Hello Kerkana !
Welcome to this place !
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There aren't many Frogs over here somehow (I guess because most Frogs couldn't speak English to save their life !
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IRONit's simple... you said you love the one you've got, so... that means... why on earth would you want to change something that you like
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Just keep using it... if one day you feel it does not perform as well as you would like for some jobs, well you can alwyas look for a replacement then... but I don't see the need to replace something for the sake of it ! You like what you have, so keep using it. It's a decent iron, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it !
Main reason you would want to replace an iron is power output, as it decides whether you can or can not do a particular job !
I see your iron is about 70 Watts... my iron is an old "Magnastat" iron is only 50W and handles most jobs in the 30 years I have had it. So your at 70W is definitely good enough for a beginner iron.
50W for mine is a bit low I will admit and sometimes it's having a bit of trouble, but I always got the job done anyway, using a big tip for increased thermal mass, as well as using lots of flux to help get every bit of available heat, into the solder joint. It can take you out of trouble, helps you extract the last bit of performance from your iron...
So I say your iron is just fine ! What will make it useful is a few different tips, and flux... and practice.
POWER SUPPLYThe one you linked is single channel high-current (10A !!), and given how tiny it is, most likely switch mode, hence very noisy. This could be a useful secondary PSU for particular jobs that need high currents and are not sensitive to noise but... if you only have one PSU in your lab, then at the very least you must at least one general purpose LINEAR power supply. It's teh basics... everyone need one of these. Low noise, highly versatile, simple to fix if it goes wrong... you need at least one of those before anything else. Then one day if you happen to be working on a project that requires something out of the ordinary, you can buy a small dedicated PSU to cater for that particular need, like high-voltage low current, or low voltage high current, or whatever.
The characteristics for the "universal" lab power supply are :
- Linear
- analog controls usually for the cheaper ones, which is 99% of what you will find around
- independent digital read out for current and voltage
- two channels
- floating output
- output voltage can be adjusted from 0 to 30V or so.
- output current is about 3A
- output current is adjustable, so you can use it as a current source, and it's protected against permanent short-circuits when things go wrong
With two outputs, floating, you can put them in series or parallel as you need, to get more voltage (60V) or more current (5/6A).
You can make a symmetrical power supply to feed op-amp circuits or any analog circuitry, especially since it's linear so low noise.
There are lots and lots of these power supplies, under all sorts of brand old a new... it's a classic, tehv ery first supply one needs tyo buy before anything else, the most versatile.
Since you are in France, the ones you will probably find most easily are from Metrix. There wre loads of them in schools....
The typical one you will find is the AX322 :
https://www.leboncoin.fr/outillage_materiaux_2nd_oeuvre/2187194405.htmThat's the exact one I have. The guy in the abovze ad wants 250 Euros for it but of course he smoke crack !
I think I got mine on Ebay France for 60 Euros IIRC. Depending on condition I would say up to 100 Euros is a decent price. It's worth every penny.
Over the years it's been restyled, like this model with a beige enclosure rather than blue :
https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2201822285.htmStill too expensive though !
However I prefer the older blue model, because it's has proper binding posts for the outputs, so you can stick wires through the hole in them, or connect "fork" style terminal... it's much more versatile / practical than the other models which has security/isolated jacks instead, as you can see.
Well I guess if really the colour is an issue, you could always replace the isolated jacks and fit binding posts instead... but that's more work, and good quality binding posts are expensive... so it's easier and cheaper to just buy the older blue model !
SOLDERThe 63/37 Kester (or other brands) is readily available and in stock, I see, from Farnell (that's where I buy most of my stuff) :
Here is the search result on their site for "leaded" solder... 20 items or so. I see the 63/37 Kester in there :
https://fr.farnell.com/c/outils-fournitures-de-production/stations-de-soudage-accessoires/fils-de-soudure?avec-plomb-sans-plomb=leaded