Introduction: Lead-Free Soldering With a 2 in 1 Hot Air Iron Solder Station

By Solarcyclepower.com
About: After being laid off in 2009, I got rid of my car to save money. The difficult transition from a car to a bicycle led me to start Solarcycle and design USB chargers that keep smart phones alive.

This is an Instructable on lead-free soldering with a 2 in 1 Hot Air Iron Solder Station

Before this station, I was using a Weller station, but over the years it was worn down and didn't control temperature very well. This new station got to temperature very fast and accurately! I'm using this station for lead-free production soldering for hundreds of Solderdoodles , which includes soldering all the wires and battery assemblies.

Soldering Temperature:

At 800ºF (426ºC), Lead-Free soldering requires much more temperature than regular leaded soldering. Make sure that your soldering station can achieve these higher temperatures. Once Lead-Free soldering temperatures are achieved, standard soldering techniques can be used.

Comfort:

After soldering thousands of wires over a few weeks, my hand felt comfortable. The wet sponge and the metal sponge it comes with are still holding up for lots more soldering. The components are very high quality and the soldering iron is very thin and lightweight. The simple soldering iron holder allows for very easy and quick removal. This soldering iron is rated at 80 Watts, which seems to solder larger blobs of lead-free solder just fine.

Hot Air Gun:

The hot air gun gets to temperature very fast and the air blower is actually inside the handle. Other hot air guns have the air blower inside the square case with a needle valve to control air speed. Having the air blower inside the handle allows for direct air flow and the air speed is controlled with a knob on the case, which speeds up or slows down the blower motor. It also comes with many different hot air gun nozzles.

Final Thoughts:

It is very hard to find a good quality soldering iron station and this soldering station is a very good one and helped speed up my manufacturing needs and I would recommend this soldering station for other people to use for their projects.

You can get this station from thediyoutlet.com
Here's the link for this soldering and rework station: http://thediyoutlet.com/products/2in1-auto-off-dua...

The Lead-Free solder I used was Kester .025" thick solder http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/24-7068-1...