Continuing with the theme of liquifying things that are usually solid, I decided that it's finally time to upgrade my soldering iron. There wasn't really anything wrong with my old iron, save for the fact that it was a fixed-wattage style that took a good 5 minutes to heat up when first turned on. Technology has apparently advanced somewhat in the last 30 years (who knew?) and modern soldering irons now have full power control with a temperature probe in the tip, so they can heat up to 400°c in a matter of seconds with a 200w heater cartridge, then scale back the power to maintain exactly that temperature, give or take, depending on how well the PID loop is tuned.
And I guess they also want me to get high on the solder fumes.
And then take a little nap on the hibernation seat afterwards.
Alright, it's shiny and new, so let's enjoy the peel.
Oh yeah, that's the good stuff. And let's not forget the lower display too, just grab the little tape tag and...
Oh, hmm. That's not right. Well, a little digging around the edge with a craft knife gets it started just as well.
I guess the QC doesn't include verifying the quality of the film peel.
So as I mentioned, this style of soldering station uses a removable cartridge.
And since I tend to run into a variety of soldering tasks, I opted for the one with two different handles that take larger and smaller tips.
The larger is T245 and the smaller is T210. The larger one is nice when I need to dump a lot of heat into a part to get the solder to flow properly, while the smaller one will come in handy when working in tight quarters.
The base station has a fancy colour display and really likes to beep at you at every possible occasion. I guess that's going to take a bit of getting used to, but luckily there's a volume control I can turn right down.
As for my old soldering iron, I guess it's time to find it a new home.
Perhaps the next owner will actually get around to using some of the spare tips.
I guess only time will tell.
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