Soldering Iron

THE HAKKO RED

This 30W Hakko Red and it was with me since the early 2010’s I think. The outer barrel’s rusted through and is ready to snap off and. I’ve just replaced the tip in 2021. So, they do last quite long with my bad habit of switching the soldering iron on unattended for hours.

My soldering iron of choice is the 30W Hakko Red with the sharp tip. When I was a kid, my first one from China exploded in my hands one night. The next one was from a very good brand but as I grew up, it kinda disappeared. Then, when I started work, it was the Hakko brand as they were part of our Company’s tools. Our repair techs would be given the much more expensive and coveted yellow Antex. In the end, I got my own personal Hakko.

THE TIP

These are the pencil tips I go for. They lasts a few years and allows me to solder in any direction. The top was changed around 2014 which lasted me for maybe, three to four years before I got another Hakko. The next tip change was in 2021. I am still baffled as how it it rusted so bad like that as none of the previous tips did. It can still solder but I’m feeling that it has very poor heat transfer and will split very soon. Being an ignoramus that I am, I always end up buying any universal pencil bits that can fit into my Hakko.

There are various soldering iron tips for different scenarios. As I love dealing with SMD (surface mount device), I prefer the sharp tip aka the pencil point tip. If I get a new soldering iron, and if it does not have a that sharp tip, I would need to get it separately. The sharp tip helps a lot on soldering SMDs and especially, working in tight spaces in a model kit.

PLEASE DON’T

The soldering iron is an essential tool for my Hobby, just like a brush or an airbrush is to a modeler. Also, it is a source of heat and for many modelers, this is the easiest way of making bullet holes in the models. The downside is that the soldering iron is usually ‘too hot’ for the plastic, and is hard to control. There is also another serious downside, where the melting plastic would gunk up and stick to the tip, which also gives off non-environmentally friendly fumes.

But if you’re still going to go ahead to melt the plastics, please change the tip first. Alas if you only have one tip, you’d be spending the better part of the day wiping it off sheets of paper towels, and maybe even start a fire. The soldering tip is just a copper core with an iron coating. So, scraping the solder off with something sharp is not a good thing for the iron plating.

WHY NOT THE NEW ONES?

After using the Hakko for decades, for a habitual person like me, it is hard to accept the latest innovation. Moreover, a RM32.00 soldering iron lasts me about 6 years on average. Buying an iron which costs more than 6 times and has model specific replacement tips is hard to accept. OK, so it has temperature control and LCD/ OLED display. I guess I would keep on using until they’re obsolete or I have some extra cash to spend.

Here is the review:
https://hackaday.com/2021/04/27/review-sequre-sq-d60-temperature-controlled-soldering-iron/?fbclid=IwAR0oSIW-H0zNPVyG4jl9mv9qNZrgnOFeYVEFiK7CJWiCoa0GhXiK0aHZ4F4

The Sequre SQ-D60 which looks nice but man, I might even need to stock up on those soldering iron bits.
Tools of the Trade
Soldering Iron Stand ->
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