Oh yes, constructed a few projects with tag strips and tag boards as a teenager. Amazingly that stuff is still easily available. These guys have quite a selection: http://www.hificollective.co.uk/components/tagboards.html
I guess there are a lot of tube audio nuts that keep up the demand.
I looked up hobbyking's soldering stations and sure enough they are only $16. but there are none in the AUS warehouse, so it was going to cost $50. I will find better cheaper. I just want an iron 25 or 30 watts that doesn’t shoot up the heat of the tip the way mine does. There are plenty on ebay that would leave mine for dead at a good price.
But for now ill keep using what i have and unplugging it. I do want to get a chisel tip though. Ill see the shop tomorrow, oh, no, that's show holiday
Thing is you want your iron to heat up quickly. When you need to solder you need to solder now! Right?
Also from time to time you will want to solder some big Smile heat sink tab on a power transistor or some such that requires that your iron "goes to 11".
So more power is good, 60W is great.
But as you know a 60W iron will melt holes through your board and burn the house down!
BUT, if you have temperature control that is not a problem. The thing will get up to the required temperature quickly and stop there. When you try to weld boiler plates together with it the temp controller will pump in more juice.
Conclusion: If you have temperature control more power is good. 60W is great.
Wow, I have no idea if that temp controlled iron you linked to is good or not but I'm tempted to order it anyway. I have never seen anything like it. A temp controlled soldering station without the soldering station!
It may well not work very well or it may explode in your hand but I'd love to have a play with one.
Whitoxe, a dollar store iron will work since you don't need much power to work on Microcontroller PCBs.
I personally would choose the Hakko knock-off over that fancy hand iron. At least with the knock-off the main electronics is away from me should something happen.
Hand irons are very simple so the worst a cheaply-made iron will do is die quickly.
I don't much go in for torturing helpless critters (at least not since I suspended my childhood experiments with cats) but you on the other hand...
I love the idea of putting the temp control in the iron itself. After all electronics is small now a days and who needs that big heavy box cluttering up the kitchen table.
But I would worry about:
1) Safety. We now have complex mains powered stuff in our hand and Chines are known to cut corners on electrical safety.
2) Isolation. Is that thing pumping stray volts into our components as we solder.
3) Is it nice to use. Ergonomics. Not too big, not too heavy. Does it have a nice flexible lead. etc.
4) Reliability.
But hey, for the price it's worth checking out.
Making it really safe and isolated would probably mean using a 24 volt transformer. But then we are back to that box cluttering up the workspace again.
(at least not since I suspended my childhood experiments with cats) but you on the other hand...
Gee Heater..... I thought you were all warm and fuzzy
Tomorrow PJ might be over, I am pretty sure he is brining his own iron with him. I would enjoy soldering a row of pins with it if i get the chance. Ive also just broken a wire to my phone chatger right where it meete up with the mini mini usb type end connector. Its about the same as what you plug into a kindle or a kobo but its a few mils longer to connect properly. Im hoping we can fix that and save me 30 bucks.
qand a new power plug to be soldered onto my Dell Vostro laptop. Havent been able to use it as the other dell laptop i own has a differnt battery.
Im all Linux except for the one dell laptop at the moment which is win 7. I have found Wine in Linux to be great for when I really want to run a windows app., but sometimes I have troyuble with COM ports even using SimpleIDE for Liux or Arduino for Linux. Nothing to do with Wine. I only wanted to install XP to virtual box for the sake of one submarine game /;). Then at other times there is no issue.
I'm not so bad. Helpless critters are, well, helpless. You on the other hand, fully aware of the dangers involved, are bravely volunteering for this experiment.
We all love to watch a Darwin Award attempt...err...no...We salute you and wish you God's speed.
Whitoxe, a dollar store iron will work since you don't need much power to work on Microcontroller PCBs.
I personally would choose the Hakko knock-off over that fancy hand iron. At least with the knock-off the main electronics is away from me should something happen.
Hand irons are very simple so the worst a cheaply-made iron will do is die quickly.
yes, so long as it does not get so hot as my current iron which i think was $10 or less. I have a coupleof FM trasnsmitter kits i have not been game to solder. I cant find the better one. Tonight Ive got a selection of cheap smallish boxes I have purchased. Im going to try andf put things in clearly marked boxes because right now its a giant mess. Today i got a nice sized CR servo in the mail and a box of miscelaneous meccanoparts . The one servo ive played with is a parallax servo fubota i think. I think i need another as you pointed out those CR servos can not be used for everything i had planned.
I'm not so bad. Helpless critters are, well, helpless. You on the other hand, fully aware of the dangers involved, are bravely volunteering for this experiment.
We all love to watch a Darwin Award attempt...err...no...We salute you and wish you God's speed.
