How can I tell how many watts my soldering iron is? & what are the best brand of tips

[apples]

Well I would like to know how many watts my soldering iron is. It's just a simple one with the tip held in the end via a screw.

It's all corroded and shot now, you know use it for melting plastic and other non-soldering jobs lol.

How can I tell how many watts it is? There are no markings or stickers on it.

And for replacement tips, can I get a better brand than the cheap ones you might see online?
If so what brand and where can I get them from.

Also I see some mention of people using solder + a flux. I have always just used the solder itself and not extra flux. Is extra flux really needed? Why? Should I get some then, what brand to get etc? Different from say plumbers flux?

 

[apples]

I might add that I just measured the length of the old tip to be about 67mm long by 4.5mm to maybe 5.0mm OD.

The hole that the tip slides into is a rather loose fit. This can't be too good for heat transfer. I wonder if I could get a slightly larger diameter tip to contact the inside for better heat transfer.

Also what about if I put in some of that CPU heat sink type paste inside the iron to fill the air gap and help heat transfer.

And the whole length of that tip was all corroded/oxidized not just the bit sticking out of the end.

 

[mahone]

you could get a piece of sandpaper and sand all the corrosion away back to copper. I use my old tips for desoldering old boards or any such job and a new tip for builds. I know the kind of tips you describe, if you look on eBay for silverline tips, you can get a pack of 10 for 3 quid delivered from the uk (normally a couple of days) if you don't know the wattage, 40w tips should be fine.

I have an old silverline 60w iron which still works fine. I have a maplin solder station and a Weller. yes, you do get what you pay for, but my cheapie 5 quid silverline still does the same job just as nicely as the Weller (despite the years of abuse).

from your post it sounds like you should definitely invest in some new tips.

 

[(*steve*)]

Well I would like to know how many watts my soldering iron is.

Get one of those devices that tell you how much power something uses and plug in the soldering iron.

Alternatively, you can measure the resistance and use V^2/R calculate the power used. The latter uses the RMS voltage of your mains (110, 220, etc) and assumes the resistance doesn't change with temperature.

 

[KJ6EAD]

Plato tips are pretty good.

http://www.techspray.com/d-7-plato.aspx

 

[jcurrie]

I like weller products(personal preferance) have several different ones one of the stations is close to 35 years old and tips are still to be had.

as for extra flux i dont use it on electrical soldering, find the flux core gets the job done, but on larger jobs i use applied flux either acid or past depending on the job.

jc

 

[Fishstickilicious]

I've actually asked the flux question to one of my buddies who works in an electrical engineering lab. He uses flux when he deals with very fine soldering jobs (like tiny surface mount devices). He told me that he doesn't trust the distribution of the flux in the really fine solder reels (it could very well be related to the brand of solder that he uses in the lab, however).