Radio Shack Digital Soldering Station

[Luckydevil]

I've outgrown my crappy $10 soldering iron and decided to get something fancy. I really like the attached stand on this and the digital temp setting is very cool. My only complaint is that it doesn't remember your previous temp setting and there is no way to store it. Other than that I am very happy with it. The iron gets up to temp very fast and can either display the actual tip temp or the temp you set it to. Not too shabby for $70.

 

[sca037]

Luke, that would have come in very handy when I was making my highly labor intensive (PITA factor = 11 ) custom homebrew stereo interconnects!

Brian
(adding another toy to my tool wish list ;-)

 

[ranger_dood]

Hey man, give us a rundown of your system. Looks like you have quite the equipment stack there. What speakers/amps are you running?

 

[sca037]

Hey man, give us a rundown of your system. Looks like you have quite the equipment stack there. What speakers/amps are you running?

Yeah, I've finally made some order of the chaos!
I'm running a B&K AV receiver to power the surrounds, with the pre-outs plumbed to a Citation 7.1 power amp for the fronts that are handled by Magnepan MG3a's
(You can see the whole setup here: http://www.integracoustics.com/MUG/MUG/pix/BrianBennett/)

I've been a hifi nut even longer than a car nut, and that soldering rig would have made things a whole bunch easier over the last year
Brian

 

[Luckydevil]

Nice setup Brian.

Another toy to look into is called a "Third Hand." It holds the two wires together for you and makes things 100 times easier. I've also heard that small disposable paper or styrofoam cups work good too. Just cut slits around the top to hold the wires together.

http://www.rjsintl.com/productDetails.asp?product_id=T166

 

[Fxjnkmn]

I have the 3rd hand with the magnifing lense, great for small stuff, but the alligator clips were sharp, so I filed them down so as not to peirce small wires. Don