I checked Amazon, the Metcals are between $650 and $1050?  For that kind of
money I'll twist the little dial :-)

If I soldered for a living it might be different.

I started out swapping tips.  For a while I even brought my station from
home to work so I'd have 2, one with a big tip and one with a little tip,
but eventually I developed enough skill that I didn't need the little tip
anymore.

DougM

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Mike Harrison <mike@whitewing.co.uk> wrote:

> On Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:41:48 -0400, you wrote:
>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ..or just buy a decent iron like a Metcal that can maintain the temp
> >> regardless of load.
> >>
> >>
> >Sounds ideal, but thermal transfer is limited, so all else the same, you
> can
> >only push so many watts  into the joint regardless of soldering iron
> wattage
> >and regulation. Easiest way to address this is to bump the temp up, thou=
gh
> a
> >bigger tip often helps if you have wattage to spare, though changing a t=
ip
> >is often slower then both knobs and pushbuttons :O)
> >--
>
> The point is that Metcal has such tight coupling between heat source, tip
> and control that it _can_
> rapidly pump enough heat into any likely load without temperature
> overshoot.  You can easily do
> stuff like soldering TO220 tabs to groundplanes in a few seconds.
>
>
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