How should star quad cables be soldered to RCA connectors?

[tomchr]

Yep. Buy the METCAL if you can afford/justify it. Buy Weller if you can't.

I picked up a very lightly used METCAL MX500 with hand piece, hot tweezers, and about ten tips for $400 in the 2008/9 recession. I used to swear by my Weller TCP, which I bought in the late 1980s - and that still works! - but METCAL blows it out of the water. Having the heater in the tip is the key difference there.

The Weller WES51 would be my go-to for Weller. It'll handle surface mounted parts and smaller leaded stuff. If you need to get a lot of heat into a copper plane, you'll need something beefier. If you solder mostly leaded parts, the WTCP would probably be a good choice for you.

I use a Hakko preheater (FR-830). Their PCB holders (C1390C) are awesome as well. But I'm not sold on their soldering irons or hot air stations.

Tom

 

[H-713]

The amateur radio club I'm a member of has gone through hell with modern Weller tips. Their quality used to be great, but in the last 10 years they've gone straight to the dump. Average tip life is about two months under moderate use from people who know how to use a soldering station. Any animal can destroy a tip in a couple hours, but these things don't even stand up to normal use. We're probably going to be purchasing a few Metcal stations and shelving the Wellers for this reason.

I usually get at least a year out of a Metcal tip, and I use mine a lot. Hakko tips for the 888 are almost as good when it comes to longevity, but the RF heating system in the Metcal is truly something special. I haven't touched my Weller soldering gun, which I used to use for big ground buses, since I got the Metcal. The STTC-117 tip for the Metcal can do almost anything it can, aside from portability.

 

[tomchr]

Yeah. The STTC-017 (for lead-based solder) and STTC-117 (for lead-free solder) is awesome if you want to get some heat into a solder joint.

I have four go-to tips for the METCAL. I've yet to have to replace any. They've seen nearly daily use for well over a decade by now. I always clean and tin them before I turn the iron off.

Tom

 

[H-713]

The important thing is the temperature regulation. Exactly what temperature you solder at isn't the big issue, at least in my experience. The risk of lifting a trace is much lower with the Metcal system, at least in my experience. When you're working on a $10,000 prototype or someone else's Neve 1073, that counts for something.

 

[tomchr]

Agreed.

I tend to go for the lower tip temperatures with lead-based solder. 370 ºC or so. I bump it up to 425 ºC for lead-free. That's probably mostly out of habit, though. I could just as well use the 425 ºC tips everywhere. The hotter tips are definitely needed with the lead-free solder, at least for the SAC305 alloy I'm currently working with. I'll try some germanium-doped 99.3/0.7 (Sn/Cu) next.

Tom

 

[H-713]

Agreed.

I tend to go for the lower tip temperatures with lead-based solder. 370 ºC or so. I bump it up to 425 ºC for lead-free. That's probably mostly out of habit, though. I could just as well use the 425 ºC tips everywhere. The hotter tips are definitely needed with the lead-free solder, at least for the SAC305 alloy I'm currently working with. I'll try some germanium-doped 99.3/0.7 (Sn/Cu) next.

Tom

I avoid lead-free whenever I can. Most of the time I'm dealing with one-offs though.