Mitch Haley wrote:
I've got a little 15W, takes a while to heat up.
I've got a selectable 15W/30W I bought years ago at Radio Shack. I never use the 15W setting. It's too cool and the recovery time is too long. Even when soldering sensitive parts, I prefer to use a hot iron so I can make the joint quickly before the component itself has time to heat up.
My favorite all around iron died on me after 15 years, I have to get another one. It looks like a big fat orange pencil, runs on butane, and adjusts for 15-60W. Got it on sale at Radio Shack for $20 back in the 1980's. Mine says "Archer" on it, I think the real brand name is Portasol or Butasol, something like that.
I just bought one of those! They're red now, you can still get them at Radio Shack, and they don't cost much more than they did in the 1980s. Try a stand-alone store -- the mall stores have only a third of the stock the stand-alone ones do.
I wasn't expecting much, given the price, but it works great. It heats up fast and puts out lots of BTUs, just the trick for outdoor work where breezes tend to suck all the heat out of an electric iron. I used it recently to solder a PL259 connector, including the braid -- anyone who's tried this will tell you it demands a lot of heat capacity. My electric pencil iron could never cut it, but with this one it was a piece of cake.
It does use butane at a prodigious rate, though, so for indoor work I still plug in the electric pencil iron. ;)
David Brodbeck '83 300D Turbo
