Soldering iron advice

Are you using lead-free solder?

Heck no! :face_vomiting:

Only Sn60/Pb40

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Hmm, I canā€™t imagine why you would need such high temperatures, I had an other iron with analog temp settings, was not fun to use, but I would have to set it to max (450Ā°C) when soldering thick wires and stuff like that.

I saw in some reviews of the TS80, the TS80 actually heat up solder and copper planes faster than the TS100 despite being LOWER power :man_shrugging: . The Weller uses the old tip technology correct? The one with the ceramic heating element? The newer tip technology has the heater and thermocouple embedded in the tip, making heat transfer and temperature regulation much more efficient. I noticed this on older tips using the old ceramic technology, while the station thinks the tip is at x temperature, the component being heated is at a significantly lower temperature, so a higher temperature is set to compensate.

When I set the temperature on my TS80 to anything above 330Ā°C, literally everything starts burning unless I touch it to something with significant heat capacity; above 350Ā°C, doesnā€™t matter what itā€™s touching, canā€™t stop the burning.

Iā€™ve had no issues myself with soldering to huge copper pours and ground planes as well as XT60s. I havenā€™t soldered XT90s yet, but I will find out how it performs this weekend.

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Just to be clear, Iā€™m not saying you need such high temperatures. Iā€™m saying itā€™s easier to use and you can keep things cooler sometimes if you have the ability to use higher temperatures.

Especially things like XT90 or large 10AWG wires.

Also, protip: plug the XT90 male/female together when you solder them. It will keep the pins straight.

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I understand. What I am trying to say is, despite the lower max temperature setting, the TS80s set at 300Ā°C or 330Ā°C may very well end up performing better than the Weller set to 450Ā°C, due to the difference in heater and tip technology.

Like, although you are setting a higher temperature on the Weller, you may not be getting that higher temperature at the end of the tip.

What matters here is heat delivery, and the various tests that can be found on youtube demonstrate the TS80 excelling at that feature. Increasing the temperature setting is one method of increasing heat delivery.

What Iā€™m trying to say is, the TS80 can also keep things cooler by heating up the critical elements to solderā€™s melting point faster (without heating up other elements).

But, we wonā€™t really know which is better until someone does a head to head test.

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What are you asking for it rithblu?

Should we start a soldering iron picture thread :laughing:

Iā€™ve got a really nice JBL station but it struggles to push the watts, itā€™s a surgical tool for surface mount stuff.

The TS80! I forgot that came out! I saw a prototype of it a couple years ago and forgot about it. USB-C, so good.

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I have a very cheap soldering station that works just fine even with 10awg wires. I use the Dibotech 48W analog soldering station. It works perfectly fine if you just give it a few minutes to heat up properly.

What you need to thing about when soldering thick wires is to pre-tin everything and also put some tin on the tip to help transfer the heat onto whatever your soldering. Itā€™s only about $30 in Sweden :slight_smile:

I know some people have mentioned it but I actually just bought 2 TS 80ā€™s (one extra on accident) so I was just going to return the extra one but thought I should throw it up on here first and then I saw this post. lol. I Literally just got it in the mail last Friday. I am semi new to soldering as well and taught myself (youtube actually did) in Nov/.Dec a few months ago. I bought a cheapo kit from amazon and it was ok but already broke (I just use it for esk8 as well). I fucking love this ts80 though. It had crazy good reviews and everyone thought it wouldnā€™t be as good or as powerful as its TS100big brother, but seems it is, if not better. Highly recommend. The fact you can use it with a USB-C cable and quick charge power bank is just awesome. Small, sleek, cncā€™d, tips are dope and can be changed in .5 seconds. If anyone wants it for what I paid lmk, I think I spent just short of $90 for the ā€œmoreā€ kit that comes with a really nice silicone USB-c cable, wall plug adapter, tip, and something else. Iā€™ve been researching different firmware you can add too since itā€™s open source which is another pretty cool feature. And its ā€œsmartā€ so cools down when you set it down and arenā€™t using it then heats up as soon as you pick it up back to where you and set it at.

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TS100 is a champ for the money, Iā€™ve had mine for maybe 4 years, power it from a lipo battery and itā€™s never missed a beat, different tips for different jobs. It can do the fine stuff and has no problems stepping up to heavier duty jobs, Iā€™ve done Xt90s, and even amass150s on 10awg.

Top tip though, get a good iron to start with, it will save you a ton of trouble in the long run, cold solder joints are a nightmare of intermittent faults that will take a ton of time to troubleshoot.

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I bought a junk one for real cheap and its cost me more in the long run with melted XTs , broken down battery etc.

I got this and LOVE it , before i owned this I hated to solder and now I enjoy it

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weller-W101-Temperature-Controlled-Iron/dp/B0001P17CO

its funny I spotted the smaller iron Iā€™ve owned for like 30+ years its also a Weller ā€¦ my advice after wasting lot of $$ is just ā€˜get a big enough Wellerā€™ and youā€™ll be fine :slight_smile:

@ts100 fanboys what tip are you using?

@Tangent @jansen @Gamer43

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There is a difference between temperature and power.

You solder the best around 300-350 degree depends on the solder you use. When you go higher then the temp then more toxic fumes are released.

If you have a low wattage solder iron you must set your temperature way higher because the temperature dips much when you solder a big wire. If you have a high power solder iron it has enough wattage to keep the temparture the same while soldering.

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I donā€™t use a t100 but a t12. I use the tips with a black color on it. Those are the ones with the highest quality. Maybe they are selling the same for the t100 image

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I donā€™t think I have seen them before

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If you burn the flux thats a great way to form a cold solder joint too.

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Would highly recommend the ts100. get a 24v mean well power supply (Mean Well LRS-100-24) and wack it up to 25-26V and you got a killer iron. Dont skimp on the voltage, it makes a massive difference. I use the C4 tip for larger stuff and D24 for the circuitboards and smaller things. make the power cord yourself with some 20-22awg silicone wire. if you got a 3d printer there are some nice accessories and stuff you can print out for it.

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Thatā€™s some good advice thanks

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$85 shopped.

From my experience, you do not need precision or anything fancy but just raw power to solder these thick wieres

Im currently using this station get the tips package for another 6$ and you will be able to solder all the wires without problems, It still did not fail on me after being used each day for 3 hours

But when you get some more money to spend on a soldering iron go with weller, I have one thats almost 25 years old and it still works!

Also if the hand gets broken, worn out burned or whatever a new one costs 5$ and the heating element is around 5$ as well so you will not have to worry about it :smiley: