RadioShack® Digital Soldering Station

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

The heating core of the wand breaks quite easily. And you cannot replace the proprietary wand for the system. Waste of money. Buy a Weller.

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

This unit looks an awful like a unit from Velleman. Might be worth giving them a shout. But, really, for this kind of money RS should stock spare supplies.

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

I use this product to wire up guitar harnesses. What is great is fast heat, recovery and ability to hold heat.
Unfortunately, the wand has two major flaws. At the point where there is a plastic threaded flange molded to the steel skirt holding the metal tip/heater assembly to the plastic handle, that plastic threaded flange breaks from the heat, and the whole thing becomes basically useless. Right now, I have mine held together with a wiretie until I can find either another wand or dump this thing and get another station. No parts beyond tips is just ridiculous. The second problem is some tips, which have a removable sleeve inside, the sleeve sticks to the heating element, making the tips almost impossible to remove without damaging the element. The sleeve is not plated and gains an oxide coating that sticks to the ceramic heater. You don't realize this when you buy it. Some high heat anti-seize is needed here, which may throw off the temperature at the tip. I would never buy this again.

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

I have 8 Weller WR-3 Professional solder workstations. These are $2500 production level machines made in Germany. This little iron replaced one during a pinch.

Lost two Weller stations, so had to send them for servicing.

They were 80 watt units with very high speed heat recovery for working on multi-layer PCBs. Out of hope, got this little 60 watt station as a last resort for a day or two.

Obviously, it is not built to the same quality standards as the Weller WR-3, but it was able to solder and cope with heavy heat sinking from the multi layer boards it was used to reflow. It really worked well... great enough until we could get another WR-3 online.

Excellent little solder station. I sort of expected marginal, but was pleasantly surprised. You should not regret getting one of these. Just be sure to stock up on tips and maybe even a spare handle/heater if you use it daily.

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

No replacement parts for hand piece which is subject to breakage. Second and last one I'll own.

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

Had the station for about a week the only troble when I first got it was that I run it at too low a temp. try 650F to start with.

Works great for hamradio projects I built a couple of cables and it did a nice job.

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

I had a problem finding tips. It isn't obvious unless you remove the tip. The Cap Nut, Shaft, and Soldering Tip are seperate peices. Radio Shack's online catalog has 21 different tips for this soldering station.

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

Cool Dose its job

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

I have been using this at my computer business for several years with no issues. It has been a reliable backup for our very expensive ISO stations. In fact I personally prefer the comfort of this over most our very expensive stations.

I have read comments here about the accuracy of the digital readout. If you are not checking or calibrating your equipment with seperate instruments then you can't claim to be a professional...period!

Take the time to learn how to use this correctly and you will find this to be be very consistent and reliable tool for work or home. BTW most everything you need for this is located right here on line....where it should be!

Comments about RadioShack Digital Soldering Station:

The ceramic heating element cracked. Went to the local RS store and the clerk looked at me like I had 2 heads. Said they cannot/will not order parts for customers. The post by Spork Schivago may provide a solution but why doesn't RS stand behind their products?