There's a reason proper soldering station have tips that come set to 650° or 800°; those are the correct temps for soldering 60/40 and lead-free respectively.
mnem
Part of use of any tool is intelligent use by the operator but if that operator is a dummy then expect dummy results.
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Back in my ITT days, we learned to solder with cheap a$$ rat shack firestarters. Some of us got quite good with them, some not so much and we would lose points for bad soldering. Most teams used their breadboards for the quarterly projects, my team made PCBs because we could-we had enough confidence in our soldering to do so and that, among other things, gave us a distinct edge because the quarterly projects were judged competition style, often having outsiders in technology fields judging. When I graduated to my Hakko 936, there were times when I had to play with the temp settings for ham radio soldering. I can now solder PL-259 connectors just fine with my Metcal and a 3.2 mm tip, the 936 never had a prayer of doing that.
I like the thermal recovery of my Hakko FX-951 and the choose tip size and forget of my Metcal MX-500. The Hakko stays at 650
o and I have 6 series tips for the Metcal for lead and 1 8 series tip for lead free since I do so little. There is absolutely something to be said for proper use of a tool lest injury/damage result. For me, it is one less thing to worry about. Intelligent use or not, the more variables that can be eliminated, the easier and better the job gets done.
this thread is inhabited by miscreants, scallywags.
Madness is something rare in individuals -- but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil
I resemble that remark. Then again, I am a Jersey Boy, it's almost expected.
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