What is the best Wattage for both Electrical Wiring & Track Feeders?
25W or 40W? Thanks
I suggest a 40W, pencil style gun. You can pick these up inexpensively at Radio Shack. A few other tricks:
-Keep the tip clean. This can be done with an occasional pass with a jewelers file.
-Use high quality flux. Just a touch will do it. I like the Team Trinity brand. part no. 5004
-Use thinner solder such as Radio Shack .032" diameter.
-Let the objects being heated melt the solder, not the gun tip. Push the gun firm against the feeder pushing it against the rail. Touch the solder to the feeder/rail joint.
The combination of a clean, hot, gun, good flux, and thin solder will make heat things up quickly…long before the ties melt
Lance Mindheim
Visit the Downtown Spur at www.lancemindheim.com
Lance
After I did this post I looked at the wiring instructions for a Tortoise. They say use a 25-35W iron. High heat can hirt the circuit board. Is 40 W still OK or are they talking 100W as high Heat.
Most soldering guns or irons heat to the same temperature.
The Wattage determines how fast the tip re-heats to the maximum temperature once it is touched to the surface being soldered, known as the recovery time.
If you don’t hold the tip to the object being soldered any longer than absolutely necessary to get a good joint, the Wattage doesn’t make that much difference unless the iron is underpowered, which results in it having to be held to the object too long, or a cold solder joint.
40 watt is fine for most things. Solder guns are usually 100 to 150 watts and can easily damage delicate circuits since they get much hotter. I use a 15/30 watt iron for most things and a solder gun for soldering to my bus wire which is 8 gauge
Most soldering irons should have plated tips. DON’T use a file on plate tips. You will loose the advantage of plated tips. I use Radio Shack tip cleaner for many years. I also use electronic solder with Rosin flux. The solder is 1/32 inch diameter stuff.
When starting out soldering, you will need every advantage you can find, but mostly practicing on scrap track/wire. Good soldering is not Plug and Play. Those who say soldering is easy have experience.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062721
I use a Weller WLC100 soldering station with variable heat. It is 40 watts max. I also have a conical fine tip for DCC work. For soldering feeders to track, I use the max heat but only half heat for most electronic soldering.
If I solder buss wires for DCC I sometimes use a Weller soldering gun.
Rich
I’ve never had any problems with the 40W damaging the Tortoises but I do try to keep the iron from lingering too long on the metal pads. On this same subject, a few years ago I stopped soldering directly to the Tortoise and started using the Greenway Edge Connectors. http://www.greenwayproducts.com/buy_tortoise.shtml
Their edge connectors are pricey but the convenience of not having to solder directly to the Tortoise is worth it to me.
I put a wiring and soldering tutorial on my site which might help some.
http://www.lancemindheim.com/news_and_notes.htm
Lance
I have a nice (and actually inexpensive) 40-watt sodlerign station that works quite well for soldering both circuit boards and decoders as well as track feeders. it is NOT strogn enough to solder to the #12 bus wire under the layout - I have a 150 watt soldering gun for that.
While you can definitely have too big an iron for a particular job, it’s not so much the amount of heat as the size of the tip. The primary key to good soldering is ALWAYS keept he tip clean and tinned. It should be bright and shiny - it it’s not, heat transfer will suffer and you’ll have to hold the heat on longer to melt the solder - this is what causes melted wires, damaged components, and peels the copper traces from circuit boards.
A solderign station actually makes a lot of sense - a typical soldering iron continues to heat as long as it is plugged in. Even a small 25 watter can get VERY hot after an extended session. This causes the tip to wear out and leads right back to issue #1, dirty tip and poor heat transfer. A solderign station cycles the power on and off to maintain a fairly even temperature, so the tip stays cleaner and in good condition longer. You don;t have to spend $100+ on one, the Xytronics one I have cost less than $50, although it has now been discontinued and the replacement lead-free model is $55 from the same supplier - they also made the base smaller and added a digital temp readout - mine simply has a dial. For the kind of stuff done on a model railroad, the ultra precision really isn’t necessary. I’ve had it for 2 years now, still on the original tip, and it still works great whether I’m soldering decoder wires or track (I originally got it to build turnouts with Fast Tracks fixtures - the soldering part went well, it’s got plenty of heat to solder code 83 rail to PC board ties).
