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Solder Iron Tips


hoby1

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You will want a tip with some more mass for the spade connectors on the ground plane and the fuse holders. Doesn't hurt for the triacs either. I would go at least with the 2.4mm chisel point if not the 3.2mm chisel point. I have never used this station, but working with my Weller, the bigger the better when it comes to heating up the ground planes.

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brewer wrote:

I just purchased two pc kits and was going to purchase this solder station that was recommended by others on this forum:

http://www.web-tronics.com/cispdeesdsas.html

It comes with a fine conical tip. Do I need any others or will the fine tip work for everything on these boards.

Thanks,

Dan


Hi,

I have seen on other threads that a wide/heavy tip is needed for soldering fuse holders etc (items that need a fair wack of solder.

Pete.;)
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No problem Peter. The more input the better. Most of the big stuff is tied to ground planes which act like heat sinks when soldering. A large tip is needed to counteract the heat sink effect of the ground plane. Another trick is to warm the entire board up a bit. There are PCB pre-heaters made for this, but they are not prectical for the average do-it-yourselfer. I have used a heat gun to warm up boards a bit when there was a lot of ground plane to contend with. Heat from the bottom, solder from the top. If you do this, take care to not heat the board too much. You don't want to be reflowing solder on other joints. 80C or 175F wouldbe great if you couldcontrol it.

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  • 2 months later...

Of course, with a temperature controlled soldering station, you probably don't have to worry too much about damaging the board itself.

While I definitely agree that the extra thermal mass and transfer of a larger tip is a smart way to go, I've been building mine with an ETA tip (about 1.5mm chisel tip) on a 50 watt temperature controlled iron. It takes some patience for the larger copper planes, both the neutrals with all the spade lugs, and the hots feeding the triacs, but it gets done. I don't think I have ever reflowed any of the other joints while doing it this way..

The 0.8 conical may not be able to put enough cross section in play to do this though. I'd suggest that for the middle leads of the triacs, the spade lugs, and the fuse holders, the 3.2mm chisel tip is probably a good idea.

My other comment is that the 0.8 conical tip sounds to be like it might take pretty good coordination to make equal contact on the board and the lead at the same time. With the ETA tip, I bring in the iron about 30 degrees off the board, with one of the flats towards the board, and the flat radius of the tip against the lead. Once you get it lined up, just a little pressure keeps it in place, and it generally seems to heat the trace and the lead pretty evenly... Just thinking that you might want to consider the 1.6mm chisel tip as well.

If the Weller ETA really is comparable with the 1.6mm, it should also be a good fit for things like the Ramsey kits..

- Kevin

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I have the Weller ETA, bougth it years ago, really like it.

Your choice looks good for a solder station, yes I would also recommend getting the extra KD-M3.2D tip when you purchase the soldering station. The unit come with the 0.8 tip and that one is fine for general soldering of components but the 3.2 workes better for large items that need to be soldered.

Go for it, the soldering station is better than the one from Radio Shack.

Just my opinion.

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