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I've got a Hakko fx-888d and I like it a lot. I guess changing tips in the middle of a project is a little annoying but using pliers I can do it fairly quick without getting burned. I've no experience with hot air stations but I've heard the cheap ones are not great.
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Feb 11, 2019 18:03
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Ok, so I'm going to be fall guy that asks what are you using stations things for? Granted, I've used a soldering iron over 100 times but it was the typical handheld thing. You folks building stuff or what? Elucidate me.
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Feb 11, 2019 18:42
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C-Bangin' it 
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Colostomy Bag posted:Ok, so I'm going to be fall guy that asks what are you using stations things for? Granted, I've used a soldering iron over 100 times but it was the typical handheld thing. You folks building stuff or what? Well like I mentioned on the last page, electronics projects and repair. Building power supplies, and amplifiers and stuff. Reflowing and soldering lots of things on PCB's for small electronics and computers projects namely SMD/SMT's; ICs/microprocessors, leds, resistors, capacitors, etc... Also rebuilding things like turntables, amplifiers, speakers, crossovers, repairing/building mixers and guitars and microphones and keyboards and stuff, circuit bending and other fun things, making cables, etc... Also automotive stuff like car and motorcycle wiring.
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Feb 11, 2019 19:14
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Various hobby electronics stuff, eurorack synth module kits, fixing pinball machines, and misc stuff for me. Having temperature control and interchangeable tips allows you to optimize your setup for whatever you're working on which just makes the whole process more pleasant. I've found that dialing in the temperature really helps to avoid damaging fragile old boards on pinball machines.
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Feb 11, 2019 19:58
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Stations are generally better at regulating temperature. If you're just joining this wire to that wire, it doesn't matter and anything works. However if you have a whole board with hundreds of little leads to solder a station is fantastic. With a lovely iron you're going touch a pin, wait forever for it to heat and solder to flow, and repeat 100 agonizing times. With a good station the solder is flowing nearly as soon as it touches the iron and part so you can just hammer through a board in minutes... touch, flow, touch, flow, touch, flow, touch, flow, etc. etc. A really good station will even make flowing a ground pad with huge thermal mass almost instant. I thought I was lovely at soldering but it wasn't until I used a good station and realized how it's supposed to work that it all made sense.
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Feb 11, 2019 20:11
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I use a Weller WLC100 that has served me well for many years. Maybe not for you if you're looking to spend more than 50 bucks, but it's good for occasional / entry-level workMrOnBicycle posted:I've been looking at soda blasters, mainly for cleaning hard to get to spots on brake calipers, rims, tools and so on but also painted wood (where I don't want any real abrasion). Waste of time or good? Looks good in videos, but there is always some comment about how poo poo it is. Anyone got any experience? I'm not expecting it to remove more than dirt and paint. I really want to get a media blaster, but step 1 is get a high CFM compressor and step 0 is running 240v to the garage 
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Feb 11, 2019 20:21
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Soldering is something I've never really got into but is a skill I'd like to learn. Advice on how to go about it?
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Feb 11, 2019 20:22
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Any scrap electronics handy? Try removing and replacing the bigger components (with fresh solder). Radio shack style hobby kits afterwards.
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Feb 11, 2019 20:25
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Thank you lads for the explanation...man doing SMDs...that's tough. Guess this is one of the best examples you pay more you get more than you didn't realize on tools. Colostomy Bag fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Feb 11, 2019 |
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Feb 11, 2019 20:27
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Getting a few little kits is a great way to start too, like an Arduino shield you have to solder headers on and such. I built the LED bulb dial clock kit early on and after soldering 50 or so LEDs I felt really comfortable with through-hole stuff: https://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/156 Trying to desolder stuff from a junk board is an option too but I've found it's a lot harder than you might think and you aren't learning as much about joining fresh components. Like if you go at an old motherboard and try to take some parts off you'll probably just burn up the board waiting for the modern solder and huge thermal mass of the board to start flowing. So don't get too frustrated if you go that route--soldering through-hole stuff is really quick and hard to mess up once you practice it a little bit. Also mistakes can usually be fixed and practicing how to use a little solder sucker, wick, etc. is handy too.
