Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

1.5 chisel tip is fine for anything I find!

[shakalnokturn]

Also today I received the much awaited special 22mm socket to pull the oxygen sensor from my old Safrane... 20 years and 300.000kms, it's done for.  New sensor already here. Now I can replace it... hopefully will fix some engine issues I have been having ever since I got the car 3 years ago...

Oh! So you happen to be the last Safrane driver in France...


On the Metcal irons:
I missed one on our top second-hand website a couple of months ago it was selling with RF base, iron rest, solder dispenser, 3 tips and one iron (or two not sure any more) for 50€. The advert wasn't up long!

[mansaxel]

Also today I received the much awaited special 22mm socket to pull the oxygen sensor from my old Safrane... 20 years and 300.000kms, it's done for.  New sensor already here. Now I can replace it... hopefully will fix some engine issues I have been having ever since I got the car 3 years ago...

I did buy one of those sockets, but it seems that the one i got hold of actually was an unified (inch AF) size just above 22mm, like 7/8". I ended up doing the job with a crow-foot and some extenders.

Edit: Like yours seems to be. Is it slotted or just feed-through? Slotted is not good enough with 7/8" on 22mm; the 0,225mm diff is enough to make it skip, but a feed-through that's got a closed hex socket will probably work.

[Vince]

Also today I received the much awaited special 22mm socket to pull the oxygen sensor from my old Safrane... 20 years and 300.000kms, it's done for.  New sensor already here. Now I can replace it... hopefully will fix some engine issues I have been having ever since I got the car 3 years ago...

Oh! So you happen to be the last Safrane driver in France...

GRRR !!!! 

YOU BAD MOUTH !!!

My Neighbour just bought one a month ago, that's TWO !
I also saw another one at work ! Well, ex-work now...
And there are plenty of them on the Renault Safrane form !

Guy who runs the forum runs a garage near Paris and owns 23 (no typo, that's 23 ) of them !  And he maintains another 20+ of them, belonging to his customers.

On the Metcal irons:
I missed one on our top second-hand website a couple of months ago it was selling with RF base, iron rest, solder dispenser, 3 tips and one iron (or two not sure any more) for 50€. The advert wasn't up long!

That's Karma for you ! 

That will teach you ! Next time don't be a bad mouth ! 

[Cerebus]

I'd love to know the secret sauce in the standby stands. I mean obviously it's a magnet or two but what's the orientation, what's the necessary field strength. Reason being that I haven't got a magic stand and I haven't seen one at a good price and I'm sure that it's just a case of sticking a couple of neo-diddlyum magnets in the right place.

The photos show the orientation with the strongest changes. The first and last are relatively "free floating", the middle three are solid.

Cool, thanks. I'll try and figure that out later. I'm presuming that the intent of the static field is to saturate the 'core' element of the tip so it can't be too delicate a balance - just a strong enough field to push it off the top of the BH curve.

[Vince]

Also today I received the much awaited special 22mm socket to pull the oxygen sensor from my old Safrane... 20 years and 300.000kms, it's done for.  New sensor already here. Now I can replace it... hopefully will fix some engine issues I have been having ever since I got the car 3 years ago...

I did buy one of those sockets, but it seems that the one i got hold of actually was an unified (inch AF) size just above 22mm, like 7/8". I ended up doing the job with a crow-foot and some extenders.

Edit: Like yours seems to be. Is it slotted or just feed-through? Slotted is not good enough with 7/8" on 22mm; the 0,225mm diff is enough to make it skip, but a feed-through that's got a closed hex socket will probably work.

Pics below.

I did note that there were several types/models of such sockets, so I asked the guys on the Safrane forum what I should buy. They pointed me to that type of socket, because it's what they used with success on their own cars, so I know for a fact that it does work... so not too worried !

Yep 7/8" / 22mm it reads on the box.. but 7/8" computes to a tad larger than 22mm.. about 22,2 which should be fine, not enough to slip or do damage I think. 2 tenth small,  21,8mm would have been more annoying as the socket might not fit at all on the sensor....

Anyway, hopefully I will be able to give it a go this week-end so I shall soon find out how it works out !

