soldering iron & advice for magnifier

From: Jay West <jwest_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Sat May 15 16:37:33 2004

People wrote...
> The Weller WTC series uses a magnetic tip to control temperature. When the
> magnet heats up it loses strength and the heater switch opens, when the
> magnet cools down the switch closes.. This works but it makes it difficult
> to solder jumpers to restore cuts in PCB traces. Capacitor leads are often
> made of steel. The lead wants to stick the tip.
>
> Another thing is the WTC irons produce a lot of electrical line noise as
the
> heater power cycles. In the early 1980s we were designing a digital
> instrument that would reset (lockup) when used on the same power circuit
as
> our soldering irons. Seeing as how most of our customers would have a
> soldering iron next to our unit we had to fix this. We rigged a Weller WTC
> soldering station with the iron replaced by a relay that cycled on and off
> as a noise generator. A power line filter on our instrument fixed the
> problem.
>
Aren't these shortcomings in the older weller irons, and in the cheaper WTC
irons? I wasn't talking about the WTC irons. I was talking about the WES 51
specifically, which I don't believe has these issues.

Jay
Received on Sat May 15 2004 - 16:37:33 BST