Great, now you have to make all your other modules larger to match.
Ha!
I forget the work arounds for the 20 character limit.
I don’t know what I did wrong, I just know I did something…
These are the tips of my soldering iron, they used to be a bit more… intact.
Badge of honor or badge of shame. Hard to say
if it makes you feel better or worse, my iron’s tip isn’t looking too great.
well it’s good to see I’m not the only one, how long did yours take to look like that.
Since July or so. Its lasted about seven or eight modules.
What brand is it? I read that some brands are terrible in that the tips melt all too easily (e.g. Parkside).
Also, is it me or do these tips look too thick?
Those tips are massive, you must be soldering girders together, I use an Antex XS-25 for all my projects with the standard supplied 3mm tip. This one is over priced, but you get the idea, I bought 5 of them and spare tips.
My uncle gave me this rig on my 7th birthday. It’s now over 50 years old and I reckon I’ve gone through an average of a tip a year. I’m fastidious about tip cleaning and prep oh and too mean to buy new tips often.
My first lasted many years, but really my soldering has increased massively in the last 6 - 7 years, so it gave out and I’ve lost one more since. Tip changes are important.
You are right of course, a good tip is important and I keep a newer iron on my bench these days.
Did I mention I’m a Scotsman? We have a more frugal outlook. One of my bass guitars is almost 30 years old and the survivor of a good few hundred gigs and sessions, it has the original strings which I remove and clean after every gig. Bass strings are expensive.
At the local Repair Cafe we threw out all the parkside soldering irons. Someone who was not a regular user of soldering tools bought a few because they were cheap. Yep they are, but the tips are crap. So I’ve been bringing my own soldering iron as so have most other volunteers for years.I myself have been using an Ersa 30 Watts and an Antex model C (15 Watts) for maybe 45 years at home. Top quality stuff ! I may have changed tips only 5 times over all those years and was surprised that I could still get them for the Antex model I have when I decided to get new ones a few years ago. 2 years ago I started using a T12-952 as well and bought some 12 tips with it, all of different shapes and sizes (to experiment with all those variants). Only 2 or three of these I use on a regular basis. What I like about this soldering iron is that I can set the temperature to as low as 200 degrees centigrade which I use to add threaded inserts to 3D printed cases and such. That I cannot do with the Ersa or Antex.
I have a cheap iron I stick in a small drill press for threaded inserts. It has a threaded tip taking different sized heads depending on what size inserts I’m using. I also have some sculpture tips for that low power iron that allow me to smooth or carve on the pla 3d prints and do some pyro wood burning type stuff.
I like many of his videos but this was one that I had to turn off because of how many times he says soLLLLLLder. This is definitely a me problem … but a problem no less
Well “soddering” and network routers pronounced row-der instead of “rooter” (a router is a woodworking tool) these all prod my pecs, well that and the way the new Zealand accent tortures vowels. (No offence, it’s my problem)
Then again a prof at Oxford used to chide my peeves, saying that English is a living language and I should be thankful we’re not all still speaking like 14th century Geoffrey Chaucer.
As a Gaelic speaker I still shiver at the following
Coimpiutair = pc
Fòn-làimhe = mobile phone
Luchdaich a-nuas = download
… is something I could listen to all day. HAHAH
Oh yeesh, I’ve blown through three tips with 5 modules over a month or so. ![]()
Mine is Weller, I got it for like $30 at home depot. It said for “electronics”; maybe they meant power plant maintenance and not little circuit boards lol.



