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Soldering iron
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CageyH View Drop Down
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    Posted: 21 Dec 2020 at 9:00am
I have just finished building myself a class AB power amplifier.
One thing I did realise was that a decent soldering iron may have been better than my adjustable 50W maplins iron.

What is a decent iron for non-professional use?

As posted elsewhere, I will be building a phono stage next, and then I may move on to a pre-amp.


Edited by CageyH - 21 Dec 2020 at 10:37am
Kevin
European loan coordinator, based near Toulouse, France.
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RichW View Drop Down
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A while ago I built a DAC kit & used a 90 Watt iron.
The design had internal ground planes & a low wattage iron struggled when soldering components
to it. The joint could be made very quickly with the high watt iron.
This might be irrelevant with your job.
Elevator, Accession M, Majestic/Enigma, Reflex M, CuSat & Lautus.
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gwebster View Drop Down
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Back in the day, one of the best irons around would have been a 30W Weller with the magnetic temperature control tips. These days a larger wattage iron with good electronic temperature control is your best bet. A couple of different size wedge or chisel tips are also handy.

My current iron is a 90W Ersa i-con Pico. It's great for through hole boards or SMT stuff.
I use a 3mm chisel tip for the SMT stuff and I've had no problems doing really small packages (TSSOP ones with 0.5mm pitch between pins). For larger stuff onto a ground plane, I'd change to a 5mm wedge tip.

If I was in the market for a new iron at present, I'd probably get a Haako FX888 70W iron.
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CageyH View Drop Down
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Points: 884 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CageyH Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Dec 2020 at 11:00am
Thanks for the response.
I shall have a look at the model mentioned.
Kevin
European loan coordinator, based near Toulouse, France.
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