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Feb 11, 2019 20:40
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Those are good points. Really like a lot of things you need to practice to see how solder and heat spreads. I wasn't thinking motherboard, but most boards look like that nowadays I suppose.
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Feb 11, 2019 20:48
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There are lots of cheap kits on Amazon and such that are fun to practice on. Use quality lead based solder. I'm a fan of Kester 245 solder. If you're concerned about the lead then use a fan to blow the fumes away or get/rig up a fume extractor and wash your hands when you are done. I got a Hakko vacuum desoldering tool a while back and it is life changing. Certainly not a tool that is particularly useful for most people but for anyone doing much desoldering of through hole components it's amazing. Galler fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Feb 11, 2019 |
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Feb 11, 2019 21:01
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Thanks for the info. I half more lead, used oil, brake cleaner and asbestos in me that I could be some sort of deranged super hero.
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Feb 11, 2019 21:08
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CloFan posted:I use a Weller WLC100 that has served me well for many years. Maybe not for you if you're looking to spend more than 50 bucks, but it's good for occasional / entry-level work I'll probably give one of those handheld soda blasters a go as my compressor should be able to handle it fine (I think the smaller, handhelds require 6-7CFM) for the smaller jobs i intend it to. Blaster + 5kg soda is like $80 or something so worth a try. If it just saves me the pain of trying to clean hard to get to areas with brushes and poo poo I'm happy. I almost got into soldering, but decided to hold off because of the initial cost and the fact that I don't have anything concrete as a project.
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Feb 11, 2019 21:45
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I have a 15+ year old Hakko station that I’m still extremely happy with. I have my sub-1mm tip for SMT stuff, a couple of intermediate-sized ones for various board-stuffing densities, and the big nasty fucker for thick stuff. I bought all the tips at the same time. Like others have said, if you solder regularly and / or need good results, the temperature stability and control of a station is well worth it.
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Feb 11, 2019 21:51
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MrOnBicycle posted:I'll probably give one of those handheld soda blasters a go as my compressor should be able to handle it fine (I think the smaller, handhelds require 6-7CFM) for the smaller jobs i intend it to. Blaster + 5kg soda is like $80 or something so worth a try. If it just saves me the pain of trying to clean hard to get to areas with brushes and poo poo I'm happy. I bought one of the cheap HF soda blasters. Factor in the pressure drop from an in-line dryer cause the constant compressor cycling is going to make your air wet af and the blaster is going to gum up and clog bad. I didn’t have much luck with an 18gal.
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Feb 12, 2019 02:41
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slidebite posted:Soldering is something I've never really got into but is a skill I'd like to learn. I watched a youtube video, ordered a 10 cm square pcb full of plated holes and a few hundred resistors and filled it in and that was about it. My only real tips are, there's a lot of advice telling you not to touch the solder to the tip and then apply it which is kind of half right, you don't want to apply the solder that way but if the tip is wet with solder then heat flows basically instantly into the component legs though a huge contact point from the solder instead of slowly through a point contact. And if you're having problems with the solder turning into blobs instead of smoothly flowing then the flux in your solder is nonexistent or old and crappy. It's not a hard skill, and with leaded solder especially it should really just be like magic.
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Feb 12, 2019 02:57
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:Well like I mentioned on the last page, electronics projects and repair. Building power supplies, and amplifiers and stuff. Reflowing and soldering lots of things on PCB's for small electronics and computers projects namely SMD/SMT's; ICs/microprocessors, leds, resistors, capacitors, etc... I'm going to mention the MX-500 again. I used to do computer repair using a Weller WTCPT, and it did most things OK. However, something it did not do well was removing/installing power supply filter capacitors and DC power jacks, which is a major failure point in laptops. The issue with soldering these is that a normal iron just can't get enough heat into the joint; the ground plane sinks it all away. This goes double for lead free repairs. However, once I got my Metcal, my frustration with these repairs went way down. Probably there are others that perform similarly, but since you're likely to run into lots of situations where you're soldering into big power and ground planes, I'd recommend not cheaping out on an iron.
