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Soldering Iron Recommendations


PatrickJ

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A bad workman and all that, but my current soldering iron is a bit crap.

I need to fix a few issues with the pre / pots in my Fender active bass and figured I may as well get a better iron to do the work with.

Any recommendations?

Edited by PJ-Bassist
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I was given for xmas a soldering station .... mine was about £45/50. It will keep the iron at the chosen temprature...be careful what setting you use.

there are a number of manufacturers around starting here...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=solder+staion&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR10.TRC2.A0.H0.Xsolder+station.TRS0&_nkw=solder+station&_sacat=0

 

Edited by mybass
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I have a TS100 which is great, they're usually £30-£40 on sale:

https://www.banggood.com/MINI-TS100-Digital-OLED-Programmable-Interface-DC-5525-Soldering-Iron-Station-Built-in-STM32-Chip-p-984214.html?rmmds=search

You'll need a power supply for it though, here's what i use:

https://www.banggood.com/Excellway-9-24V-3A-72W-ACDC-Adapter-Display-Adajustable-Power-Adapter-Switching-Power-Supply-UK-p-1304491.html?rmmds=myorder

 

I also have a silly cheap (ie £4 off eBay) USB powered iron for small jobs when I can't be bothered setting up the proper one which is surprisingly good, better than a lot of cheap irons and I can plug it into any USB port and be soldering in under a minute. Recently soldered a Micro USB port onto a board with it and it was easily capable of delicate work, spare tips are about £1 too and they're actually nice to use. I use this much more than I intended to do purely down to it being so convenient and me being lazy!

 

A lot of those cheap solder stations have really poor quality tips which are fine for a few leads etc but quickly deteriorate even if you look after them, I've had two of those generic (branded under a million different names like Silverline etc) ones fail on me. In the long run it's more cost effective to just get a better iron, those £40 TS100 ones are the first cheap iron which has been genuinely good. Tips are cheap and you can get really fine ones too.

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Try well known brands like Weller, Hakko, Metcal etc. If you have any money, your choice is a soldering station. Modern tins that do not contain lead (Pb) are harder in the process. I suggest to find one 500 g roll of 1 mm tin-lead (60-40 or even better 63-37). If possible, buy two rolls. That should be enough for years to come.

If on a budget, you may find a simple 25 - 50 W iron, but as an example, Weller's basic models are attractively priced at around 100 €:

https://www.weller-tools.com/consumer/EUR/en/Weller+Consumer/Soldering+Stations/Electronic%2C+Repair%2C+and+Everyday/WHS+40+(UK)

More sophisticated Metcal has heftier pricetag, prepare to pay around 500 € for a good station.

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On 16/03/2019 at 12:51, lemmywinks said:

I have a TS100 which is great, they're usually £30-£40 on sale:

https://www.banggood.com/MINI-TS100-Digital-OLED-Programmable-Interface-DC-5525-Soldering-Iron-Station-Built-in-STM32-Chip-p-984214.html?rmmds=search

You'll need a power supply for it though, here's what i use:

https://www.banggood.com/Excellway-9-24V-3A-72W-ACDC-Adapter-Display-Adajustable-Power-Adapter-Switching-Power-Supply-UK-p-1304491.html?rmmds=myorder

 

I also have a silly cheap (ie £4 off eBay) USB powered iron for small jobs when I can't be bothered setting up the proper one which is surprisingly good, better than a lot of cheap irons and I can plug it into any USB port and be soldering in under a minute. Recently soldered a Micro USB port onto a board with it and it was easily capable of delicate work, spare tips are about £1 too and they're actually nice to use. I use this much more than I intended to do purely down to it being so convenient and me being lazy!

 

A lot of those cheap solder stations have really poor quality tips which are fine for a few leads etc but quickly deteriorate even if you look after them, I've had two of those generic (branded under a million different names like Silverline etc) ones fail on me. In the long run it's more cost effective to just get a better iron, those £40 TS100 ones are the first cheap iron which has been genuinely good. Tips are cheap and you can get really fine ones too.

a couple of questions: the TS100 you linked to looks great and seems to also have the option of powering via micro USB. Have you ever powered yours in this way? Also, there appears to be a TS80 model which has is powered only via USB-C. I'm very intrigued by this for portability and convenience. Also, USBC has the potential to deliver higher power levels than earlier iterations of USB which for this application seems to be a positive.

For context, I'm not looking to get into particularly difficult/complex soldering work, only the kinds of jobs associated with a bass guitar i.e. pickup & preamp wiring.

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The USB port is just for firmware updates and editing as far as I know, not for power. A lot of people use generic 19v laptop power supplies (it can work with a variety of voltages) with them but the variable one I linked to works fine and gives it the full 24v.

 

No experience of the TS80 but it looks smart, has the same boot screen as the TS100 so if it's basically a lower power (guessing ~20w?) version then it should be adequate, may struggle with bigger blobs of solder for grounding pots etc. Looks really convenient for use with a power bank or something, looks like they've made fitting the tip tool free too - on the TS100 you have an annoyingly tiny hex screw.

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3 minutes ago, lemmywinks said:

The USB port is just for firmware updates and editing as far as I know, not for power. A lot of people use generic 19v laptop power supplies (it can work with a variety of voltages) with them but the variable one I linked to works fine and gives it the full 24v.

 

No experience of the TS80 but it looks smart, has the same boot screen as the TS100 so if it's basically a lower power (guessing ~20w?) version then it should be adequate, may struggle with bigger blobs of solder for grounding pots etc. Looks really convenient for use with a power bank or something, looks like they've made fitting the tip tool free too - on the TS100 you have an annoyingly tiny hex screw.

Ah, thanks for clarifying re: the micro USB port on the TS100.

Yeah it looks like the TS80 will most likely be a bit under the 20w mark. Despite having zero soldering knowledge I geeked out pretty hard on this video:

 

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I do some more delicate work than the usual bass related stuff so the pen style irons are great, just much nicer to use than the big clunky irons I used to have. You can go nuts with soldering equipment and spend hundreds (like any tool if you're using it a lot it's worth it) but the ~£50 stuff now is great.

 

Hakko and Weller both do extremely well priced cordless irons too so they're worth checking out, may take a while longer to heat up than the TS100 though.

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I've got one of these and it's the dog's doodies:

https://www.antex.co.uk/products/soldering-stations/760rwk/

But for nearly 40 years I had one of these and did everything with it, just fittiong a large bit when I needed bigger reservoir of heat:

https://www.antex.co.uk/products/precision-range-soldering-irons/cs18/

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After decades of using Weller irons which used to last well but don't any more, I tried the Solomon (Pensol) soldering stations.

SOLOMON SL-20

SOLOMON SL-30 with temp display

They are cheaper than Weller, more reliable and even better in use.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Soldering-station-48W-230V-24V-SL20-N-Solomon/173401940969?epid=5007755123&hash=item285f8fa3e9:g:11EAAOSwAOdbQzUF&frcectupt=true

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Soldering-station-48W-230V-24V-SL30-N-Solomon/113140790265?epid=2278796353&hash=item1a57b773f9:g:m6kAAOSwkyxbQzUF&frcectupt=true

Hakko are excellent too.

 

 

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