Making Quality XLR Cables #5 - Best Soldering Irons (Public)

all right i'm dave rat and today let's  talk about soldering irons there's a lot of   different soldering irons available  out there and they each have   unique assets and detriments some of them  only have detriments um and i'm going to   show you the favorite soldering iron that  i have and the couples that i use the most   and then we'll do a test and see which one lights  up the fastest which one we get running sooner   okay so let's start with the basics first of  all i'll talk about the worst soldering irons um   out there which are the solder guns they kind of  go they're heavy they've got a little transformer   in them the wire comes out they kind of come  back and they've uh yeah they're just pretty much   big heavy awkward difficult to use and  every time you push the button you got   to wait for them to heat up pretty much  the least desirable of irons out there   um second in the ease or commonness is the  you know all-in-one power cord attached to   soldering iron this one i've had for a really  long time and i think it's called the little daisy   a little dandy um it works all right um i don't  use this anymore i dug it out of a drawer um they   take a while to heat up having the full ac power  cord on the back side of it is kind of annoying   but in your toolbox this seems like it could be  a good choice um but there's something better   um for traveling around and soldering on  the road getting a gas-powered butane iron   this is a weller pro pen wsta6 it's been great  uh this thing's awesome you just basically   push this button here click it fires up and a  little flame goes in there it heats up quick   it's super handy there's no cable to it i actually  really like working it working with it because   there is no cable and it heats up quick you do  got to be careful setting it down as a little uh   vent here where the hot gases we um escape and if  you set it down with the vent paint pointing down   it will burn or melt or mess with whatever surface  if you don't use a holder like i usually don't   um yeah not much disadvantage to this they  don't work great in wind but no real iron   it's difficult for irons to work in wind that cold  air blowing across them will cool them down also   the tips you know there's not a lot of tips you  can get a bunch of tips but they're not easy   to change uh but these things are great  i highly recommend for the portable kit   um i yeah it's just awesome and you don't need  power to run it uh let's look at the other two   so now these are common this one is a haika haku  taco um but there's a bunch of them they've got a   basically a box a volume control or temperature  control that you can um turn up and down   and adjust the temperature as well  as you know a little stand and   uh these are pretty common in their various  incarnations and the cord tends to be   somewhat more flexible of quite a bit more  flexible than running the power cord to it   and these can get quite good there's  a wide variety of them out there and then to change the tips on this you know  you would unscrew the end and there's various   tip chaining you slide a new one on um put  everyone on there and just slide it back over   and making sure this is tight and has a  good contact if the tip feels loose or   is rattling around the thermal contact can be  compromised and it will slow things down a bit and then we have my personal favorite which  is this is actually an older model of a metcal   there's newer ones i've looked them up i have  not used the newer ones there's an older model   metcal i don't know what model it is let's take  a look um might be able to find these things used   it is a lr90648 it seems to be this power supply  serial number 6e something or other i don't know   the model um great unit and the reason these  are cool is it's actually a inductive iron   the tips just slide right out you don't have to  unscrew anything so if your iron's hot you have a   bad tip you need to switch to a different tip you  just grab this with the pliers pull it out set it   down on something safe and then slide a new tip  in and turn it back on and it will fire right up   um also it's got it must have a really  high bow this cable is extremely   flexible i mean it is rubbery you see it lays  very flat um this one here does not lay flat and it's just a pleasure to use and let's  go ahead and look at tips and then we will   take a look at firing these things up so using  the right tip now this i'm mainly doing this   video on soldering irons to cover making xlr  cables and we'll go over the different tips that   are out there and what i like to use this one  here is approximately a quarter of an inch or   maybe six millimeters um and it's a  basically a screwdriver tip there's   a wide variety of tips out there just every  possible shape and hook shape and flats and   this is pretty big for an xlr since the cups  on the xlr connector are only about an eighth   of an inch um having something that's two to  three times the opening there which is smaller   than eighth of an inch it's just a bit awkward  yes you can do it um but it's a little much uh   going to the other end of the spectrum here is  a little tiny needle tip um for the hakko hako   and here's a needle tip that's fairly old you can  see it's a kind of blooming out on the sides there   for the metcal these tiny little tips and they  can be great for getting into super small places   um here's a couple more i'm gonna put one on here  oh there's a middle size tip this one's probably   3 16 of an inch and then here is probably  an eighth of an inch or a little bit less   i like to have them about this this this dimension  here and i've got one on or this dimension here   it's about an eighth of an inch plus or minus