Portasol soldering iron

[gnselectricals]

Hi guys
Looking to invest in a soldering iron for a job and heard portasol were good so have been looking at the super pro gas kit. What type of nozzle would be best for soldering leads onto a led tape kit and what would be the best type of solder ?

Regards
Graeme

 

[Deleted member 26818]

I have an older version of the Portasol soldering Iron.
It has something like 6 different heads.
One is a knife blade, another is for hot air, the rest are all for soldering.
I would use the smallest tip for LED tape, to confine the heat to the smallest area possible so as to prevent damage to the tape.

 

[Marvo]

I have a cheap and cheerful gas soldering iron which is a Godsend for when there's no power available, it looks like this except mine is black;


Like I say they're helluva handy but they're not my first weapon of choice because they don't have good temperature control so overheating solder joints and components being soldered is too easy to do. Also the exhaust ports may it unsuitable for electronics because if you're not really careful you burn things in the surrounding area whilst using it.

Any small pointed tip or small flat tip would work with standard fluxed radio solder.

 

[ruston]

And keep the vent upright or you will definitely damage it , gets the fingers too if you don't watch it lol.


Edit . Sorry thats slow 3 again.

 

[gnselectricals]

Good tips cheers guys

 

[amlu]

i have an Iroda one and can recommend it too. use a leaded 60/40 solder, is much more nice to work than unleaded stuff.

 

[shanky887614]

i really like my weller pyropen, the temperature control works really well, it is no match for a bench with digital temperature control though.

not cheap though and i got a really big discount on it, the guy i bought it off went to his supervisors to get me the best offer he could

draper rosin core solder is realler good anand get a good solder sucker

this one is very good

 

[gnselectricals]

What's the sucker pump for Sharky ? Haven't done any soldering since college and didn't do much there either

 

[shanky887614]

What's the sucker pump for Sharky ? Haven't done any soldering since college and didn't do much there either

getting rid of excess solder and if you need to swap a cable on a pcb it is much better than using desoldering wick.

it sucks the hot solder up (solder cools really quick)

 

[gnselectricals]

Ok cool