The new breed of irons with temperature measurement built into the tip (invented by JBC, cloned by Geeboon and similar) is amazing. The tip heats to exactly the temp you want in 3 seconds, then cools down to avoid damage when you put it back in the stand. As you solder, the power is automatically controlled to keep the tip at the specified temp regardless of the load you put on it. I never thought I'd replace the Weller station I've used for 20 years, but I'm glad I did.
Edit: For a specific recommendation, look for the Geeboon TC22 on AliExpress or Amazon. Don’t forget the tips, you may need to get them separately.
I have bought the TC22 after going on r/Soldering and can only stand by the recommendation, its an amazing iron for hobbyists and its ability to put tons of power on a tiny area quickly means basically its 100% easier to work with than a ton of cheap irons, and have a much lower chance of killing components than dicking around with less powerful ones and staying on the pin a long time trying to heat it up while it wicks heat away into sensitive electronics. Doubly so when I mess it up or the solder is not fully melted. Another nice thing is with powerful irons you don't have to overshoot the melting temp of solder as much, and tips with less thermal mass in general can be used.
Im a rank amateur so take what I said with a grain of salt. With that said, I have made several cool things in my life that many people've said I could charge money for. I guess you can't really see the mess I made when you can't look inside the housing :)
I've purchased it from the GEEBOON Store on Aliexpress (no affiliate or anything just looked up my order history):
It heats to exactly the temperature I want in 3 seconds? Is there evidence to support this claim?
(My bullshit detector is making some rather profound gurgling sounds.)
edit: Seriously, my dudes. Links, or it never happened. Anecdotes are just anecdotes. Anecdotally, my soldering iron heats up very quickly as well and I'm very pleased with this, but I'm not making a claim that it heats to an exact, unspecified user-selected temperature in 3 seconds. If you want to present a benchmark, then please present the bench -- with the mark.
My TS101 heats up in like 3-4 seconds (330c) on a 100W laptop PD USB C. It doesn't have a lot of mass but it's perfect for microcontroller related stuff. Just not power electronics.
I can make no claims as to the brands mentioned in the parent post, but a 3 second heating time isn't all that fast for a real nice soldering iron. Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.
> Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.
Metcal Fixed Temperature Induction soldering irons. Still the gold standard after decades because instead of using PID with a heating element and sensor, it exploits the curie effect. The tips are made of a special alloy that is only magnetic until a certain temperature after which it doesn’t absorb any more energy from the PSU, which just dumps a constant 25Mhz signal into the tip keeping it at the fixed temperature.
When their patents expired a couple of Metcal engineers left to found Thermaltronics, which makes the same soldering iron (they’re even tip compatible!) for 2-3x cheaper. They’re still more expensive than hobbyist soldering irons but well worth the cost for anyone doing a lot of soldering. The Metcal power supplies are beasts though so you can easily pick up a 20 year old unit for a couple hundred bucks on ebay and it’ll run till the apocalypse comes home to roost. I have an old unit made in the late 90s that is still going strong.
Though from looking at some of the chatter about it online, this is only one specific tip they make under ideal conditions, and it seems like often they overshoot the temperature by more than a little on warmup (though this will be the slowest to recover with the tip just held in air as opposed to when actually soldering). Either way, I've used similar products and this kind of speed isn't a crazy suggestion to me.
I have a Hakko FX-888D. It's pretty good, although I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down to a safe handling temperature.
I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please!
I go through these for solder flux removal like crazy, in combination with an aerosol can of MG Chemicals 4140-400G. Sadly, I think that stuff is unobtainium now.
Depends. The ancient Weller that I have has a sleeve you can unscrew but that sucker gets burning hot, and the thumbscrew locks up unless you cool the tip down, which you can do by holding the thing on your wet sponge.
How ofter are you switching tips? It's been a while since I did any real soldering, but I don't remember often needing to switch in the middle of a session.
I swap the tips on my Hakko without letting it cool down, I just use a Knipex pliers wrench so I don't burn myself. I keep my spare tips in an altoids tin, so I can drop the hot one in there without burning anything.
The new breed of irons with temperature measurement built into the tip (invented by JBC, cloned by Geeboon and similar) is amazing. The tip heats to exactly the temp you want in 3 seconds, then cools down to avoid damage when you put it back in the stand. As you solder, the power is automatically controlled to keep the tip at the specified temp regardless of the load you put on it. I never thought I'd replace the Weller station I've used for 20 years, but I'm glad I did.
Edit: For a specific recommendation, look for the Geeboon TC22 on AliExpress or Amazon. Don’t forget the tips, you may need to get them separately.
