Hi all,
This may have been asked before so sorry if it’s a repeat. Anyway, I was browsing through my local Ace Hardware and I found this Weller 12-watt soldering iron for a really good price. I need a decent soldering iron and I’ve heard that Weller is a good brand. Is this powerful enough for soldering track (N scale c55)? How about 14awg wire? Thanks in advance.
Not sure if the 12 watt iron will get your rail or wire hot enough in a short enough period of time. You want to be able to make the solder connections quickly so as not to melt any surrounding plastic parts or to damage any electronic components.
Here is a thread that I posted on the Heavy Duty Weller Soldering Iron kit, available at most home improvement stores for around $25-$30.
http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/1091126/ShowPost.aspx
Cheers,
Ryan
I agree. Don’t go for cheap. You need a soldering iron that will get hot quickly and hold its heat. That one may not be big enough.
The absolute most important thing for soldering (other than having the surface clean and use rosin flux) is to get the heat to the correct spot quickly, have it hot enough to quickly melt the solder, and then get the heat away quickly. Heat travels somewhat slow, so the longer you heat a spot, the more likely the heat will travel to the plastic parts and melt them.
Get in and get out and the heat will not have time to travel to the plastic parts.
Woodlandtoots
Weller is a great brand when it comes to soldering irons and guns. I own a few of them in various wattages. 12W is not going to do the job. I use a minimum of 25W for soldering feeders to the track and I like to use a 40W for soldering the joiners. Some of you may thing the 40W is overkill for the joiners but it will give me good flow and fast so I dont heat the rails up and melt the ties. A 25 or 30W will also work for this but I like how the 40 handles the joiners better. If you dont know how to solder then you will want to get alot of practice first you can get into trouble fast if you are not careful.
Paste Flux will help make a good joint faster but you will have to clean it off the rails before running trains. Also dont use acid flux or acid core solder it will start corroding your rails. Good luck
Oh yea you can get a good weller 30 or 40 W Iron for around $40 and some flux and solder for a few $$$ more, shop around at auto part stores or quality hobby stores (maybe one that has things other than trains… I know it is hard to go in them but sometimes we have to).
Simple answer, no way! Go for 30 watt or better. When I was doing N scale I used a Weller 100 watt soldering gun with a heat sink. For your code 55 rail and the wire you’re using, a 30 to 60 watt iron would work well.
The 12 Watt soldering iron, if it has a very small tip, would be good for decoder installation work, but is not suitable for soldering 14 gauge wire or track.
I’m going to go against the crowd here and say yes, you can get excellent results using a pencil instead of a gun. However, I’d suggest the SP23L instead. The 12-watt version may not quite be up to the task.
The reason I think the SP23L will work for your Code 55 is because it’s what I use for my HO Code 100, and have yet to melt a tie or get a cold joint. But I’ve done both with my 100/140 watt Weller gun, which is why I stopped using it for rail.
There is a trick to using a lower-wattage pencil, though. First, be sure you have the largest chisel tip available for your pencil, and be sure it’s clean and tinned properly. Also, be sure you have the smallest diameter solder you can find, nothing larger than .032. Rosin core or external flux is your choice, but personally I’ve had better results with rosin core.
Here’s the trick:
Let the pencil get nice and hot, then apply it to the joint from the inside of the rails. The front edge of the chisel tip should contact both the rail joiner and the web of the rail, and at the same time the side of the chisel tip should be in contact with the inside of the rail head. This will give you maximum surface area contact, and therefore the greatest heat transfer in the shortest time.
Let the joint heat for a couple seconds, then apply the solder to the joint between the rail joiner and the rail web on the outside of the joint. You don’t need a lot of solder here.
If you’ve positioned and held the pencil properly, the rail joiner and rail web will be hot enough after those couple seconds to melt the solder and suck it right into the joint.
Once that happens, immediately remove the pencil. I generally do maybe two or three joints, then clean and re-tin the tip.
H
12 watts is way too meager, and the tips on inexpensive irons tend to be more like the tip of a wood burner than anything for soldering, especially fine circuit board work. Look for a deal on a good 30 watt or more iron or gun, not something out of the bargain bin.
I use the Weller 100/140 gun. It works great for me.
In addition to the steps above I also use a wire brush in a Dremel mototool to clean the track before putting the rail joiner on and soldering it.
Enjoy
Paul
About the only thing that a 12 watt soldering iron is good for is micro circuit soldering (soldering on printed circuit boards). I found a nice dual power soldering gun on sale at, dare I say it, Radio Shack, for $39. It has both 230 and 150 watt ranges. AND it has a light under the trigger to light up your work! Nice when you’re working in that far corner of your layout room. PS when you’re checking your wiring work for continuity, make sure there aren’t a pair of pliers laying across the rails. I went nutso looking for a short… [banghead]
Boy, that sounds familiar![(-D]
Thanks for the replies.
I guess I will spring for a decent iron. It seems there’s a huge difference of opinion about what to use, everything from a 30-watt iron to a 150-watt gun. I don’t really know about those soldering guns, it looks like they would be too big and bulky for soldering N scale track. I would really like to get a Weller 30 watt iron, but I can’t find any stores that carry them! Does anyone know of a hardware/home improvement store that would carry these items? Thanks again.
I’ve been soldering for 40 years and have used virtually every soldering tool there is and I have to concur with the majority here, a decent 30-40 watt iron is all you’ll ever need. I used my trusy old RS 40w iron to solder everything on my 12x23 ft layout, that includes some 400 feet of code 100 track and probably a couple of miles of 12g wire (it was wired for cab control). I don’t know why anyone uses the 100 watt plus guns, they’re way overkill! (They’re probably ok for 10g buss lines) They’re also heavy, bulky and hard to do accurate work with.