[Cerebus]

what tip(s) should I consider buying for use with SMD, PTH and ground planes? (It came with an SSC-738A tip, which is a 1.5mm chisel)

I use a mixture of Metcal and Thermaltronics tips, but here's my line up:

s75sb005    0.51 mm bent conical tip SSC-726A   Bent Sharp 30° 0.51mm (0.02") 350°C - 398°C
ssc-738a    1.5mm  30º chisel 413ºC
ssc-637a    1.78mm 30º chisel 357ºC
s75ch025    2.5mm chisel tip SSC-736A   Chisel 30° 2.5mm (0.10") 350°C - 398°C

The 0.5 mm tip was all but a mistake. It comes out for truly tricky touch ups on fine SMD stuff, but even on those parts it fails to really get enough heat in fast enough.

The 1.5mm or the 1.78mm are the mainstays and I only really differentiate between them if I need lead-free temperatures or if I need to minimise the heat exposure to some component. The 2.5mm comes out for binding posts and full board ground planes without thermal reliefs.

Useful. Does that mean you use 637 for lead solder and the 738 for lead-free solder? And that a 1.5mm chisel tip is OK for SMD?

Amd thanks to everybody that showed my google-fu is weak

Yes, generally, but sometimes I'll use the 'hot' lead-free tip for leaded if there's a particular need to use the small tip and yes, both the 1.5 and 1.73mm are OK for SMD work.

I learned from watching the ladies on the production line that it doesn't matter if your tip is big if you know how to wield it properly. Giggity. No, seriously the lasses in production used to use the most awful chunky fire sticks and they'd use the same bit for small delicate operations as they would to solder the shell of a connector to a ground plane. Obviously SMD is a whole world of scale smaller than the 70s/80s stuff I watched them go at, so there probably is a thing as "too big a bit" but although the 1.5mm seems big compared to some parts I use it quite happily in the 0603 - 1210 range. I'll also use it on 1.27 mm pitch SOIC parts and I've even used it to drag solder 0.5mm parts and wipe solder bridges off of 0.5mm pitch parts. For me, it's a happy "solder almost anything size" but your mileage may vary.

[mnementh]

what tip(s) should I consider buying for use with SMD, PTH and ground planes? (It came with an SSC-738A tip, which is a 1.5mm chisel)

I use a mixture of Metcal and Thermaltronics tips, but here's my line up:

s75sb005    0.51 mm bent conical tip SSC-726A   Bent Sharp 30° 0.51mm (0.02") 350°C - 398°C
ssc-738a    1.5mm  30º chisel 413ºC
ssc-637a    1.78mm 30º chisel 357ºC
s75ch025    2.5mm chisel tip SSC-736A   Chisel 30° 2.5mm (0.10") 350°C - 398°C

The 0.5 mm tip was all but a mistake. It comes out for truly tricky touch ups on fine SMD stuff, but even on those parts it fails to really get enough heat in fast enough.

The 1.5mm or the 1.78mm are the mainstays and I only really differentiate between them if I need lead-free temperatures or if I need to minimise the heat exposure to some component. The 2.5mm comes out for binding posts and full board ground planes without thermal reliefs.

The 0.5mm bent conical really is for the crap Rossman, et al do; teeny-tiny bodge wires on .8mm PCBs you need to work with a microscope on. Wicked evil bastard too, if you stab yourself with a hot one; it sortof cauterizes the wound at first, but then it turns into a weeping little burning pinpoint of fire. I've done it a few times and the sting'll keep you up at night.

Agreed; the 1.5 mm conical (long and short) are the mainstays. You can do almost anything with them.

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

what tip(s) should I consider buying for use with SMD, PTH and ground planes? (It came with an SSC-738A tip, which is a 1.5mm chisel)

I use a mixture of Metcal and Thermaltronics tips, but here's my line up:

s75sb005    0.51 mm bent conical tip SSC-726A   Bent Sharp 30° 0.51mm (0.02") 350°C - 398°C
ssc-738a    1.5mm  30º chisel 413ºC
ssc-637a    1.78mm 30º chisel 357ºC
s75ch025    2.5mm chisel tip SSC-736A   Chisel 30° 2.5mm (0.10") 350°C - 398°C

The 0.5 mm tip was all but a mistake. It comes out for truly tricky touch ups on fine SMD stuff, but even on those parts it fails to really get enough heat in fast enough.

The 1.5mm or the 1.78mm are the mainstays and I only really differentiate between them if I need lead-free temperatures or if I need to minimise the heat exposure to some component. The 2.5mm comes out for binding posts and full board ground planes without thermal reliefs.

