Hi!

I was kind of wondering what make/type soldering station you guys use!

I have a cheap weller-clone that I do stuff with at home, the company I
worked for last summer had Weller WD-1000 stations that at first seemed
quite smooth, especially when soldering things like heatsinks (smoother than
the PACE ST-50 demo station that I got to play with for two weeks) and big
terminals found on switches. After a couple of days of real intensive use
(think production soldering), I started to notice that the part that holds
the bit in place starts to unscrew it's self, which is obviously a pain.
Weller seems to have lost some of the quality that it was first renowned
for... Changing the soldering tip wasn't half as easy as with the PACE ST-50
either.

Anyway, I kind of decided that it was time for me to get a new soldering
station with which I would be able to properly solder smd (my current
station doesn't make it as easy as it could be). I got talking to a friend
of mine and learnt about Metcal's renowned HF-Induction soldering
technology, which is supposed to cater for one of the smoothest (and safest,
concerning the components being soldered) soldering experiences ever. I
decided to take the gamble and buy an MX500-TS, and am awaiting it's
arrival. I was actually kind of wondering if there's anyone on the list that
has had any bad experiences with a Metcal station, particularly the MX500. I
haven't managed to find any real bad things on it yet...

Anyway, that's my story... What's yours?

Sean
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