Share a link! Don't be shy.
I have bought the TC22 after going on r/Soldering and can only stand by the recommendation, its an amazing iron for hobbyists and its ability to put tons of power on a tiny area quickly means basically its 100% easier to work with than a ton of cheap irons, and have a much lower chance of killing components than dicking around with less powerful ones and staying on the pin a long time trying to heat it up while it wicks heat away into sensitive electronics. Doubly so when I mess it up or the solder is not fully melted. Another nice thing is with powerful irons you don't have to overshoot the melting temp of solder as much, and tips with less thermal mass in general can be used.
Im a rank amateur so take what I said with a grain of salt. With that said, I have made several cool things in my life that many people've said I could charge money for. I guess you can't really see the mess I made when you can't look inside the housing :)
I've purchased it from the GEEBOON Store on Aliexpress (no affiliate or anything just looked up my order history):
https://geeboontools.aliexpress.com/store/1103439446
All being said you might not be comfortable with supporting the Chinese clone industry, and I can understand that.
any c245 will do (JBC is the best and original, but clones are close)
It heats to exactly the temperature I want in 3 seconds? Is there evidence to support this claim?
(My bullshit detector is making some rather profound gurgling sounds.)
edit: Seriously, my dudes. Links, or it never happened. Anecdotes are just anecdotes. Anecdotally, my soldering iron heats up very quickly as well and I'm very pleased with this, but I'm not making a claim that it heats to an exact, unspecified user-selected temperature in 3 seconds. If you want to present a benchmark, then please present the bench -- with the mark.
Depends on mass/element power.
My TS101 heats up in like 3-4 seconds (330c) on a 100W laptop PD USB C. It doesn't have a lot of mass but it's perfect for microcontroller related stuff. Just not power electronics.
I can make no claims as to the brands mentioned in the parent post, but a 3 second heating time isn't all that fast for a real nice soldering iron. Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.
> Previous job had an iron that'd heat between you picking it up and moving it over to the PCB. That one was stupendously expensive from what I heard, but I can only imagine that tech has gotten a lot cheaper since then.
Metcal Fixed Temperature Induction soldering irons. Still the gold standard after decades because instead of using PID with a heating element and sensor, it exploits the curie effect. The tips are made of a special alloy that is only magnetic until a certain temperature after which it doesn’t absorb any more energy from the PSU, which just dumps a constant 25Mhz signal into the tip keeping it at the fixed temperature.
When their patents expired a couple of Metcal engineers left to found Thermaltronics, which makes the same soldering iron (they’re even tip compatible!) for 2-3x cheaper. They’re still more expensive than hobbyist soldering irons but well worth the cost for anyone doing a lot of soldering. The Metcal power supplies are beasts though so you can easily pick up a 20 year old unit for a couple hundred bucks on ebay and it’ll run till the apocalypse comes home to roost. I have an old unit made in the late 90s that is still going strong.
This is what JBC's marketing claims: https://www.jbctools.com/top10.html
Though from looking at some of the chatter about it online, this is only one specific tip they make under ideal conditions, and it seems like often they overshoot the temperature by more than a little on warmup (though this will be the slowest to recover with the tip just held in air as opposed to when actually soldering). Either way, I've used similar products and this kind of speed isn't a crazy suggestion to me.
Yup. They specify 3 seconds, but that's for 350C. In my experience, it's always at the right temperature by the time I finish picking it up.
It has a 240W power supply, so it's not just marketing.
I can't imagine not using flux!
I have a Hakko FX-888D. It's pretty good, although I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down to a safe handling temperature.
I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please!
Another link for folks: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B077BQWMTY
I go through these for solder flux removal like crazy, in combination with an aerosol can of MG Chemicals 4140-400G. Sadly, I think that stuff is unobtainium now.
>> I am curious what you mean by rework tweezers. Link please!
Hakko FM2023-05 Mini Hot Tweezers Kit or Hakko FX8804-02 Hot Tweezer for Hakko FX-888 for example.
>> I wish there was some way to switch tips that didn't involve letting it cool down
I replace tips while hot: the sleeve is not hot.
Depends. The ancient Weller that I have has a sleeve you can unscrew but that sucker gets burning hot, and the thumbscrew locks up unless you cool the tip down, which you can do by holding the thing on your wet sponge.
How ofter are you switching tips? It's been a while since I did any real soldering, but I don't remember often needing to switch in the middle of a session.
I swap the tips on my Hakko without letting it cool down, I just use a Knipex pliers wrench so I don't burn myself. I keep my spare tips in an altoids tin, so I can drop the hot one in there without burning anything.