um  it's enough if you don't have enough tip on there   when you s when you um heat something up the cold  metal cools down the tip and you kind of lose heat   and you got to wait for a period of time a second  or two or more for the tip to recuperate and catch   up to it if you have more tip and more mass  there transfer more heat quickly and it can   kind of keep up with what you're working on  if you don't have enough tip that can really   force you to put heat to the unit or to the wires  for a longer period of time which is undesirable   then your connector gets hot the wires insulation  can melt and it can make things awkward for you   all right so i'm going to put this one in here and  i'm going to put a similar size tip here in the other iron about about here and what we'll  do is let's see which one lights up quicker   we can also talk about solder in a minute and oh before we do that let's talk about  temperature so soldering temp if the temp is too   low you're going to have to if it's below the  solder melt point it's not going to work if it's   right at the solder melt point the heat is going  to spread quite a distance before you get that   solder up to temperature and it's going to flow  smoothly and you really want to have all of the   pieces that you're connecting brought up to full  temp the solder to flow and the flux to flow and   bond everything if you have a low temp you might  get solder balled up and expand the heat to where   you don't want it to go overly hot can destroy  components if you're working on delicate stuff   but if you also if it's very hot you can get  in and out quick you can go solder and remove   it by using something that's a moderate heat it's  going to get you a middle amount time so you want   to adjust your heat as high as you can get to work  with your work time it's generally how i go so i   know how long i'm going to i get in i can kind of  put the solder in heat it up and then get out so   if it's already smoking and the wires are melting  back in that amount of time my iron's too hot   if i'm holding there for an excessive  period of time or weight one two three   four then my iron's too cold uh the temperature i  like to use uh this is a 775 degree on the metco   and i like that between eight 750 and 800  degrees or 850 is the way to go so what i'm   going to do is i'm going to crank this one all  the way up to 900 degrees and then i'm going to   take two pieces of solder here and i'm going  to lay both of these irons out on the table get this out of the way and   i will turn them both on simultaneously and  we'll see which one heats up quicker one of   the things that i like about this matcow is how  quickly it does heat up okay so ready and go and we got melt on the mat cow  uh we're already ready to go   so let's go ahead and keep this guy going here  and we're still waiting here oh and we've got melt   on the hakka a hakko heko heko i'll call it a  heco um all right as you can see it's not that   much time to wait but having this thing come  up instantly boom fired up and you're ready to   solder is quite handy and also it it's it cools  down quite quickly too it's not gonna be cold now   but um it's going it's fit these things are these  tips are fairly hollow and they don't have a lot   of mass to them and they heat it very quickly cool  down fairly quickly and it transfers heat well   uh let's talk about cleaning the iron okay  so having the iron live and when you're done   soldering um it's a great idea to throw an extra  bit of solder on there which has got flux in it   you want to use flux core solder and you throw  some extra on there i clean the iron i keep the   iron clear by tapping i use a bucket of some sort  or if i'm out in the field i might just throw it   into a trash can or whatever and when you turn  off the iron it's a good idea to throw a little   solder on there before you shut it off it'll  keep the tip protected one of the things that   hurts the tips is just sitting there baking if you  leave an iron on for an extended period of time   the end will corrode it'll um oxidize and make  the solder not want to stick and you don't have to   clean it so let's talk about cleaning it um this  common ways are sponge now if you use the sponge   when you pull off the sponge then the solder sits  there and balls up in the sponge it's a good way   of wiping it clean but i don't really i rarely  use a sponge i don't want to go get water and   deal with that so what i'll do is i'll just  put solder on and flick it into the bucket   and that does a great job when the iron does build  up some corrosion at the end having some sort of steel wool or copper wool whatever this wool is  this metal wool can kind of abrase the end and   scrape it clean it does a really good job  so i do like that i mean that's really   that's really pretty right now and then  cleaning your iron before you shut it down   that's working great all right uh we'll talk  about solder you know we used to be almost   almost all solder was lead solder never use  acid core solder for doing electronics acid   cores for like soldering a hole in a radiator of  a car and it will eat up the the acid cleaner the   flux acid flux will eat through traces on circuit  boards and corrode things it's only deals with   really aggressive type cleaning on heavier  duty stuff you want a rosin coarse solder um   if you're having trouble with your solder not your  irons corroding up get a different solder it's got   more rosin to it um lead solder was really common  i mean everything was lead for many years now   aluminum-based solder is the way to go you know  it's compatible it's safer it doesn't have the   poisonous lead that gets into our environment  uh though the lead solder does tend to work a   little better it tends to be a little easier  to