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Feb 12, 2019 06:50
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Colostomy Bag posted:Ok, so I'm going to be fall guy that asks what are you using stations things for? Granted, I've used a soldering iron over 100 times but it was the typical handheld thing. You folks building stuff or what? It's part of my job. I hand-solder down to 0603 in SMD, and reflow smaller stuff than that. I do a ton of through-hole soldering and wiring. FX888D stationary, and a TS100 travel. I've also got a Chinese 2-in-1 soldering iron and hot air gun that gets a lot of use.
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Feb 12, 2019 06:55
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Raluek posted:I'm going to mention the MX-500 again. I used to do computer repair using a Weller WTCPT, and it did most things OK. However, something it did not do well was removing/installing power supply filter capacitors and DC power jacks, which is a major failure point in laptops. The issue with soldering these is that a normal iron just can't get enough heat into the joint; the ground plane sinks it all away. This goes double for lead free repairs. However, once I got my Metcal, my frustration with these repairs went way down. I'd say roughly half of my soldering is on a ground plane the size of Texas. It's a giant bitch. If I go with the Metcal I'm looking at a minimum of $600 (probably closer to $800) I only get one iron, one tip, and no accessories, and still need to pick up a SMD rework gun. Then again, this looks pretty sexy. Also I like their soldering tweezers but I'd probably never use them.
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Feb 12, 2019 17:59
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:I'd say roughly half of my soldering is on a ground plane the size of Texas. It's a giant bitch. Looks like they're going for under $300 on ebay for a basic set of base and pencil, maybe a stand too. I paid like $250 for mine at a surplus electronics store several years ago. There's a guy at the flea market who sells nothing but secondhand soldering equipment, and I think he sells them for around $350. I don't know that I would pay retail for one, but they're a solid deal used, IMO. I haven't used the tweezers, but they might be handy for larger SMT stuff. I've always done fine with regular tweezers and a hook tip, but if you're doing like 0805s day in and day out they might be a solid time saver. 
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Feb 13, 2019 06:56
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I bought a car with run flat tires. No spare, fix-a-flat, or even a jack. The dealership was all "just drive it to a tire shop within 50 miles", which is okay for half the time I'm in town during the day, but not okay for half the time I'm driving through bum-gently caress nowhere Central IL on the weekend. Plus, I'd like to get non-run flats in the future. I was going to get a jack (Wirecutter recommends a scissor jack, but should I get a bottle jack from HF instead?) and an air compressor. Maybe a bottle of fix-a-flat. But, ideally, I'd like to have a tire patch kit with me. Any recommendations on a kit? Should I just get a roof rack and strap a spare tire to the top of my car? I'm not going to do this.
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Feb 19, 2019 00:13
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Uthor posted:I bought a car with run flat tires. No spare, fix-a-flat, or even a jack. The dealership was all "just drive it to a tire shop within 50 miles", which is okay for half the time I'm in town during the day, but not okay for half the time I'm driving through bum-gently caress nowhere Central IL on the weekend. Plus, I'd like to get non-run flats in the future. Make/Model?
