey]

How the hell do you solder 10AWG RC Cable, I bought one of those solid copper hammer heads for my iron but it is just to big to fit in. Drives me nuts.

 

[jonescg]

Crimp it.
http://terminalscheap.com/index.php/butt-wire-connectors-c-24

I too have done this the hard way for too long...