Is a 200w soldering iron too much?

[jimicrackcorn]

I need a soldering iron so I was just gonna go to radioshack and get one but then I found this one in my shed. I'm thinking 200w is too much though but I thought I'd check here first. It seems like it would kill small components..

 

[BrownOut]

Depends on the job.

 

[ben7]

I need a soldering iron so I was just gonna go to radioshack and get one but then I found this one in my shed. I'm thinking 200w is too much though but I thought I'd check here first. It seems like it would kill small components..

I never even knew there were 200watt soldering irons!

Well yes a 200watt soldering iron would easily kill heat sensitive parts!

I use a 25watt soldering iron

-Ben

 

[dons21]

Only if your using it to solder car battery terminals to 100A cable. LOL

 

[jimicrackcorn]

Depends on the job.

Well what would a 200w iron be used for? Im using it to solder small components, like 1/4 watt resistors and stuff, would it kill those?

 

[Reloadron]

Soldering guns like this one are used on large jobs. There was once a time when everyone in electronics owned a gun like this. I still have mine. They were used for hand crafted wired chassis long before small components and solid state devices were around and before printed circuit boards. The triggers generally had a low first stage then pulling the trigger all the way back was full power.

Image attached.

Ron

 

[jimicrackcorn]

Soldering guns like this one are used on large jobs. There was once a time when everyone in electronics owned a gun like this. I still have mine. They were used for hand crafted wired chassis long before small components and solid state devices were around and before printed circuit boards. The triggers generally had a low first stage then pulling the trigger all the way back was full power.

Ron

Mines not a gun, it's a regular iron only bigger lol. It does look very old though. So should I not be using this for small components?

 

[Reloadron]

Mines not a gun, it's a regular iron only bigger lol. It does look very old though. So should I not be using this for small components?

Think I have one of those somewhere in the basement too.

No, they are not for small jobs,

Ron

 

[PatM]

Mines not a gun, it's a regular iron only bigger lol. It does look very old though. So should I not be using this for small components?

Something like that probably was used to solder sheet metal, like old steel rain gutters.
Definitely not for electronics work

 

[jimicrackcorn]

Think I have one of those somewhere in the basement too.

No, they are not for small jobs,

Ron

OK thanks . So what exactly can I do with it? Or should I just get rid of it?

 

[Grossel]

My thaughts about using such a big soldering gun vs. a small 25W solder pen is that on capacitors, the big soldering gun is capable to transfer heat faster than a little one.
Caps is more vulnerable to rapdly change in temperature than other components, so I wouldn't have used a big one for a repair job on a small printed card.

 

[Reloadron]

OK thanks . So what exactly can I do with it? Or should I just get rid of it?

They always make for a nice conversation piece.

Ron

 

[cr0sh]

OK thanks . So what exactly can I do with it? Or should I just get rid of it?

I wouldn't get rid of it, unless it isn't working anymore; keep it to use it for what its for, namely soldering heavy duty joints where you need massive amounts of heat flow, but a where butane torch won't work.

 

[Sceadwian]

I would personally like to see some pictures of this thing. I've never heard of a 200 watt iron that's shaped like a standard iron, anything that large is usually a gun. Can you send some photo's?

If it's really 200 watts you might be okay, as long as it has a trigger and isn't just BAM 200 watts on all the time, also for IC's and what not you'll need a grounded tip, and large heating elements like that aren't always grounded. If it IS actually a triggered 200 watt iron it's VERY useful in my opinion. It'd take a little more finesse to use but localized fast heating is useful for some components, and all you have to do is learn to control the trigger for slower heat build up times.

 

[cr0sh]

They always make for a nice conversation piece.

Ron

Did you ever use one of those huge tipped soldering "irons" that had to be heated with a large torch (they were about 14-16 inches long, and the tip was like a large crayon or bigger)? You see them used in projects in old Popular Science/Popular Mechanics articles; at my favorite electronics junkyard (Apache Reclamation here in Phoenix) they have a few of them for sale (nobody's ever bought one in the 20 years I've been a customer, though!)...

 

[Reloadron]

Did you ever use one of those huge tipped soldering "irons" that had to be heated with a large torch (they were about 14-16 inches long, and the tip was like a large crayon or bigger)? You see them used in projects in old Popular Science/Popular Mechanics articles; at my favorite electronics junkyard (Apache Reclamation here in Phoenix) they have a few of them for sale (nobody's ever bought one in the 20 years I've been a customer, though!)...

No, I always used a gun. But I have memories of my dad soldering tin and small copper tubing using them. I keep thinking here in the basement I remember seeing one in a pile of interesting but useless junk. They has those cloth type insulated power cords and a round hub type two prong plug. They took forever to get hot, unless assisted as you mentioned. Heavy too with an actual wooden handle.

Last time I went digging for my old gun was a few years back building a load bank of power resistors using stripped AWG 10 and AWG 12. Made quick work of those big solder joints.

Ron

 

[tcmtech]

I consider a 200 or bigger watt buzz gun a regular item in my electronics tools lineup. I have a 100/150 and a 175/250 buzz gun along with numerous pencil types of varying sizes and designs as may main guns plus numerous old and odd others as well.

To deal with electronics and electrical in general it's good to have several ranging from the small 15 - 25 watt pencil types up to one or two 100 - 250 watt dual range buzz guns for the heavy copper work. Above that its the direct flame torch time!

 

[unclejed613]

keep it around. sometimes they come in useful for making shield boxes for RF projects, or soldering tin cans together if you're making a Cantenna or a VHF/UHF filter out of soup cans, or something like that.

 

[jimicrackcorn]

I would personally like to see some pictures of this thing. I've never heard of a 200 watt iron that's shaped like a standard iron, anything that large is usually a gun. Can you send some photo's?

If it's really 200 watts you might be okay, as long as it has a trigger and isn't just BAM 200 watts on all the time, also for IC's and what not you'll need a grounded tip, and large heating elements like that aren't always grounded. If it IS actually a triggered 200 watt iron it's VERY useful in my opinion. It'd take a little more finesse to use but localized fast heating is useful for some components, and all you have to do is learn to control the trigger for slower heat build up times.

**broken link removed**

Sorry it's so dark.

 

[cr0sh]

**broken link removed**

Sorry it's so dark.

That kinda looks like some kind of torture device, actually! LOL

I think its close to what Ron was talking about; I think I'd keep it just for kicks. As long as the wire on it is good, and it heats up - you might find some use for it in the future, but you certainly can't use it for hobby electronics!

That looks similar to what I was describing (from Apache Reclamation), but the ones I saw didn't plug in - you just heated up the thick piece of metal with a torch and soldered with it, and it was fairly large and heavy.