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Feb 19, 2019 00:18
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Uthor posted:I bought a car with run flat tires. No spare, fix-a-flat, or even a jack. The dealership was all "just drive it to a tire shop within 50 miles", which is okay for half the time I'm in town during the day, but not okay for half the time I'm driving through bum-gently caress nowhere Central IL on the weekend. Plus, I'd like to get non-run flats in the future. Those fix a flats are horrible from what I hear--they're just glue that foams up and tries to seal a break in the tire. The problem is when you go to the tire shop to replace the tire it will be glued to the rim and a bitch to cleanly remove. Also, like runflats, you aren't supposed to drive more than 50 miles or so on the patched tire anyways. These days with cell service everywhere, roadside assistance from your insurance/AAA/etc. it's just not worth it and better to limp it or tow to a shop. Ditto for a patch kit--I seriously doubt you're going to want to try finding, plugging, and patching a wheel on the side of the freeway, at night, in the rain, etc. If the car came with runflats and doesn't have space for a spare at all (like a sport coupe--my friend's Z4 is like that) I'd just keep the runflats on for daily driving. Very likely your car has a TPMS system too and that complicates things and makes it more expensive when switching tires too. If you're thinking you need sportier tires that aren't runflats, just buy a spare set of wheels and have the sport/race tires mounted on them so you can swap them easily for weekend and fun use. There's almost always someone selling a spare set of wheels on craigslist after they upgrade to aftermarket ones. mod sassinator fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Feb 19, 2019 |
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Feb 19, 2019 00:38
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Get a AAA membership instead
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Feb 19, 2019 00:39
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BraveUlysses posted:Get a AAA membership instead This.
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Feb 19, 2019 01:12
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sharkytm posted:Make/Model? BMW 3-series Sports Wagon. mod sassinator posted:If you're thinking you need sportier tires that aren't runflats, just buy a spare set of wheels and have the sport/race tires mounted on them so you can swap them easily for weekend and fun use. There's almost always someone selling a spare set of wheels on craigslist after they upgrade to aftermarket ones. I'm thinking winter tires, actually.
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Feb 19, 2019 01:38
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Yeah cheap spare wheels are the way to go for swapping snow tires on and off easily. The problem you'll run into is TPMS--you can either live with the car being very very angry that no sensors exist when the winter tires are mounted (there's usually a warning shown on the dash and if you're really unlucky it will bong and beep at you constantly), or you can pay the $1000 or so to get a new set of sensors installed in the winter tire wheels too. It's a poo poo show and every modern car unfortunately has to deal with these poo poo TPMS systems since they're government mandated. Some folks just throw the sensors in a PVC tube that's sealed up and inflated to normal pressure, then tossed in the trunk and forgotten about forever.
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Feb 19, 2019 02:10
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I just dealt with it on the old car. I'm not sure if it would throw off things like sport mode on the BMW. I'd have to do more research. And I'd be even more worried not having a spare (unless they make run flat winter tires?). I wasn't planning on going that way until next season, so haven't done my homework. Anyway, it's AWD, so the all seasons on there now are perfectly okay for winter driving!  I know it's not the same.
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Feb 19, 2019 02:23
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Blizzak makes run flat winter tires, I loved them in Vermont.
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Feb 19, 2019 02:47
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mod sassinator posted:Yeah cheap spare wheels are the way to go for swapping snow tires on and off easily. The problem you'll run into is TPMS--you can either live with the car being very very angry that no sensors exist when the winter tires are mounted (there's usually a warning shown on the dash and if you're really unlucky it will bong and beep at you constantly), or you can pay the $1000 or so to get a new set of sensors installed in the winter tire wheels too. It's a poo poo show and every modern car unfortunately has to deal with these poo poo TPMS systems since they're government mandated. Some folks just throw the sensors in a PVC tube that's sealed up and inflated to normal pressure, then tossed in the trunk and forgotten about forever. Schrader ezsensors are like $40 a piece and programming tools are sub $200 if you want to diy it.
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Feb 19, 2019 02:49
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Alarbus posted:Blizzak makes run flat winter tires, I loved them in Vermont. Good to know. Maybe I'll just live with it (and my paranoia).
