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Recommend me a Soldering Iron please...

beammeup

beammeup

pfm Member
.... I'm just starting out on my soldering journey and would like to know if the below soldering iron from Amazon is good enough or not? Thanks!

I choose the one below because I thought it might be good for the absolute beginner having all the necessary bits and pieces all in one go.

First task - soldering a wire back onto a tweeter.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0748L82C1/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
I recently bought one of those. It does the job. Probably won’t last as long as some of the more established names but hey ho. I started with the temp set at 330 but that wasn’t high enough so I’ve gone to 370 or so
 
Well I might aswell get it right first time around... I wouldn't know what temp to set these things at - for just soldering back a tweeter wire probably not very high?
 
Seconded on the Antex XS25 recommendation. I’d suggest going for the one with the silicone cable (link) as it is far less stiff and doesn’t get in the way in the same way as the standard lead. I love mine and have done everything from speaker leads to computer chips with it.

Edit: thirded!
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
A third vote to Antex. They just work. Great value too, spare tips of graet variety widely/cheaply available.

And mine doesn't have the silicone cable. You should see how many scalds & blebs that cable now carries has after ~10-12yrs of (careful-ish ) use: one of them flirted with disaster (well into the blue /'live' core insulant) after a moments inattention - so yes, go for the silicone lead!
 
Proskit are a good brand for hobbyists.
In my office we use Hakko

You only need 25W for light soldering, but a common mistake is not to use a much higher powered iron on hard to heat parts like connectors and thick wire.
 
+1 to that.

For a lot of repair tasks the best answer is a lot of heat applied for a very short time - not 'a 12-17w iron applied until tracks curl& lift' because that's what you have to hand. So yes, buy a (cheap/spare) 30-50w iron if you need to move things/ re-fix heavy wiring.

I've successfully moved/re-used/re-placed even (or perhaps, especially) small smd bits with a 40+w iron on this basis - because the job gets done fast, and therefore, minimal collateral damage. Strange, but true.
 
Plus one to Martin's comment, the more power the quicker the job. Using a low power the heat just gets wicked away to quickly and you can never manage to actually get things soldered on properly if there is a large expanse of copper adjacent - speaker cables or large ground planes etc.
 
I have four irons, an 18w, 25w, 40w and 100w.

I find the 25w to be the Goldilocks setting for the vast majority of jobs but yes a more powerful iron is very useful for stuff like soldering banana plugs to heavy guage speaker cable etc.

Having the right solder (and flux if needed) makes a massive difference too. Get yourself some decent 60/40 tin lead solder and avoid the lead free stuff.
 
Not all 60/40 solder is equal. I have some that seems to contain a completely useless flux.
Buy solder of a couple of diameters, it is much easier to solder fine pitch smd with 0.5mm
 
I've just assembled a set of xo boards fo a fifopi with a 50 watt iron with a large tip, loads of 1608 smt parts without magnification. It's all down to technique, good flux and a steady hand.
 
sq225917 said:
I've just assembled a set of xo boards fo a fifopi with a 50 watt iron with a large tip, loads of 1608 smt parts without magnification. It's all down to technique, good flux and a steady hand.
Click to expand...

Show off.

All I did was solder back on a HF-1300 tweeter wire which fell of an old Celestion County loudspeaker. Piss easy even for a novice like me (first ever bit of soldering).
 
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