A good question that has been answered many times in many ways. Enter the word soldering in the “Search Community” box to the right and see them all. The bottom line is there is no one answer because it all depends on the nature and size of the job. That being said, I would recommend going with a Weller adjustable soldering station like this for small wiring and a Weller soldering gun for big jobs like track feeders. The adjustable station will give you the ability to fine tune your heat level to exactly what you need for the job.
Second the motion.
One other comment. Electronic devices and soldering guns are a poor match - the gun generates a rather intense magnetic field that can be bad news to sensitive ICs.
Personally, I prefer a small pencil iron for small wires and circuit boards, and a big, powerful gun for anything involving rail or assembling large brass objects. One size does NOT fit all.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with LOTS of soldered joints of all sizes)
One other “soldering tip”: Turn off the power to the device or layout before you solder it. I speak from experience.
I have an Inland 100W soldering iron that I use for stained glass, and have used for #12 or #14 bus wires; NEVER on small electronic / electrical soldering. It would fry or melt everything. [:O]
I have a 40W Weller that I highly recommend. It’s pricier than a Radio Shack or the equivalent iron, but it comes with a variety of removable tips and is a joy to use. I use a pencil tip for electrical work.
Randy mentioned FastTracks–Tim has a video on that site that is a good tutorial on soldering. I used it when I was learning. It’s a great skill to have!
I agree with the previous posters and would add one more recommendation–use a brass tip cleaner rather than a wet paper towel. Jameco sells the tip cleaners; I’m sure they’re available elsewhere as well. They look like Brillo, clean the tip well, and don’t drop the tip temp like I understand a wet paper towel does.
At the risk of stating the obvious, I’ll also add that you should use a rosin flux for electrical work. Tim (FastTracks) uses acid flux because he washes his turnouts after soldering them, but I wouldn’t take that chance.
Rick Krall
Yeah, there is no need to use acid flux, even for the track, especially of you follow the other steps of roughing up the pc board ties. In fact, when I do use flux, I have a water soluable paste I got from H&N Electronics that works very well and is totally safe for any electrical work. It also can be sent via US Mail and doesn;t require any hazardous material placarding when being transported. I wouldn’t eat the stuff, but if you get some on you fingers it doesn’t cause irritation, and it rinses right away with water. It also does exactly what a flux is supposed to and cleans the material and allows the solder to wick into the joint. Particularly good when soldering track sections, I put a tiny dab in the joiner before pushing the track sections together and when I solder it the solder stays down around the joiner and doesn’t creep up the rail where it would need to be filed away.
Oh yes - my soldering station came with one os those brass brillow pad cleaners as part of a very nice stand. The replacement model I mentioned also comes with one. Far better than the wet sponge or wet paper towel method of cleaning the tip, and it’s not going to wear the coating off the tip because it’s soft brass.
–Randy
For soldering transistors and IC’s to PC boards 35 watts is good. For soldering to rail and 14 gauge bus wire you need more like 100 watts. I have a Weller soldering station for the electronic work and a 210 watt Weller soldering gun for the heavy stuff.
Actually, the soldering station is overkill for anything other than soldering semiconductors in place. Semiconductors are heat sensitive and can be damaged by excessive soldering temperature. The fairly costly soldering stations have thermostats that keep the iron tip temperature constant. For soldering wire and handrails and such, a plain old electric soldering iron is fine. The simple irons run a bit hot when the tip isn’t touching anything, but wire doesn’t care. A plain low wattage electric iron can be had for under $10, a new soldering station might run you $100.
For soldering rail and heavy bus wire, a 35 watt iron will do the job, but it is slow getting the work up to soldering temp. By the time the solder is melting, so are the plastic ties or the plastic insulation. With 100 watts or more, the solder is melted and the joint is made before collateral damage sets in.