[dorkbotsea-blabber] Soldering stations (anyone ever used a Metcal iron?)

[Wes Cherry]

I have a Metcal PS-800 soldering iron that i recently picked up from all 
spec

http://www.all-spec.com/

I absolutely love it.  It's so much nicer than my old Unger (roughly 
equiv to your Weller).   It's especially useful for SMT soldering of 
SOIC and finer pitched devices.   Perhaps the best thing about the 
Metcal irons is their mini-hoof tip.   For fine pitch surface mount 
devices first tack the corner leads, then you load up the tip with 
solder, put plenty of flux on the device and just slowly wipe along the 
leads, about 1 second per lead.    Perfect nearly every time with no 
solder bridges.

Get the 600 series tips (I got 650s and they are a bit too hot).

Metcal used to have a great collection of application notes, but it 
looks like they got ditched when Oki swallowed them up.   They are still 
in the google cache:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:xC89m-HAfXsJ:metcal.okinternational.com/tips/hottips/technicl.html+metcal+hot+tips+smt+gull&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Metcals show up quite frequently on ebay.    The MX500 is nice because 
you can plug 2 irons in it.  having two irons different tips would be 
quite useful.

-W



branen salmon wrote:
> Hi, all--
>
> So after years of loving the idea but hating the execution of
> electronic work due to my god-awful RatShack iron, I'm finally moving
> on to something less hateful.
>
> I've narrowed down my choices to the tried-and-true Weller WESD51 [1]
> and the shiny-fancy Metcal (now OKi) PS-800 [2].  The former pairs a
> tool-based ceramtic heater with a tip-based thermocouple, but the
> latter uses some newfangled technology called SmartHeat [3] about
> which Metcal explains very little, but which I gather is based on
> moving the heating elements into the tip, as well, thus reducing
> effective thermal mass and tightening the temperature control loop.
>
> Somehow, Metcal claims that this voodoo means that you never have to
> set temperatures and everything magically just works, even for
> lead-free soldering.  The idea is tempting, but I'm not entirely sure
> that I buy it.
>
> Thoughts?  Experience?  I'm hell of intrigued.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --branen
>
>
> p.s.  I know that a poor workman blames his tools, etc. and these are
> hell of overkill for hobbyist work, but to speak figuratively, after
> years of driving a Pinto, can you really blame me if I lust for a
> 'Vette?
>
>
> [1] http://www.wassco.com/wewedisost.html
> [2] http://www.wassco.com/mepssosy.html
> [3] http://www.okinternational.com/product_soldering/smart_heat
> ........................................................................
> .........dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity..........
> ..........................http://dorkbot.org............................
> ........................................................................
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