After my irritation at having to queue in Maplin the other night, I went back today and bought that cordless soldering iron I was after.
The Iroda Solderpro 120 runs on butane gas. I’ve installed an extension cable in my car so I can run an inverter, and the terminals I used to connect it to the battery were just too bulky (a lot of metal in them) for my normal soldering irons to be able to cope with – they just couldn’t heat the metal up enough for the solder to form a pool and stick. For the record, I couldn’t even crimp the damned things properly, they’re that big.
This little tool is well up to the job. It charges up with butane very quickly and easily, and you don’t need any of those daft attachments to lose in the bottom of the tool box. It ignites immediately, and is ready to use in seconds. You can adjust the temperature with a small slider, so the tool actually rates at between 30-125W depending on the setting of this.
It is extremely well-built. It has a nice solid feel to it – reassuring when you’re effectively holding a bomb in your hand! You can also get attachments which turn it into a cutting tool for plastics, a tool for repairing jewellery, and so on. It operates as a pinpoint blow-torch if you take the tip off.
It made short work of fixing those badly crimped cables. They’re now well and truly soldered to the terminal rings.
Maplin also stock lower power versions – the Solderpro 50 and Solderpro 70. I’m seriously thinking of getting one of each of these as the convenience of not having a cable trailing and being able to solder in more comfortable situations is very appealing. I do quite a bit of soldering on computers and other electronic/electrical equipment and having to be close to a power outlet has always been a bit of a nuisance.
If you’re looking for a soldering iron and always thought – as I did – that cordless ones were pretty pathetic (some of them are), then this is really worth looking into.