New SetUp

[Do-Rugan]

Hi Everyone,

Two years ago I moved out of my parent's house. While this is not immanently a bad thing, the decreasing frequency of visits makes it hard to access my father's work station. Now I am looking for a new Set-Up and am not sure, what I really need, what I only used because I could, and what I always missed without noticing. The trick is going to be, to get what I need without investing to much money or space.

I so far came up with this:

Soldering Station 80 W
- a standard tip and a fine tip
Digital Multimeter with:
- Voltage AC/DC
- Current AC/DC
- Resistance
- I would love to have Capacity and Inductivity, but these are really expensive gimmicks. Are they worth it?
- Diode Test (most of these things can do this, but it is rather practical)
Tweazers
Helping Hand including magnifier
Magnifier
Some sort of desoldering device(s)

Plus the "Software":
- solder in different diameters: which are recommended? My father just had thin and thinner and did not remember the actual diameters or even which compounds.
- Flux in a bottle

The Next step will be to decide on the actual products. Right now I am thinking about Station and Multimeter from Conrad.de's own brand "Toolcraft". I would get the station for about 75 EUR. The question is, whether this is worth buying, or should I buy something "real" like Weller, Hakko, …. where would I get these in Germany?

There are some non-solder problems I have to solve, too. The most important will be to drill holes in casings' bottoms. Is this even possible without a properly equiped workbench?

I have to do some AMP3s for really depressed friends, but in the near future my Project "Overkill" is about to happen. So the Set-Up should be versatile for both.

What did I miss out and what is just a waste of money?

Hope you can help me,
Philipp

[V-bro]

Looks like you've got it figured out pretty well already.

I always worked and will work with Weller temp controlled stations since they just last 25 years, which makes them worth their seemingly ridiculous prices. If you want something cheaper and dont care about the operating life of the iron then Aoyeu stations are great value for money...
http://www.aoyue.com/en/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=372
http://www.aoyue.com/en/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=374

I wouldn't want to live without an LCR meter again, but I've noticed you do need a good one and they do cost about 100 euros. I use a Peak LCR meter from RS components, it looks shabby being all plastic, but it has fantastic measurement precision. Some cheap Ebay meters promise this level of precision, but they will measure waaaaaay off...

As for Tweezers, I use the SMD set of tweezers from Idealtek. Superb quality and fairly affordable. There are brands that ask the same price for a single pair of tweezers in the same quality. The nicest thing about them is they are non magnetic stainless steel, so no solder will stick to them and they won't move resistors around magnetically...

Then for desoldering I use Chipquik, desoldering braid, liquid flux pens and to finish the job a good printed circuits cleaner.

Never forget the most important is to be experienced yourself!

[Do-Rugan]

Thanks so far
The aoyue stations seem pretty - er - cheap… Are 45W (937+) enough to build, let's say, a Truepath? I think I read the high power amps need pretty good irons?

Could you say me which manufacturer your LCR (InductivityCapacityResistance?) is from? I am no really sure what to look for on the RS page.

Experience - I know something about it…
I build two AMP32s so far, of which one survived the process. Works nice and fires my 115cm Nubert nuBox681.

Thanks again, I get the feeling shopping is ahead

[V-bro]

AMP32?? Ah, you're in for a treat then, this is a nice amp, but all the others are miles better!!

The 45W should do the trick according to some builders I have spoken, but I have no first hand experience with these irons. They are supposedly immense value for money. I always fear the availability of tips and such, which with a Weller is nothing to worry about....

The LCR meter is of the brand Peak. http://www.test-meter.co.uk/products...r-meter-lcr40/

It's casing is rather horrible, so I built the internals in a die-cast box with stainless steel knobs and decent screw banana terminals. Also modded a tweezer test probe to be able to grab and measure SMD components. The fun thing about this meter is that it is really precise enough and offers probe calibration. It takes 5 seconds for every measurement, but it is well worth the wait as it is giving the correct readings. I've had a Chinese Ebay meter right next to it and it was off by 100% at the lower capacitance and inductance values, which made it completely rubbish for what we want it for... This meter is still expensive for how it is finished, but worth every penny for how it functions....

[V-bro]

http://cpc.farnell.com/1/1/45710-met...r-40-peak.html

[krilli]

I've been able to build most of the 41Hz amps with a shitty 50W iron. Having a cheap 90W slugger on hand to do the very biggest joints was nice, but not even necessary.

[V-bro]

It all does become a little different when doing a Truepath and having to correct things. Some through holes on that four layer take a good powerful iron to desolder smoothly. As long as it all goes well in one go 45W should do the job just fine on all joints on all the amps...

[audiophool]

Here's a list of tools for assembling Truepath (and just about any other electronics).

http://www.maedos.com/Guideline_Assembly_Tools.html

The list doesn't include test equipment, but a cheap multimeter would be enough to get you started.

Per Vbro's suggestion, I would recommend chipquik instead of a desoldering iron.

I don't have an LCR meter but I have access to one which I use occasionally, I wouldn't bother with one for a starters' setup.

To my knowledge the Aoyue soldering iron is one of many, many copies of the Hakko 936.

I used a Weller previously and that's also fine.

[Do-Rugan]

The Truepath was an example as I have not yet decided what it is going to be. I will ask somewhere else for this… The candidates are: AMP1B, AMP2, AMP11(HV), AMP15(PSXP) and Truepath - you get the picture…

My new thoughts - correct me, please:
SolderStation:
The Hakko 936 is discontinued (now named FX888) and absolutely unaccessible in germany.
aoyue 936 is inexpensive but a little underequipped with 35W
aoyue 937 costs about 63EUR and is supposed to be a good deal with 45W, BUT: for 75EUR I get a "shitty" 80W at the local retailer, which seems to me as the better deal - shitty 80W should do better than shitty 45W…
PS: Weller and Ersa are just ridiculously priced for a university student

Meter:
I could buy a Multimeter for 200EUR which can do EVERYTHING I would ever need
For the start a simple one would do the trick: U: AC/DC, I: DC, R - when I see I actually need it the peak LCR will join

Everything Else (Thanks to the TP-List):
Solder: 1.2mm and 0.6mm
SolderTips: 1.6mm and 2.4mm
Lighter

I do not really get what chipquik is. It looks like a Flux + Alloy Set (at least in the videos) which is supposed to replace the desolder iron. Are desolder pumps no longer in use?