Just picked up a used Metcal soldering station...

[darkmoebius]

I got it on eBay for $50. It's an older model, P2SE-001, but damn is this thing fast!!!

The tip reaches soldering temp in a matter of seconds, literally. Just for giggles, I've let it get cold and fired it back up to see how long and the average is about 30 seconds.

I haven't had a chance to see how it holds tempeture on continuous soldering, but since I'm not a production line it shouldn't be too important.

One thing I understand is that tips can be pretty expensive.

[Bensen]

Hi darkmoebius,

30seconds is not that fast for a soldering station actually. I have a weller WS80 station. The heating up time is about 9sec.
The soldering tips of this station cost about 7euro.

Happy soldering

Ben

[darkmoebius]

9 seconds is incredible Makes this this Metcal look like a Yugo.

This unit came from a commercial shop with a used tip, so there's no telling how much use or abuse it's had. There a chance that a new tip might greatly improve performance. But, for the home hobbiest does it really matter?

Oddly enough, I bid on a couple of soldering stations hoping that one would come through. Unfortunately, I ended up winning both as of last night.

The down side is that I ended up paying $115 w/ shipping for this one, although it is the current Metcal SP-200 model, so we'll see how it fairs.

In reality, one of the two has got to go, I just can't afford both after all the test equipment(scope, probes, freq. gen, freq. counter, bench DMM, etc.) I"ve bought in the last few weeks. So, if the newer SP-200 isn't significantly better than it is out of here.