work with and um you know using it in small   amounts obviously is not going to be the end  of the world i will use aluminum solder on   everything that goes to sound tools or  if it's going out to the general public   and for general maintenance and stuff i've had  this probably for three or four years i just use   i use lead solder because  it's easier to work with and yeah makes a cleaner joint typically cool so  as i'm shooting this video i get everything   all done and then someone had mentioned on the xlr   videos that i did in one of the posts and a couple  other people sent me messages to check out the ts   100 which is an electronic soldering iron and it's  kind of weird because it's like you can't really   figure out who makes this thing there's a whole  bunch of different companies that brand it they   all say ts-100 and ts-8 ets-8 is the usb-powered  one ts-100 is the one that powers off of   any 12 to 24 volt power supply you can use the  same one as your laptop or whatever other gear   you've got they seem to just like being maybe a  generic item in a bunch of different companies   sell made in china in any case i was skeptical  so i bought one so let's go ahead and take a look   and i've opened it up already but this is um this  is the little guy has a little power unit here   and the one i got just came with the tip i just  wanted to and you can change the tips out and buy   packs of multiple tips it came with a little um  allen wrench that does not fit very well into the   screw to tighten it up so i've got a different  tool here that does fit to tighten it up when i   put this in this one's got a little um angled head  on it i like to have the head this way and i have   not soldered with this yet i fired it up but i  have not used it yet so let's do a couple things   um i'm gonna grab some solder here and the  first thing i want to do is let's see how   long it takes for this thing to heat up so  we'll plug it in and you should be able to   see on your video time i'm going to count my  head here so ready and i'll plug it in and i   don't know if it turns on automatically one one  oh it says press so let's go ahead and start it there we go one down all right that's about six or eight seconds that's  really fast that's beautiful that's really quick   and that's with the 24 volt supply um you know the  wire is kind of clunky on this i wouldn't be up   them and the soldering iron doesn't weigh a lot so  it's definitely going to be a little awkward there   but okay with a little soldering station  portability wise if you have the power supply to   uh for something else now it says 300  degrees and i can change the temperature here   um i think there we go 280 270 260  i can go up i'm gonna go up to 400 and um it's got some auto off and on  on some programming let's go ahead and   solder our cable and see how that does for  portability it's awesome especially if you   can use a power supply from something  else that you already carry with you   and i've already prepped this cable and  so i'm just going to see how this works and i can tell it's not quite as hot as the um met cow 400 but it's still it's plenty hot to get  the job done especially in the field where you um   don't want to carry anything like  that metco and it doesn't have the um   gas power you know the butane and  the fumes and stuff so um yeah it's yeah you can definitely tell that it doesn't  have a tremendous amount of heat there it's   definitely running at a lower temperature  i can tell by how long it's taking to flow   but definitely usable and portable let's  go ahead and i have blue to two here let's   do this let's see how it solders into that okay works get all right in here see how  it handles the thicker side of things yeah it's taking some time here all right so compared to the um gas powered iron definitely doesn't have as much heat  as the butane powered or the matte cow all right it works okay portability  and size wise portability size   wise this thing's amazing i mean this  doesn't weigh anything super small and   very handy i think for me i would i could throw  this into a case you know and have a backup not   having to get butane to fill it up is nice because  butane is kind of a pain um i think i still would   take the butane iron so i'll put this as number  four three or four metcal being favorite um butane   portable being my second favorite and um this guy  would be probably number three for portability   cool i think that does it fun stuff and um  i will continue this series on soldering xlr   cables awesome so thank you for hanging out and  i hope you found this video and others that i do   interesting and informative and check out  soundtools.com take a look at the products   i personally designed some solutions for the pro  audio industry analog over cat5 a bunch of testers   and other useful tools ratsound.com has got  our sales department rental department install   department we sell a wide variety of pro audio and  av gear we do installations small to large and we   do rentals for everything as small as local  clubs and backyard parties all the way up to   coachella festival and artists like pearl jam  jack johnson blink 182. and thanks for hanging out

Channel: Dave Rat

Views: 13,168

Keywords: worst soldering irons, Inductive soldering irons, Inspect XLR Soldering, XLR Soldering techniques, Solder XLR Cables, TS100 Electronic Soldering Iron, xlr connector wiring, xlr connector soldering, Solder types, Build XLR Cable, Butane soldering iron, Making Mic Cable Tips, Making Mic Cable, making an xlr cable, how to make a microphone cable, wiring xlr connectors, Maintaining and cleaning the tip, Soldering Mic Cable, Build Mic Cables, Build your own xlr cables

Id: doOdYYDG9NU

Length: 21min 51sec (1311 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021