worse soldering station WELLER WLC 100

[aliyesami]

this soldering iron broke on me twice in short period of time ,,so frustrating ..
can someone advise me a better n reliable soldering iron around 40 watt ?

I am mostly dealing with smd digital components .

thanks

 

[dick_freebird]

You want something with way more wattage, but temperature
controlled. I got many years of service from secondhand Weller
TCPN stations, although all of them now need some sort of
repair. My Metcal twin is still going strong but it's a couple of
decades younger (got it for nothing, it needed the power
switch replaced). I have no complaints about my Radio Shack
temperature controlled iron, other than that the tip assortment
and availability is pretty limited. But it's the only one with a
digital readout for setpoint and actual temp.

You'd probably like something with interchangeable tips, and
an available tip that is fine enough for 0.025" pitch leads.
Check that before you decide on a body.

 

[DWard]

I will second the general reliability of the Metcal irons, as well as the availability of many different tips for SMD packages, but they are expensive. Back in the day we usually used Weller workstations (they were more affordable), and they never broke. They might have been TCPN's, but I can't remember. The bigger issue was taking care of the tips - keeping them clean and tinned.

 

[D.A.(Tony)Stewart]

I can 3rd the opinion on Metcal, once you try one , you wont want to go back to conventional soldering.

But for routine 603 soldering and SOIC PLCC rework any 25W iron with a power dimmer with a 1mm tip works well if properly tinned daily.

Then a bigger iron for large THT parts.

When I ran an SMT R&D lab we handsoldered prototype RF boards with 603's all the time using temperature controlled tips. Some are variable, others have fixed temp tips. like 580F or 600F.

Daily cleaning and tinning the tip is essential training for every user.

You didn't say why it broke? Mfg flaw?