nickz wrote:Has this ever happened to anyone?
I bought this iron on Amazon because it has really good reviews.
Amazon Link:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014K ... UTF8&psc=1
Melted Iron:
https://imgur.com/a/2mERG
After a two hour session I put it down and unplugged it. When I returned to resume my work today I found it bent like this.
Is it safe to use still? Or should I just trash it and buy a better iron?
One of my first soldering irons in my teen years was a transparent acrylic one with a temperature control on it like yours. The quality was really not too good and using it was much worse, the temperature control was very inacurate, but you could solder with it sometimes somehow.
One day I wanted to use it again, so I plugged it in and after a few minutes it went poof and it left the entire house dark.
Moral of the story: The best soldering I experience I had was with an Weller soldering station, which is not cheap but worth the price IMO. I also had a Weller pyropen piezo portable gas soldering iron which was great when you had to go around other places or just need to solder something without power, but that one is really not cheap. Unfortunately the Weller soldering station was not mine, so eventualy I had to give it back.
At one point I got myself a soldering station with temperature control on it from McVoice from a store called reichelt for only 20-30,- € back then just to give it a try and I use it to this very day, and I am very good with it.
Sure it is "nothing" compared to the Weller, but I really learned to do great with it, and it also shows that a decent soldering station doesn't have to cost much money. I have never had any problem with it yet since I own it, and there are replacement tips available, also in various tip shape and sizes. I mean, this soldering station cost me like 2 or 3 of those crap acrylic soldering irons that I used to have, and it was totaly worth it. Here is what it looks like:
There is also a variant with blue backlit LCD:
I do not encourage you to buy this exact one that I have, but rather to stop using the one that melted on you, because it really is hazardous at this state. It could burn even further, maybe start a fire, maybe even while you use it, leading to exposed materials inside the soldering iron that you will be "forced" to touch if you get really unlucky and end up with a burned hand, or even worse: end up getting (lethaly) electrocuted. Most of these products are designed and made in china and happily sold worldwide. Most of them (not all of them!) do
NOT have proper safety precautions taken (most of them are known for not being properly grounded, or not grounded at all), and most producers of them, excuse my word, do not give a shit about it either for some reason. I don't know about you, but I'd be really uncomfortable using a device which is partialy burned off to be honest.
I encourage you to spend a little bit more money for something that will make you say "hell yeah, that was really worth every penny spent". Also, having a decent soldering station with temperature control is a nice thing to have.
It makes you feel good/happy to use it. E.g. With the acrylic soldering iron I had, and wanted to do a soldering job it most of the time got me thinking "ugh, not again, it's just no fun to solder..", but then I got that proper soldering station one day with proper solder, flux, wick etc, and then I realized, boy was I wrong, and that really got me on the right track.
Just let that sink in for a bit, it is your decision what you're doing.
