I’ve got a Radio Shack digital soldering station (model# 64-2185) and it works great so far. However, I was doing some track work and it would seem to me that things might go a tad better if the tip was not so big. LONG story short, after many miles travled, and google searches, I’ve not found ANYONE who can help me find smaller tips fer this dern thing!!! Or even REPLACEMENT TIPS! Good grief, I thought this was just going to be a routine trip to the local Shack a few blocks from my house, but NOOOOOOOOOO!
Maybe you want to consider a ColdHeat soldering iron. They are pretty cheap (19.99 for a regular model, or 29.99 for a pro model.) And they have interchangeable tips (not included.) Here is a link to a regular model, which has a link to a pro model at the bottom. You may want to check it out.
Cold heat… I heard bad stories with that thing and it isn’t all its cracked up too be. Your better off getting a plug-in one from Weller or other good company. If your going to get a new one that is.
There is something to be said for buying a Weller or other long time brand in soldering equipment. You can get parts easily, and any well stocked electronics store will have tips for them.
As to a Radio Shack unit, question is, who made it? Is it something RS got from an unknown vendor in China, or another company’s product labelled for RS?
Maybe you could take the iron to an electronics store and see if they have tips that fit?
It is a sales gimmic, does not work well, if at all and breaks easily. There are professional stations of a similar type that work well but their price is very prohibitive.
A couple of my students tested these cold heat irons as an experiment and we quickly learned that they were a poor substitute for a real soldering iron in terms of recovery, power and ruggedness.
The only advantage is they don’t get hot until you bridge the two halves of the tip with a conductor.
I just purchased the same soldering station as the original poster. It’s OK for electronic work (very good for soldering wires to miniature plugs) but lacks the oomph to solder rail when assembling specialwork. For that purpose, and all rail related soldering, I use a 325 watt Weller hand cannon that dates from the Johnson administration.
If I feel the need for a new tip, or a tip of different shape, I’ll probably locate a chunk of copper bar stock of suitable diameter (possibly heavy duty electrical cable) and make one. If that voids the warranty, so be it.
It’s amazing what can be done with simple files. Just have the file card handy to clean the copper filings out of the file you’re using. (For those unfamiliar with the term, a file card is a brass wire brush with very short bristles.)
As for the ‘cold heat’ devices, they might be suitable for use as toys. Or, if you’re sufficiently desperate, they can be used as substandard paperweights.
I had a problem with tinning the plated tip on that same RS unit. I finally got it right by cleaning everything off and carefully following the instructions on tinning a new tip, but along the way I created a copper tip by grinding a piece of thick copper wire from the electrical section in Home Depot. The copper tip works just great. My earlier thread on this is here.
I think you could create a tip of any desired size in a similar way. My only caution is that the part of the tip that goes into the heating tube should be close to the same diameter as the original tip.
Thanks for the info. As mentioned, I really didn’t have all that much of a problem soldering the rails, just thought it would be nice to have a smaller tip for wires and such… Also, what temp setting do you use? Been play’en around with that as well.
The fancy temperature controlled soldering stations are great for electronics work. In electronics, the IC’s can be destroyed by too much heat on the pins, and the circuit board is copper foil stuck to plastic substrate, and too much heat will melt the stickum causing the foil to peel off. So the electronics folk got into very small temp controlled irons.
On the other hand, rail needs a lot more heat than an IC pin on copper foil. For rail, I use a big old 250 watt Weller soldering gun that goes back to vacuum tube Heathkit days. Nickel silver rail is a lot more rugged than IC’s and printed circuit boards. A big hot gun or iron gets the joint hot right now, avoids cold solder joints, and lessens tie melting 'cause the heat doesn’t stay on the rail as long. The guns and larger irons lack the fancy thermostatic temp control of the soldering stations, but they heat the rail up a lot faster.
Getting back to the Radio Shack soldering rig. Radio Shack ought to have replacement tips for it. The store may be out of stock, but the tips ought to be in the catalog, and the store ought to be able to special order them for you. You may have to make some tactful suggestions to the Radio Shack counter person, most of 'em are very junior and don’t really know the stock very well. But they do have a catalog, and you can look thru it. Given a replacement tip of any size, you can always make a small tip from a big tip using a file.
They (RS) told me they do not have a replacement tip for that particular soldering iron, and the catalog does not show one. If you try to file these new-fangled plated steel tips, you’ll probably damage the plating and it won’t work very well.
My home-made copper tip works very well.
The last time I was working with the iron I think I set it to 620 deg. F. It seemed to be working well at that setting.
BTW, I tried the lead-free solder and found it nearly impossible to work with. I changed back to normal lead-tin 60/40, which works fine.
Thanks for the info on temperature setting. I hadn’t really done much experimenting yet.
Lead-free solder is one of those brilliant, “Protect children at all cost!” ideas. It simply doesn’t perform as well as 60/40 (understatement of the week) but it won’t cause lead poisoning if somebody eats it. (I know not about thee, but I’ve never been tempted to nibble on solder.) Some day all these ‘authorities’ will realize that adult users are smart enough to know and follow the appropriate safety precautions - probably about the time that McCarran Tower gets overwhelmed with transmissions from bovines asking for landing instructions.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with 60/40 solder)
They have lots of tips. The diameter of the tip on the my RS soldering station is very close to 3/16 inch.
Here’s a photo of my original tip and the copper one. I used the Dremel cutting wheel to carve the pyramid shape on the copper wire. If I make another, I will try a three-sided pyramid to get more area on the side.
Excellent! I’m heading to Fry’s later today and see if they happen to have any tips that might work. (Any excuse to go to Fry’s!!) I’ll post up what I find.
I have a cold heat soldering iron (RS model) and I think its close to worthless - very difficult to use-it has a split tip and both side of the tip have to make contact to work. I’ve always had good luck with Weller.
I have to agree with most of the posts. The cold heat iron just isn’t worth buying. The fancy temperature-controlled irons are good if you’re working on crowded boards with narrow traces. We used them when I was in that kind of business, but they’re not right for the hobbyist. You don’t need a tiny little pointed tip on the iron unless you’re working on commercial boards with small pads and narrow crowded traces.
For the hobbyist a plain jane iron with a chisel tip is best. I have a 40 watt pencil iron with interchangable tips. I use a 1/8" chisel tip almost exclusively. It’s good for the majority of electronic work and for soldering feeders to rails and even soldering rails together. I use the speed control for my Dremel as a temperature control. (Yes, my Dremel is that old!) For electronic and electrical work I have the control set just past half way, giving me about a 25-30 watt iron. I use it full strength to solder feeders to rails, just because I usually can’t be bothered to drag the controller out to the layout. I’ve soldered feeders to both HO and N scale rails and have rarely ever melted any ties.
Just got back from Fry’s. It’s a bust. I did buy a three pack of tips that seemed to be close to the original Radio Shack tip. But the diamiter was to big to fit into the iron. So, my advice is do not buy a Radio Shack soldering station. Ahhh the joy of learning :o) It’s not like I’m going to toss the thing out, but sheeesh, one would think to make replacement tips at the very least.
Now to find some heavy guage copper wire to custom make tips…