The 0.5mm bent conical really is for the crap Rossman, et al do; teeny-tiny bodge wires on .8mm PCBs you need to work with a microscope on. Wicked evil bastard too, if you stab yourself with a hot one; it sortof cauterizes the wound at first, but then it turns into a weeping little burning pinpoint of fire. I've done it a few times and the sting'll keep you up at night.

Yup, that's exactly the kind of thing it was bought to do, but experience has taught me that it hasn't the oomph to do more than tack something into place. I thought I'd be using it to do things like fix the one leg of a SOIC that didn't reflow properly, but the tip to lead frame ratio means that it just runs out of heat and either doesn't melt the solder, or does and sticks.

Agreed; the 1.5 mm conical (long and short) are the mainstays. You can do almost anything with them.

mnem
 

Mine, as noted, are chisel tips - I never could get on with conical tips.

[mnementh]

Got a defective HP8481D power meter head from the israelian dumpster divers for quite low. Was a little bit playing roulette as the cable connector was terribly damaged.
This time I won: it was only physically damaged, the head was OK. So replaced the connector and cleaned up the mess, now works like a charm.

Hint: If you ever have to unmount the connector, you have to use a lot of heat as it is mounted with thread lock.

Winner, winner pork roast dinner! 

mnem
 

[BU508A]

@Vince

In the German ebay ads there is a brand new and unused Metcal PS-900 available. Price is VB (Verhandlungsbereit - ready for negotiations).
This station costs around 217 Euro if bought at Farnell, so perhaps the seller (has a female name) will sell it for 150 Euro or so. (as always: NAWTS)

If you are interested, drop me an email a PM and I can try to get it for you.

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/loetstation-metcal-ps-900/1851079603-168-9404


  .oO(why can't people be arsed to use landscape for such pictures instead of portrait?) 

[mnementh]

what tip(s) should I consider buying for use with SMD, PTH and ground planes? (It came with an SSC-738A tip, which is a 1.5mm chisel)

I use a mixture of Metcal and Thermaltronics tips, but here's my line up:

s75sb005    0.51 mm bent conical tip SSC-726A   Bent Sharp 30° 0.51mm (0.02") 350°C - 398°C
ssc-738a    1.5mm  30º chisel 413ºC
ssc-637a    1.78mm 30º chisel 357ºC
s75ch025    2.5mm chisel tip SSC-736A   Chisel 30° 2.5mm (0.10") 350°C - 398°C

The 0.5 mm tip was all but a mistake. It comes out for truly tricky touch ups on fine SMD stuff, but even on those parts it fails to really get enough heat in fast enough.

The 1.5mm or the 1.78mm are the mainstays and I only really differentiate between them if I need lead-free temperatures or if I need to minimise the heat exposure to some component. The 2.5mm comes out for binding posts and full board ground planes without thermal reliefs.

The 0.5mm bent conical really is for the crap Rossman, et al do; teeny-tiny bodge wires on .8mm PCBs you need to work with a microscope on. Wicked evil bastard too, if you stab yourself with a hot one; it sortof cauterizes the wound at first, but then it turns into a weeping little burning pinpoint of fire. I've done it a few times and the sting'll keep you up at night.

Yup, that's exactly the kind of thing it was bought to do, but experience has taught me that it hasn't the oomph to do more than tack something into place. I thought I'd be using it to do things like fix the one leg of a SOIC that didn't reflow properly, but the tip to lead frame ratio means that it just runs out of heat and either doesn't melt the solder, or does and sticks.

Agreed; the 1.5 mm conical (long and short) are the mainstays. You can do almost anything with them.

mnem
 

Mine, as noted, are chisel tips - I never could get on with conical tips.

Ahhh... small chisel tips were going to be next on the agenda before the move; I started out with the conicals to go along with this crusty bastard that came with my handle and never got around to looking for more, because there was pretty much nothing that those couldn't handle.

Weird to hear how badly that 0.5mm treated you; the ones I have for my T12 station work admirably for just that kind of work as you describe, as long as you treat them like a ~25W tip. I expected the SmartHeat version to be even better...

mnem
 

[tautech]

what tip(s) should I consider buying for use with SMD, PTH and ground planes? (It came with an SSC-738A tip, which is a 1.5mm chisel)

I use a mixture of Metcal and Thermaltronics tips, but here's my line up:

s75sb005    0.51 mm bent conical tip SSC-726A   Bent Sharp 30° 0.51mm (0.02") 350°C - 398°C
ssc-738a    1.5mm  30º chisel 413ºC
ssc-637a    1.78mm 30º chisel 357ºC
s75ch025    2.5mm chisel tip SSC-736A   Chisel 30° 2.5mm (0.10") 350°C - 398°C

The 0.5 mm tip was all but a mistake. It comes out for truly tricky touch ups on fine SMD stuff, but even on those parts it fails to really get enough heat in fast enough.

