I'm looking for a new soldering station, general usage, repairs, through hole and SMD components.
Now I'm looking at Weller stations, rather than buy one of their earlier models I started looking at the WD 1012 series, has anyone any thoughts on these?
I was nearly caught out buying a Atten ST station, from RS components - they are NOT temperature controlled!!!! There is only three wires in the soldering pen handle, ground and a power feed to the element, they do have one draw back the tip cools when soldering and anything but the temperature displayed.
Imagine removing a components with solder wick braid and the tip cools down, and ideal situation for the copper track to tear and rip, I can guess the sensing is done via a current shunt resistor, certainly done on-board and not in the iron. I put this to RS and have confirmed my suspicions, they also confirmed Tenma was the same.
I know Hakko is a good iron used by many, to be honest I don't like the design and it seems fiddly pressing this and that buttons and that it looks like something from Fisher Price toys, so do do, ideas anyone?
Dave
Now I'm looking at Weller stations, rather than buy one of their earlier models I started looking at the WD 1012 series, has anyone any thoughts on these?
I was nearly caught out buying a Atten ST station, from RS components - they are NOT temperature controlled!!!! There is only three wires in the soldering pen handle, ground and a power feed to the element, they do have one draw back the tip cools when soldering and anything but the temperature displayed.
Imagine removing a components with solder wick braid and the tip cools down, and ideal situation for the copper track to tear and rip, I can guess the sensing is done via a current shunt resistor, certainly done on-board and not in the iron. I put this to RS and have confirmed my suspicions, they also confirmed Tenma was the same.
I know Hakko is a good iron used by many, to be honest I don't like the design and it seems fiddly pressing this and that buttons and that it looks like something from Fisher Price toys, so do do, ideas anyone?
Dave
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