In the latest care package from
Woodworks as well as the 179C solder I ordered, were also samples of 145C and 100C. Now in the vast collection of tools here at Chateau Dandruff (counted by a local
careless saw miller on the fingers of one hand), one of the ones I'm missing is a temperature controlled soldering iron. Now, not wanting to waste money on something that I probably won't use enough to justify the cost ( A set of files might even be pushing it), I came up with the following dodge based on something I had seen a long time ago.
The heat at the iron end is still enough to melt the run of the mill electronic solder, at the other end it just gets hot enough to melt the 100C stuff, with the 145C melting 2-3cm back. By contrast, Trackgang metal melts about 3cm from the right end (total length of the device is abut 10cm).
Now, you are all going to tell me its rubbish and I should buy a proper temperature controlled unit, but I simply can't afford it. This seems like a reasonable compromise. It won't be as easy to use, but it will work.
6 comments:
did you already try one of these ? http://nz120.org/forumtopic/product-reviews they do not cost 'an arm an a leg' and you can connect them to any regulated DC source like the power pack for your trains...
steve w.
I wonder how it would run on DCC? I dont actually own a regular power pack......
Coming from my generation that is a temperature controlled soldering iron .
Didn't have any of them electronic do hickies back when i was young .
Sorry we did have one it was called a light switch .
If it works that's all that counts and you want have to live on toast for the next year paying it off
Actually, I should just hook it up to a dimmer switch.
Ed Zachary! Some dude on TradeMe was selling neat little power controllers for AC a while back, only $20. The neat thing about throttling down a regular iron is that they usually have a decent sized lump of metal i.e. large thermal mass, on their end, so they don't lose heat nearly as fast as the skinny little temp-controlled irons.
I highly recommend the 12V irons sold by Trackgang - hooked up to the 5V and 3.3V outputs from old computer power supplies, they are perfect for 145 and 100 degree soldering.
just use your standard iron but get in and out quickly.
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