Soldering Iron Review

I recently bought a new 45 watt iron from Princess Auto. For those who have been inside a Princess Auto they know what kind of store it is. Mostly tools, some surplus and a lot of different things to spend money on. Now, this iron was reasonably priced, $9.99 and for that price, it works. It's a firecracker, it gets hot enough to solder just about any wire gauge you should expect to see. It won't do 2 gauge wire and 12 gauge might be a push, but 16+ is easily fair game. That virtue is also it's one drawback. It gets really hot. Too hot to solder circuit boards for an hour without some kind of throttle. I happen to have a kludged together heat control, but I won't be posting plans on it, because it involves playing with mains voltage. If you don't feel totally ready to take that risk, buy a commercially available adjustable iron. I owned one, an it worked very well until it died of old age.

Aside from the fact that it isn't great for extended use, and the fact that replacement tips are hard to find, I cannot find fault in this product. For someone needing a general use iron, I highly recommend it. For those who never work with more than a circuit board, it is too powerful, get a much cooler running iron.