The 1.5mm or the 1.78mm are the mainstays and I only really differentiate between them if I need lead-free temperatures or if I need to minimise the heat exposure to some component. The 2.5mm comes out for binding posts and full board ground planes without thermal reliefs.

The 0.5mm bent conical really is for the crap Rossman, et al do; teeny-tiny bodge wires on .8mm PCBs you need to work with a microscope on. Wicked evil bastard too, if you stab yourself with a hot one; it sortof cauterizes the wound at first, but then it turns into a weeping little burning pinpoint of fire. I've done it a few times and the sting'll keep you up at night.

Yup, that's exactly the kind of thing it was bought to do, but experience has taught me that it hasn't the oomph to do more than tack something into place. I thought I'd be using it to do things like fix the one leg of a SOIC that didn't reflow properly, but the tip to lead frame ratio means that it just runs out of heat and either doesn't melt the solder, or does and sticks.

Agreed; the 1.5 mm conical (long and short) are the mainstays. You can do almost anything with them.

mnem
 

Mine, as noted, are chisel tips - I never could get on with conical tips.

Me neither as their thermal mass is insufficient for the vast majority of work. 
Instead chisel, hoof and K style are the best selection to have.

[Vince]

@Vince

In the German ebay ads there is a brand new and unused Metcal PS-900 available. Price is VB (Verhandlungsbereit - ready for negotiations).
This station costs around 217 Euro if bought at Farnell, so perhaps the seller (has a female name) will sell it for 150 Euro or so. (as always: NAWTS)

If you are interested, drop me an email a PM and I can try to get it for you.

  .oO(why can't people be arsed to use landscape for such pictures instead of portrait?) 

THanks BU ! But I think I will pass. Am a shoe string budget now that I am job less. As of last friday I got mylast check and am now officially, 100% out of the company (and the better for it ! ). So I need to count the beans to make tyhat last check last as long as possible...

Since my present Weller does that job for now, I can't justify spending even if just 150 Euros on a new one...

Plus, as you said it's not that expensive brand new ! So I would rather pay a little more for a new one and have the arranty and the like of Farnel to talk to ni case of problems, rather than some private individual, especially not in my home country.

Plus, of course... I need to pay for the materials to keep going on construction work in my house and garage build soon hopefully...
So spendings for the lab will be kept to a minimum for a few months at least.

OK I know, I spent 300 Euros to get the Tek 575 curve tracer but... well you understand, had no choice, I just could not let it pass !
But for "scheduled" gear purchases, I have control over things and... no metcal for me now, neither used or new.

But when I do get one it will be new I think, as it's MUCH cheaper than I thought ! 

As you said PS 900 is 217 Euros from Farnell ( just looked as well), so 260 all in. I thought it would be around 750 or something !

260 is insane, no point getting a Thermotronics unless they can demonstrate a useful and significant added value.

The PS 900 is 60 "RF" watts, that's 20% more than the most powerful Thermotronics ( 50W ) yet cheaper !
No wonder it can solder anything BD throw at it...
And the base station comes with a nice molded aluminium case as well, no shitty plastic.

The "auto-sleep" stand for sure I will get.. as it's readily available from Farnell or anywehre, for only 35 euros ?! No reason to procrastinate !

And the PS-900 is even supplied with the 1.5mm chisel tip that's so versatile from everything you say, rather the useless conical tip most irons come with. I agree, same experience, conical is shit, useless, chisel much better and versatile.

OK so that's cool, the soldering iron upgrade is now all sorted, just need to pull the trigger once I get a new job.

Iron sorted, tweezers sorted. lab V2.0 is getting into shape bit after bit 

[med6753]

Gee, Hakko don't get no love around these parts.  This Hakko works well and I have no real complaints other than I really have to crank it up when working on Tek ceramic strips. And since I've not used a Metcal I don't know how it would compare.

I noticed same with conical tips. Not as effective as a chisel tip which I use 100% of the time. And I've used the same tip for nearly 2 years now and it's fine.

