[HT cOz]

Is a Weller 40w too much power for a fist Iron?  It seems I read in the past most people prefer about 20W. 

Thanks,
Robert

[JoshK]

Depends on what your soldering.  The 40w weller is the vanilla of soldering irons.  Some people like lower watt irons, but that is only if you are doing delicate PCB soldering, and 40w will work fine if you aren't crazy with the application of heat.   I have 3 40w wellers, a weller soldering station (which is great for PCB work) and a weller 150 watt soldering gun.  The gun is fantastic for thick copper bus wires, thicker wire in point to point circuits like in my tube amps and speaker crossovers. 

The 40watter is the best for starting out IMO. 

[SET Man]

Hey!

  I have been using this for the past 10 years....

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=372-120

  It is a 40 watter. The power is adjustable and you could change the tip to different shape.  And I've been using for everything. Works fine for most works.

Take care,
Buddy

[TomS]

I have one of these soldering stations.  For $40 it's hard to beat.  Replacement parts, tips, etc are easy to get from Circuit Specialists.

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/7307

I also have one of the guns JoshK mentions for heavy stuff like connectors, wire, etc.

Tom

[BradJudy]

  I have been using this for the past 10 years....

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=372-120

  It is a 40 watter. The power is adjustable and you could change the tip to different shape.  And I've been using for everything. Works fine for most works.

This is what I use too.  It's a nice budget iron that handles the needs of the vast majority of work.  I did replace the tip with a smaller one, but otherwise it's been great. 

[peranders]

Is a Weller 40w too much power for a fist Iron?  It seems I read in the past most people prefer about 20W. 

The newest Weller has 80 watts, very nice indeed despite the small size. The thing is the tip temperature and you should be able to adjust it.

[slbender]

As usual, it is never really about the POWER, 40 Watts, 20 Watts, who cares?

The point is maintaining a constant tip temperature and very much one that is just above the melting point of the solder being used. An iron of 20 or 40 or 60 Watts can boil a tip to 800 degrees, but that just ruins fine traces, causing the copper on a circuit board to separate from the circuit board. Bad - very bad!!!

For the past twenty-seven years I used the Weller W-60. I have several of them. You can use small tips or thick tips, you can use 500, 600, 700, or 800 degree tips, depending on the task and the solder.  The tips each last about 15 years as they are steel plated on copper. Short of a microcomputer controlled temperature variable station such as the EC-2002M or the MC-5000 or 5001, the W-60 or WP-60-3 (with 3 pin grounded cord) is about as good as it gets. Here, the magnet at the end of the tip pulls in a switch keeping power on to the tip, until it reaches the precise demag point temperature, then the magnet lets go, the switch turns off, and the power stops until the tip temp drops, then the magnet again pulls the switch, and within a narrow range, it maintains a constant temperature at the tip. The station based WTCPT similarly uses a set of temperature controlled tips for 500, 600, 700 degrees just like the W-60 does.

The EC-2002M, WDD 80V, and MC-5001, and similar, are high-end mil-spec soldering and desoldering stations that cost within the range of $700. to $2,500. twenty to thirty years ago, and these and several other lines which were less complex are now almost all discontinued.  These are of professional quality, digital readout soldering stations which can be dialed up between any tip temperature from about 350 to 850 degrees F.  Weller used to make dozens of different size and shapes of tips for these irons used with these stations, they had sensors inside the tips and a closed-loop microprocessor controlled feedback system giving an accuracy within ten degrees regardless of tip shape or size - under all tip conditions. These were the soldering stations used by the military for soldering together ICBM missile boards and Mercury Spacecraft computers, and radar, comm, and guidance systems for F-15 fighters, the U-2, and the Stealth, and the like.

I now have several W-60's irons, a WDD 80V, and several EC-2002M's which come with either a 20, 40, or 42 Watt closed loop temperature adjustable iron, and now occasionally these can be found used at cheap-charlie prices twenty to thirty years later... But even after being used for thirty years, they still outclass anything made costing under a thousand bucks, even while trickle down functionality in cheap knock-off units from China and Japan has priced them out of the general market, and similar capabilities have now sub $200. and even sub-$100. price tags.

-Steven

Is a Weller 40w too much power for a fist Iron?  It seems I read in the past most people prefer about 20W. 

Thanks,
Robert

[pjanda1]

I use the basic 40W Weller and its 25W brother.  You can get them in a cheap bubble pack at Home Depot.  I use the 40W for bigger stuff and the 25W for smaller stuff.  They both work really well. 

I have previously used a couple of cheap irons from various vendors: a bigger one from Sears, a little one from Radio Shack, and I think a cheapie from Parts Express.  Don't get anything like that.  They were all uncomfortable to hold.  The handles got really hot.  They were all ridiculously long and unbalanced.  The tips were crap and hard to source.  Sure, they soldered.  But I really can't say enough bad things about them. 

I probably should have purchased a station, but I'm really happy with the basic Wellers.

pj
 

[S Clark]

I have one of these soldering stations.  For $40 it's hard to beat.  Replacement parts, tips, etc are easy to get from Circuit Specialists.

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/7307

I also have one of the guns JoshK mentions for heavy stuff like connectors, wire, etc.

Tom

I have one of these as well.  Cheap and works well.  I've saved a couple of tweeters where I had to reattach voice coil wires.  Great for fine work.

[peranders]

Is a Weller 40w too much power for a fist Iron?  It seems I read in the past most people prefer about 20W. 

Thanks,
Robert

I use a very small iron with 135 watts!
http://www.jbctools.com (didn't work when I wrote this). JBC is the best iron so far. It's a dream to use.

The important thing is that the tip isn't too hot. Most professional soldering irons have temperature control.