And they say my posts need to be read 3 times .....
yep, I do appreciate his time. If he asks me to detail his car while he's fixing things up, I probably would not complain.(i hope he isn't reading this
If we get the Dell Vostro fixed, I might make that a dual boot XP/Mint system ?
I can tell you that repairing your laptop will take a few hours because you need to disassemble the whole computer to get to the motherboard. Soldering in a new jack is quick but you should also glue the jack so it's harder to break. A friend of mine took his son's laptop apart several times because the power jack broke but since he put in a new jack it's worked fine.
While you have the motherboard out clean all the dust from CPU fan and heatsink. Another friend had an HP that would heat up and crash because the CPU fan was blocked by dust. I fixed it for him but I did something wrong when I reassembled it because the case bulges near the VGA port.
Whiteoxe, It takes a while to disassemble a laptop especially if you've never done it before. Take your time because there are a lot of screws, connectors, and delicate parts. It's amazing how much stuff they can cram into such a small space. Now you understand why laptops aren't cheap.
Comments
Oh yes, constructed a few projects with tag strips and tag boards as a teenager. Amazingly that stuff is still easily available. These guys have quite a selection:
http://www.hificollective.co.uk/components/tagboards.html
I guess there are a lot of tube audio nuts that keep up the demand.
But for now ill keep using what i have and unplugging it. I do want to get a chisel tip though. Ill see the shop tomorrow, oh, no, that's show holiday
About that 60W rating.
Thing is you want your iron to heat up quickly. When you need to solder you need to solder now! Right?
Also from time to time you will want to solder some big Smile heat sink tab on a power transistor or some such that requires that your iron "goes to 11".
So more power is good, 60W is great.
But as you know a 60W iron will melt holes through your board and burn the house down!
BUT, if you have temperature control that is not a problem. The thing will get up to the required temperature quickly and stop there. When you try to weld boiler plates together with it the temp controller will pump in more juice.
Conclusion: If you have temperature control more power is good. 60W is great.
Wow, I have no idea if that temp controlled iron you linked to is good or not but I'm tempted to order it anyway. I have never seen anything like it. A temp controlled soldering station without the soldering station!
It may well not work very well or it may explode in your hand but I'd love to have a play with one.
I personally would choose the Hakko knock-off over that fancy hand iron. At least with the knock-off the main electronics is away from me should something happen.
Hand irons are very simple so the worst a cheaply-made iron will do is die quickly.
I love the idea of putting the temp control in the iron itself. After all electronics is small now a days and who needs that big heavy box cluttering up the kitchen table.
But I would worry about:
1) Safety. We now have complex mains powered stuff in our hand and Chines are known to cut corners on electrical safety.
2) Isolation. Is that thing pumping stray volts into our components as we solder.
3) Is it nice to use. Ergonomics. Not too big, not too heavy. Does it have a nice flexible lead. etc.
4) Reliability.
But hey, for the price it's worth checking out.
Making it really safe and isolated would probably mean using a 24 volt transformer. But then we are back to that box cluttering up the workspace again.
Tomorrow PJ might be over, I am pretty sure he is brining his own iron with him. I would enjoy soldering a row of pins with it if i get the chance. Ive also just broken a wire to my phone chatger right where it meete up with the mini mini usb type end connector. Its about the same as what you plug into a kindle or a kobo but its a few mils longer to connect properly. Im hoping we can fix that and save me 30 bucks.
qand a new power plug to be soldered onto my Dell Vostro laptop. Havent been able to use it as the other dell laptop i own has a differnt battery.
Im all Linux except for the one dell laptop at the moment which is win 7. I have found Wine in Linux to be great for when I really want to run a windows app., but sometimes I have troyuble with COM ports even using SimpleIDE for Liux or Arduino for Linux. Nothing to do with Wine. I only wanted to install XP to virtual box for the sake of one submarine game /;). Then at other times there is no issue.
We all love to watch a Darwin Award attempt...err...no...We salute you and wish you God's speed.
yes, so long as it does not get so hot as my current iron which i think was $10 or less. I have a coupleof FM trasnsmitter kits i have not been game to solder. I cant find the better one. Tonight Ive got a selection of cheap smallish boxes I have purchased. Im going to try andf put things in clearly marked boxes because right now its a giant mess. Today i got a nice sized CR servo in the mail and a box of miscelaneous meccanoparts . The one servo ive played with is a parallax servo fubota i think. I think i need another as you pointed out those CR servos can not be used for everything i had planned.
As for servos, a CR servo goes around and around while a regular servo will only move from horizontal right to horizontal left and vice versa.
If we get the Dell Vostro fixed, I might make that a dual boot XP/Mint system ?
While you have the motherboard out clean all the dust from CPU fan and heatsink. Another friend had an HP that would heat up and crash because the CPU fan was blocked by dust. I fixed it for him but I did something wrong when I reassembled it because the case bulges near the VGA port.