Recommend me a soldering iron.

muddyl

Hi all.

I have done plenty if soldering before, but I'm wanting to do some that involves the likes of surface mount LED's and my iron is way too large for those small connections.

Can anyone recommend a half decent but fairly cheap soldering iron that's good for these kinds of applications?

Cheers, Mark

bluesnake

Depending on the copper mass or heat sink size you are soldering to and component compactness, then this should work for a small surface area http://www.maplin.co.uk/12w-miniature-soldering-iron-type-m-4048

heat guns are used more these days, just look on youtube on phone repair.

make sure you know your anode from your cathode beforehand.

Ratboy

bluesnake wrote: »

Depending on the copper mass or heat sink size you are soldering to and component compactness, then this should work for a small surface area http://www.maplin.co.uk/12w-miniature-soldering-iron-type-m-4048

heat guns are used more these days, just look on youtube on phone repair.

make sure you know your anode from your cathode beforehand.

Surely your 'avvin a laff' recommending that iron for SMD work???? :rotfl:

You would be looking towards £150-£250 for a half decent, variable temperature iron, with the attachments/vacuum, but found some decent prices on ebay here;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/sis.html?_nkw=YH-899D-2IN1-SMD-HOTAIR-REWORK-SOLDERING-IRON-STATION-

The one I used to use commercially was £2000 yikes(!)

bluesnake

Ratboy, should be ok for 1 led, tacking on two ends. No where near as fine as legs on ICs.

Once the tip had gone on the ebay ones, bet you wont get replacements and you have you bin it.

paddyrg

if it's a single surface-mount job, can you get a small amount of paste and flash the board with a heat shield under the drill for half a second?! It's a bit risky, so maybe not ideal for anything more than a bit of prototyping but hey :-)

Enterprise_1701C

My OH uses one from Wilkinsons for this sort of thing, cheapest we could find and does the job fine.

http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/heat-guns+soldering-irons/wilko-soldering-iron-30w/invt/0209034?VBMST=soldering iton

epninety

Not cheap, but for my money, a second hand Metcal iron for around 100 quid.

Hakko 936 and 888 are well regarded in the hobby community, but not so easy to find in the UK.

muddyl

Thanks for the help all.

I may try the likes of the wilkinson one to start with as i dont want to spend much at the moment but will/may buy better if all goes well.

As for the heat flashing, i'll give that a miss. Its alterations to something worth about £50 second hand (about £300 new) and has plenty other components on there so dont want to risk damage.