16 replies to this topic

[Phil Hackett]

Never thought of this. More heat than your Hakko coud ever dream of... watch the video and realize the surface area he's soldering and how fast it works... A simple and cheap mod...

 

[Pablo]

Cool, thanks Phil. Looks like all I need is some 14 gauge copper wire and never have to buy tips again.

[Mark Wampler]

Good thread, thanks.   I exclusively use Weller guns

[Bill from NH]

Good video Phil. In the past, I've seen several other YouTube videos on making wire tips for Weller guns. I think my old gun from the '60s is 100/140 W, but I'll have to look.

[havlicek]

I tried all sorts of stuff as tip replacement material, and of course wire coat hangers  (*I guess thousands of people have as well).  Copper works much MUCH better, but I always formed a smaller "tip" something like the original tip shape, instead of a simple "U" bend.  Cleaning the copper with acetone before bending seems to be a good thing to do also.

[Phil Smith]

That's interesting. It seems to get very hot and do so quickly.

 

I had one as a kid and when the tip broke I used pliers to twist it together. As you can imagine that didn't work all that well. I wish would have though of this!

[Martin]

This is all I had as a young Lad. It worked great for me. I even use the weight of the gun to my advantage.

[Dave Crevie]

I used a Weller gun when I was a kid to built brass chassis. But when I got into building brass locomotives for model railroading, I

found it to unwieldy. I changed to pencil-type soldering irons, and have been using them ever since. 

[chaparrAL]

My secret is out! been doing this since the dawn of time....

[team burrito]

i'll stick with my hakko 907, thank you.

[Mark Wampler]

To each his own.  Its a matter of preference.  I just  like a lot of heat from my big Weller gun.  If I want more heat, I have a plumbers torch.  I've never heard complaints of too much heat except being careless to loosen other solder joints by accident.  For those who like lots of heat,  a handy trick is use high temp solder for major joints and lower temp solder with  lower heat for more critical  joints near by.

[A. J. Hoyt]

When I was shown the light (Ungar solder irons) by my 1/24 racing friends, I did THIS to my favorite HO controller:

 

 

It used to have a tip and the light was wired in parallel to the power delivered to the car. It's an old steel frame (Econo but it was the best at the time) controller frame. I don't think it needed the heat sink - it's just a special irony for the Weller handle.

 

I had an adapter for a three pronged grounded wall socket plug for the Twinn-K HO Championship race and it caused some strong vocal protests of concern from the folks that hosted the race when I went to plug it in! I "stole" 2nd place in that race, not daring to pass Tony Porcelli, who won it.

[Phil Smith]

What a cool idea! 

[Phil Hackett]

i'll stick with my hakko 907, thank you.

 

There's another video I was going to upload that reviewed a (very) cheap Chinese soldering iron and controller. The maker of the video at one time was using his irons for production of electronic devices and in his review he made a statement that was the irons (or guns) become an extension of your body and even the most minor changes in the iron causes the user to be uncomfortable with the new tool. You will eventually adapt to it.

 

So, yeah, if the Hakko works for you keep using it.

[Martin]

A.J. Hoyt, I love your Weller controller.     This may turn into dueling pistols at dawn.

 

This chassis was soldered with a Weller. Its all I had in 1969.

 

 

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[A. J. Hoyt]

The Weller is surprisingly comfortable ergonomically, too; the Weller people must have done their homework. Just ask Nelson Swanberg - he borrowed it for his HO racing for years. It still has his "40 Ω" handwriting on the other side (I think it may be a custom wound resistor element).

 

I also re-purposed the two click (position) trigger (that used to be in it the Weller handle) for drag racing. You pull it to the first position (partial power) and nothing happens but you are right at the threshold for the full power contacts. You just "think" green light and it goes - affords really consistently fast reaction times. I suppose just a micro-switch would do that, too, if you connected it to a second spring that you could feel right before the switch clicks...

[SpeedyNH]

this is all very cool. I have three Weller Guns which I still use. but I never thought of using copper wire- I just keep cranking down the tips!

nice. thanks for sharing.   

speedy