about half a year ago my grandma's reading lamp had a cord fail and she asked me to fix it ...
i then realized i forgot my Radio Shack soldering gun at my pops' place ...
but when i went to research my options i realized i was drawn to stuff that was orders of magnitude more expensive than my old Radio Shack that worked fine ...
so i just gave grandma a different lamp and her lamp is still not fixed because i still haven't picked a replacement soldering solution ...
i should say that i almost never solder electronics - i mostly solder things like DIY interconnects, power cables, speaker terminals etc ...
this is why i have been using the Radio Shack gun which although very crude never the less allowed me to do everything i needed ...
i could get a similar gun for about $20 or a better Weller gun for about $40 but i'm really drawn to a high power Weller soldering station which has both the power to solder heavy gauge wire and the precision to solder electronics ... except it's over $500 ...
Weller seems unique in that it offers multiple technologies of tips and irons that work with the same station. So you can use an expensive but low power active tip iron for SMD work ( not that i ever would, but you can ) and a big dumb but really powerful iron for soldering power cords and they both plug into the same station.
or is there nothing unique about this ?
what would you recommend ?
i then realized i forgot my Radio Shack soldering gun at my pops' place ...
but when i went to research my options i realized i was drawn to stuff that was orders of magnitude more expensive than my old Radio Shack that worked fine ...
so i just gave grandma a different lamp and her lamp is still not fixed because i still haven't picked a replacement soldering solution ...
i should say that i almost never solder electronics - i mostly solder things like DIY interconnects, power cables, speaker terminals etc ...
this is why i have been using the Radio Shack gun which although very crude never the less allowed me to do everything i needed ...
i could get a similar gun for about $20 or a better Weller gun for about $40 but i'm really drawn to a high power Weller soldering station which has both the power to solder heavy gauge wire and the precision to solder electronics ... except it's over $500 ...
Weller seems unique in that it offers multiple technologies of tips and irons that work with the same station. So you can use an expensive but low power active tip iron for SMD work ( not that i ever would, but you can ) and a big dumb but really powerful iron for soldering power cords and they both plug into the same station.
or is there nothing unique about this ?
what would you recommend ?