Decent soldering iron - what a revelation

[vygec]

ok, im just looking for something half decent at a decent price
this is currently on offer at maplin, anyone able to advise if this is any good for an amateur:
48W LCD Display Solder Station : Tools & Appliances : Maplin

[Hangar-7]

I purchased a 100 watts Weller soldering iron 7 years ago and never looked back. I solders everything easily.

Weller - My Tool Shed

I paid only £34.78 ( I still have the price level - how exciting/boring???)

HTH

Cheers

[Mojo]

I've been using the Maplin gas soldering iron Solderpro 50 Gas Soldering Iron Kit : Gas Soldering Irons & Kits : Maplin which works very well indeed on 3s and 6s stuff as well as just about everything else.

The beauty is that this particular kit comes with several "heads" that are very easy to change and one of them is like a blow torch element that I use for all my shrink wrap stuff (does the job very well indeed). The other thing that I like is that it has no trailing cable to get in the way which makes it easier to get into those tricky areas.

I wouldn't use anthing else now on my model stuff.

Cheers,

I have 2 of these kits, started with a 70 kit and the tip sort of disintegrated after a few weeks of moderate use.. To get a new tip set (as they don't sell them separately!) is £17, so i bought a 50 kit as it was on offer for £20.. This time i bought a cleaner/tinner to use with it and it was fine, then after 4 weeks or so it had the same fate as the first tip..

So although very mobile and handy, i am a bit disappointed with what happened.. I still use them (one as a blow torch and the other as a heat blower)..

Have you had this problem? Is there a specific method to clean then and protect the metal layer (apart from using a cleaner/tinner)? If i'm going to invest in a new set of tips i want to be able to prevent this happening again, or i should just put that money towards a normal iron..

[Dedcalm]

I use a similar iron to the 48 Maplin one, I use 0.3 or 0.5mm pointed tips for all my work including Deans connectors, 4mm banana etc... I run mine at 350C and dont have any issues with poor joins but its all down to experience as has been mentioned. I find the iron elements last about 6 months give or take a few months and the elements can be replaced 2 or 3 times without issue per iron (the elements are about £2). The complete irons are also available and are about £8 - I use my iron most nights for 3 or 4 hours so it does get used quite a large amount.