Quote:
Originally Posted by vol.2
Very jealous! A decent soldering iron is at the top of my list right now, but I don't think it will be quite as nice as that one.
I've been using the same Digital Tenma station that I bought from MCM Electronics in the late 90s. I never bothered replacing it because it kind of "just works" and it gets very very hot. The big issue is that it takes a minute or two to be usable.
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I was surprised by how relatively inexpensive they were. There is a pretty decent used market for parts which allowed me to put together a complete setup with a pile of tips for under $400 - probably the best investment in the bench I've ever made. Up until I got the Metcal I used a Weller WES51 I got for my 16th birthday (23 now) for literally everything from tube work to fine-pitch SMD soldering. It's a fine iron, but with the volume of stuff I work on, I kept running into situations where it really struggled and was clearly at the edge of what it was capable of. So far the Metcal is knocking it out of the park!
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When you lower your standards, you set a new standard!
ISO: Mitsubishi 6CT-338, Sony Chromatron 19C70/100, Yaou "Colornetron" GTC-9, etc...
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