Beginners Guide to buying a soldering iron and which ones to avoid.

This video is for the beginner looking to get into electronic and looking to buy there first soldering iron, or station.

Here the link to the one I recommend for cheap for $50 bucks.

[KingfisherTalkingPictures]

Well, I tried doing something last night and picked up an old soldering gun that was lying around the house. But it was too big, and the board started turning brown. So I dug around more and found an old wand type. Still too big. I’m glad I found your channel, and will try one you recommend.

[goodun]

This unit sells for $45 in 2024 and some of the buyer's reviews note that theyve received units with the wrong (older) firmware, or non-working units that flash error codes. They're probably better off going to Harbor Freight and buying the $45 Schneider soldering station, which I did a review and teardown of on my channel recently. It isn't digital and doesn't look as fancy or high-tech as the Quickoo but uses a 7 pin connector to connect the wand to the station, the tip is reliably grounded, and it uses common T18/900 M tips. The 3 supplied tips ain't the greatest (they're iron and not plated copper) but it's easy and inexpensive to replace them. The cable connecting the wand to the station is a little too stiff for long-term comfort, but it's fine for intermittent hobbyist use; if you're going to use it regularly you can always upgrade it to a more flexible cable (it's easy to disassemble the wand and connector).

If somebody is on a low budget, they're probably better off buying the simpler, stodgy, ordinary looking analog product instead of going for the flashy digital bells and whistles. In my review I show the inside of the Schneider station: the control board is clean and well built and the soldering is above average quality for an inexpensive Chinese product. Not to mention that if you buy it from Harbor Freight and you don't like it, or you get a defective one, you can just walk right in and return it and get a refund. I don't normally pay for extended warranties but it might be worth paying the extra 10 bucks for a 3 year warranty and then I think they just give you a new one if the old one dies.

[goodun]

The screw-on connector to the solder station has 4 pins visible, and because you need 2 wires to heat the wand and 2 wires to do the temperature-feedback sensing, you need a fifth connection to ground the tip so that it can't accidentally zap sensitive components with static electricity. You can darn well guarantee that the screw-on metal shell of that connector is making a ground connection to the wand through a fifth wire in the cable, BUT: that type of connector does not have a terminal to reliably attach the ground wire. If it was a coaxial cable, then you could just bend back all of the braid so that it tightens up underneath the clamp assembly, but one skinny ground wire does not make a good reliable connection like that, and yet I have seen numerous examples of Chinese made electronics cables and accessories with a folded-over wire that is just sort of pinched between rubber and metal. I watched somebody else on YouTube take apart a similar connector on another soldering station and that's exactly how the ground connection to the wand was done, by folding a skinny bare wire back on itself so that it was pinched between the rubber cable jacket and the metal connector. If you're working on sensitive components such as microprocessors and integrated circuits, I would double-check that that tip is reliably grounded.

[Catcher]

I bought one of those plug in ' pieces of crap' with a temperature control. I hope it's ok for electronics and just soldering small random wires.😮

[Johadart]

Keep up the good work mate, the soldering gun is best used in the automotive industry, never for pcb electronics. Cheers pal 🤙🏼🇦🇺

[ragrazila]

thanks, brother. very useful information

[mrgibbsink]

I wanna learn how to repair consoles so fix my broken ones without spending a slot of money or getting a new one

[immanuelraynaldo]

Want to know, which one do u recommend more, ksger or quicko

[uawsux]

that's the same thing as the harbor freight that you can get for 40 on sale 30