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The battery powered iron is slow to heat up, takes some time to heat even small gauge wire enough to melt solder. If you need an iron for one or two very small joints and don't want to have to warm up your real soldering iron, this works okay. I have found that on fresh batteries, it takes a full minute to heat a component enough to melt even the thinest solder. Having used this iron a few times now, I would not buy it again, it just isn't as convenient as I expected it to be.
When I bought this, I really didnt think it would work, based on all the rest of the cordless soldering irons over the years. It just does not have enough heat to flow any solder. I thought that the Weller brand might have something new and innovative. Wrong. Holding the button down to have it heat up does not help when your trying to solder at the same time.Advice, stick to something with a cord on it. This will just be tossed in the trash.
It doesn't help that the new tin/silver/copper alloy solders have a higher melting point and don't flow as well as tin/lead. These do work, if only just. If you need to solder heavier things, forget battery powered and get a corded soldering gun or iron. They are suitable for occasional light soldering jobs involving a small number of narrow guage wires, component leads and/or circuit board traces. Large wires, terminals or power/ground plane vias without thermal relief will draw away too much heat for the solder to melt. If you need to do a more than a small number of connections on circuit boards or are going to use it often, it would be better to invest in a controlled temperature soldering station.Instead of using Alkaline batteries as the manufacturer recommends, I'd suggest NiMH rechargables with a fresh charge at the beginning of every job. Not only will it be cheaper to run, but I believe the NiMH cells have a higher sustained current output capacity which is what this kind of application demands.
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