I got real lucky in getting this Hakko. The company that my brother works for purchased this Hakko as well as a Metcal in sort of a comparison. The operators favored the Metcal so this Hakko became surplus. My brother was able to take it legitimately and he didn't want it and gave it to me. So, I guess in side-to-side the Metcal is better but the Hakko works for me....especially since it was FREE. 

 

[tautech]

Gee, Hakko don't get no love around these parts.  This Hakko works well and I have no real complaints other than I really have to crank it up when working on Tek ceramic strips.

Cheap iron and air station here that uses the most common Hakko style tips and while it may not have the grunt of a Metcal it does everything I need short of getting out a blow torch. 
2.4mm chisel lives in it until needing lots of thermal mass then out comes the 3.2mm chisel.

[xrunner]

Chisel tip = 

Conical tip = 

[Saskia]

I have a Hakko and I like it. I hate Weller's WMRP though. Most of the tips have a very limited lifetime and are bloody expensive.
@Miunty the Metcal is tempting, but with  2 Hakkos, a Weller, and an Atten GT IT IS hard to justify.

[0culus]

Chisel tip = 

Conical tip = 

I like conical tips for most things.  The only thing I use a chisel tip for is doing silver soldering in Tek ceramic strips. You need as much thermal mass as you can get for that. And that tip only sees silver solder.

[Specmaster]

I got some conical tips for my T12 irons and can concur, they are pretty much useless as most pads will just wick the heat away faster than the tip can provide it. But flat chisel, K type and hoof types all work very well, even on a little old unloved apparently T12 system. Previously I've always used direct mains powered irons with a fixed power of 25W or other sizes depending on the job in hand. Then I went and got myself a Hakko clone from eBay which also worked well and was fine with that until there was a lot of discussion here about the T12 and Mnem was one of the main person extolling its virtues, so I thought I'd have a go, that was about 3 years ago, and I'm still very happy with the T12 system.

[med6753]

Chisel tip = 

Conical tip = 

I like conical tips for most things.  The only thing I use a chisel tip for is doing silver soldering in Tek ceramic strips. You need as much thermal mass as you can get for that. And that tip only sees silver solder.

I've had ZERO issues mixing 60/40 solder with the silver solder on the ceramic strips. Just use care and don't go overboard.

[Saskia]

@bd just read about your loss. My condolences.

Managed to get our errands almost done.
Did not get the export license for the IPSC open race particle accelerator due to out of office situation of the authorities, however since Hubby gave up 7 irons for adoption this one is also up for the next Springer auction in Vienna.
I preemptively used the expected funds for small discs depicting orchestra and birds. Easier to carry across borders and much more inconspicuous.
Met my boss, he will try to personally intervene on my behalf regarding home office as boss boss does not seem to get things going. Tomorrow it will be barbeque with Hubby's friends and distribution of his remaining Austrian assets

Also finally managed to get hold of the pinball playfield that I bought 2 years ago but didn't get to pick up due to closed borders ( thanks Covid ...)
Sunday morning. It will be back across the border, another 10h drive.
Tired greetings from Austria .   

[0culus]

Chisel tip = 

Conical tip = 

I like conical tips for most things.  The only thing I use a chisel tip for is doing silver soldering in Tek ceramic strips. You need as much thermal mass as you can get for that. And that tip only sees silver solder.

I've had ZERO issues mixing 60/40 solder with the silver solder on the ceramic strips. Just use care and don't go overboard.

I got a deal on a pound of Kester 2% Ag. I'm set for life. 

[xrunner]

I like conical tips for most things.  The only thing I use a chisel tip for is doing silver soldering in Tek ceramic strips. You need as much thermal mass as you can get for that. And that tip only sees silver solder.

That's cool. I wonder about the shape of your conical tips. There are a lot of different shapes out there. Maybe the one you are using is a better sort of shape, not sure how all the manufacturers define them exactly. I know there are a bewildering number of shapes you can select from. You might have a very good shape ... 

[med6753]

Chisel tip = 

Conical tip = 

I like conical tips for most things.  The only thing I use a chisel tip for is doing silver soldering in Tek ceramic strips. You need as much thermal mass as you can get for that. And that tip only sees silver solder.

I've had ZERO issues mixing 60/40 solder with the silver solder on the ceramic strips. Just use care and don't go overboard.

I got a deal on a pound of Kester 2% Ag. I'm set for life. 

If you look at my Hakko picture the tiny solder roll on right on top of the two big rolls.