Is this IRON good enough?

[Jeet]

Hello
Couple months ago I bough some caps here to resolder a board. Well I had a cheap 25w ratshack iron and it sucked. I use to solder pretty well back in highschool,but never bother with it again. I started practicing on some dead parts I had and well that 25w iron doesn't work so well. So I held off replacing the caps on the motherboard.
I've been reading threads on here etc.

My question is this iron decent enough HAKKO BLUE I'm not trying to be frugal,but I just don't want to spend so much right now. My goal is to reacquire my skill and replace caps for mobo of computers I work on for friends,family or just garbage parts. Maybe later I would purchase a station.

Thank you for this site and any information require

PS: Never try to solder anything while you under the influence,you could burn things.

[willawake]

Re: Is this IRON good enough?

more wattage is better my friend especially when you encouter lead free solder personally i would want a 60w. certainly you would have better results with a 40w than a useless 25w

[stj]

Re: Is this IRON good enough?

only temperature-regulated,
60w pure will not just remove the pads, it will de-laminate the board.

[willawake]

Re: Is this IRON good enough?

hmm actually big pope uses that iron
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1193

[paul_h]

Re: Is this IRON good enough?

Yeah, I bought a cheap 25w iron and it was useless. I do have a iroda butane iron that I use for work when on the road, so I used that instead for a while.
But I came across a 30W 'master tool' iron that does the job well too.
Pretty much anything that is a generic 25w is garbage, and everything else is good, even if it's a generic 30W

[ratdude747]

Re: Is this IRON good enough?

i use the xytronic 258. its 30w, grounded, and temp controlled... not to mention cheap (20 usd). it uses high quality tips. it does me well.

that said, i may save up for a soldering station. but the iron i have will do fine for now.

[Krankshaft]

Re: Is this IRON good enough?

My Hakko FX-951 is 70 Watts it's a temperature regulated station and it has never delaminated a board here's why.

There is a common misconception about soldering iron wattage it has NOTHING to do with temperature which WILL delaminate a board. Soldering iron wattage can be thought of as the power to recover the tip to the desired temperature when applied to a thermal conductor (a trace).

When you place an iron on a copper trace the heat conducts from the tip and throughout the trace this causes the tip to lose heat. How quickly the tip can return to its prior temperature is known as the irons thermal recovery. Higher wattage irons will have faster thermal recovery.

The problem comes with unregulated irons they have the thermal recovery but they don't have temperature regulation and that is why they can destroy boards. They have a boatload of power but no control over it. So yes high wattage unregulated irons can delaminate but not because of their wattage but their unregulated temperature.

[totalselfreliance]

Re: Is this IRON good enough?

So yes high wattage unregulated irons can delaminate but not because of their wattage but their unregulated temperature.

Sometimes a little common sense is all it takes