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Feb 19, 2019 02:52
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Uthor posted:Good to know. Maybe I'll just live with it (and my paranoia). As many other people mentioned, I highly suggest hopping in some local FB groups/scouring craigslist where you are. There are a few around me that I'm in for my car specifically and then there are another two that I'm in that are just general wheel/tire groups. People are always selling sets of stock wheels. Often times with the TPMS still installed since a lot of TPMS these days are super cheap so they just get a new set if they upgrade both wheels and tires instead of dismounting the old tires from the old wheels just to re-use the TPMS sensors(this is going to depend on the specific car model obviously, but for my car its like $15/wheel for the sensors and a lot of tire shops are going to charge you that or more to dismount old wheels/remove TPMS/reinstall tires on old wheels/reinstall TPMS on new wheels). Sometimes, especially around this time of year, you can be lucky enough and find some with winter tires/etc already mounted up for a steal. My winter tires are a set of stock wheels from my exact car, with TPMS still installed that came with basically brand new Blizzak WS80's and I only paid $450. That's like $650 worth of tires, $50 worth of TPMS, $200-300 worth of wheels and ~$100 worth of mounting/balancing/etc labor. Be on the lookout for deals like that. That way you can just jack the car up, pop the tires on and take it down to a local tire shop/dealership and get them to reprogram the TPMS if your car is one of the extremely annoying ones about TPMS or you need that for piece of mind. Otherwise you can just let it beep a few times a day for the few months that you use the winter tires. In regards to the fix-a-flat/spare tire/etc, I much prefer the ghetto autozone tire plug kits + a good tire pump. If it's just a small puncture, the tire plugs actually work incredibly well in my experience and then you can just use the pump to fill it back up and you'll be on the road in 15 minutes. Much like fix-a-flat it isn't a permanent solution or anything, I think you're "supposed" to only use it until you can get in to replace the tire but I let a coworker use my plug kit(they come with like 6-8plugs for $4-5) on one of his tires and he's still using that tire a year and a half later without issue. Again, I wouldn't really suggest that but IMO it's a much, much better solution than a can of fix-a-flat.
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Feb 19, 2019 04:11
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I mean, I'm on my third 3 series, and I've eventually dropped run flats on all of them, though I did shift my 16" blizzaks from one E90 to the next. They don't actually fit my F30 brakes, but I'm not in Vermont anymore, so. Not using TPMS for winter tires is fine given: You know how tire pressures work, your inspection isn't during winter, and your state doesn't mind the sensor light during inspection.
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Feb 19, 2019 04:36
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Alarbus posted:Not using TPMS for winter tires is fine given: You know how tire pressures work, your inspection isn't during winter, and your state doesn't mind the sensor light during inspection. Yeah, absolutely. For some people it's a comfort level thing though where they can't bear having any little warning lights lit up on their dashboard. Some cars are a lot more annoying about it as well vs others, my car for instance just beeps a few times when I start it up to tell me the tire pressure is low then stops entirely but I know there are some cars that beep intermittently ever few miles/every few minutes which gets annoying extremely fast. If you don't fall into either of those two categories and you understand the issues Alarbus mentioned, TPMS on winter tires isn't a requirement or necessity at all.
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Feb 19, 2019 04:59
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Alarbus posted:Not using TPMS for winter tires is fine given: You know how tire pressures work, your inspection isn't during winter, and your state doesn't mind the sensor light during inspection. What's an inspection, lol? No inspections in IL, and emissions testing only in Cook County. Haven't had to do any of that in twenty years.
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Feb 19, 2019 05:03
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Driving in midwestern states that don't do inspections is always a real treat. There is some of the most amazing automotive 'engineering' on the road out there.
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Feb 19, 2019 18:54
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mod sassinator posted:Driving in midwestern states that don't do inspections is always a real treat. There is some of the most amazing automotive 'engineering' on the road out there. most old cars here are 22% ziptie by weight.
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Feb 19, 2019 21:27
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Powershift posted:most old cars here are 22% ziptie by weight. And 40% rust.
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Feb 19, 2019 21:40
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On soldering chat, I have a couple of crappy soldering irons here at home but at work I regularly use a Pace PRC-2000 and it makes soldering easy. Equipment absolutely makes a difference, It also has hot air, extraction, tweezers, interchangable tips, three individually adjustable heat channels and a ton of other poo poo I've never played with. Spend the money, it's worth it. Best I can figure it's like welding, you can weld with a $200 Princess Auto/Harbor Freight welder but if you spend more you'll have a much easier time making much higher quality work.
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Feb 20, 2019 12:41
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