Soldering stations - a reccomendation please

[Guy Rixon]

It melts the solder nicely from the reel, but as soon as I touch it to the model the solder freezes and the iron will not melt it again. It's as if the effective power is much lower than the nominal 50W and the tip is going cold. Is this an expected effect

Shouldn't be with a normal sort of soldering job and a 50W iron. But it does depend on the size of heatsink you are trying to solder, what is it?

I'm trying to solder an axleguard assembly to the floor of a coach. It's a reasonable area of 0.010" brass, but nothing crazy-large. The deceased unit, with a 6mm bit, would have done this easily.

I should have a 6mm bit for the Antex in a few hours and will try again.

[Daddyman]

It melts the solder nicely from the reel, but as soon as I touch it to the model the solder freezes and the iron will not melt it again. It's as if the effective power is much lower than the nominal 50W and the tip is going cold. Is this an expected effect

Shouldn't be with a normal sort of soldering job and a 50W iron. But it does depend on the size of heatsink you are trying to solder, what is it?

I'm trying to solder an axleguard assembly to the floor of a coach. It's a reasonable area of 0.010" brass, but nothing crazy-large. The deceased unit, with a 6mm bit, would have done this easily.

I should have a 6mm bit for the Antex in a few hours and will try again.

Daft, I know, but is the bit pushed properly on to the heater element/prong thingy?

[Guy Rixon]

It melts the solder nicely from the reel, but as soon as I touch it to the model the solder freezes and the iron will not melt it again. It's as if the effective power is much lower than the nominal 50W and the tip is going cold. Is this an expected effect

Shouldn't be with a normal sort of soldering job and a 50W iron. But it does depend on the size of heatsink you are trying to solder, what is it?

I'm trying to solder an axleguard assembly to the floor of a coach. It's a reasonable area of 0.010" brass, but nothing crazy-large. The deceased unit, with a 6mm bit, would have done this easily.

I should have a 6mm bit for the Antex in a few hours and will try again.

Daft, I know, but is the bit pushed properly on to the heater element/prong thingy?

Not daft at all. I did check that with the small bit. There was the tinest movement when I rammed it home, and it made no difference to the heating.

With the 6mm chisel bit in place it does now work quite well. I assume that the temperature sensor is just too far from the tip for it to maintain temperature with a smaller bit.

[Daddyman]

I do everything on my Antex 660A with a 2.3mm bit. I have a 4.7 but I never use it. So the 2.3 should certainly work....

[Philip Hall]

I sometimes use home turned copper bits on my 660TC and as they would be slightly longer (to allow for occasional filing down) I checked with Antex, and they told me that if the bit was a bit longer than their supplied ones that wouldn’t make any difference. The sensor would adjust for it.

Philip

[Jol Wilkinson]

Guy,

I have had an Antex 50W TCU for many years and generally use a 2.3mm bit although I go up to a 3.0mm if getting freezing such as you describe. That increases the effective bit cross section area by about 70% (if my maths is correct) so increasing heat transfer.

If the iron works okay with the 2.3mm bit on relatively small items, e.g. soldering up a w-iron then it is probably ok. If not I suspect it isn't working properly. I have found that the elements can lose their "power" over time (years) but replacing it will always fix the problem.

Jol

[Hardwicke]

Not a soldering station but the box from my trusty Model D. Found it today (box. I know where the iron is).
Look at the price, though that was the equivalent of an Airfix or Mainline loco. A hefty investment for a teenager. I built a number of whitemetal wagons, Maygib Midland tender, 4F chassis, class 14 diesel, 76000 4MT chassis, West Country chassis, M7 chassis, coach bogies, a Southern Region Push-Pull driving coach, a couple of brass wagons, all the electrics for three layours and lots of other things I've forgotten.
If it was easier to change the temperature I'd still have it as my prime soldering iron.

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[45609]

I had an Antex 690D (50W) digital soldering station but it became unreliable w.r.t. temperature. It is now my backup iron.

Antex 690D

I switched to an Atten ST-100 (100W) and haven't looked back. More power, heats up quicker, has 3 instead of 2 presets, easier to change bits with a big selection available, and is a fair bit cheaper than the Antex 690D.

Atten ST-100

No contest really.

I agree that the CSI product, for the price, looks decent too. A bit less power but otherwise....

Cheers...Morgan

[Tim V]

Following a recommendation in the 2mm magazine, I got hold of a T12 soldering station, via Ebay.

I used an old laptop power supply to run it.