Solder iron

|)a\/1d

Does anyone know a online store I can purchase a solder iron from? i need one at my house and my schools not letting me take one home. How much are they anyway?

DaveC426913

Your local electronics store (Radio Shack, whatever) will have one as cheap as 10 bucks.

berkeman

Digikey: http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSea...ing%20iron

Jameco: http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/sto...egoryId=602040

Metcal: http://www.metcal.com/

Digikey and Jameco have basic units and moderately nice units. I'd recommend getting something with a stand and a sponge holder at least. If you do a lot of soldering, the Metcal unit is awesome. It uses RF heating and feedback to keep the tip hot and steady in temperature, even with a widely varying load (like soldering small stuff and then something big....that's hard to do with a standard Curie-point regulated tip like the cheaper irons.

BTW, you should consider setting up a fan of some sort to pull the solder smoke away from you. Solder smoke is not good for your lungs. At work, our rework solder stations are in front of a hood exhaust setup to pull the smoke away from the operators.

Corneo

I do a little surface mount soldering and the circuit is under a microscope away from my nose. But I have met a technician that said at his previous job he got lead poisoning from soldering. So be safe!

berkeman

Way back in the olden days, I just got in the habit of blowing gently while I soldered, to keep the solder smoke out of my face. Then later, I got this small fan unit to put behind what I was soldering, to pull the solder smoke away from me:

http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_493.html

And now we have the exhaust hood where I work now. Yeah, avoid that lead-laced smoke however you can. I dunno about the "lead poisoning" that the tech is complaining about, but lung cancer and other bad things can happen if you don't avoid inhaling lots os solder smoke, IMO.

DaveC426913

There are also lead-free solders, are there not?

I think it may be moot, since I suspect |)a\/1d is going to burn his house to the foundations with a jerry-rigged military laser long before he gets cancer.

arthur92710

radio shack is the best place to get them. 15-20watts for like 7.99. and no shipping like for the online stores.

Mr_Bojingles

In Canada they have decent soldering kits and irons in Source. They have all sorts of electronics components and tools too.