Can anyone recommend a good quality cordless soldering iron. I don't mind if it's fuel powered or not, it just needs to be a quality iron that can easily do up to 10 ga. wire.

It's a hassle for me to get my soldering station out and into some places on the bike and also my cage when I need to do some wiring jobs.  I would much rather have a cordless unit to do this with.  Plus most fuel powered ones I've seen come with a shield for heat shrinking as well, which will be good for the heat shrink I always put on my solder jobs.

I've bought a few in the past from places like Radio Shack and some of the home improvement stores but they were junk.

So any advise here would be great.

Thanks in advance

R.F.

Ditto, cheap crap import from the dollar tool bin at the big box auto parts store. Same torch since 1996.

If I need to do bigger, like 00 battery cables (have a 6v + ground truck) a regular Bernzomatic torch with a fine tip works satisfactorily.

LOwes, about $10.00, butane, refillable. Black, about cigar size. Takes a while for the tip to heat up & the "Thermal Shock" game wont play on a gas heated torch,but, youll stick the tip in the flux anyway.

BUy something other than the cheapest butane.
If you decide you need something with more bells & whistles you can always build up a collection of soldering tools.
I have an old Weller solder gun,( its 36 years old)w/ pistol grip, 2 stage heat, a 30 watt solder pen, the Lowes butane jobbie And, recently I popped for $30.00 for a torch that has a flat bottom, a "Hold the flame On" button & the solder tip comes out so it can be used as a small heat gun on heat shrink, or just pull that whole assembly off & just have a fire pokin out. I use the LOwes tool w/o the soldering tip sometimes. Just get everything ready, lite it off & solder with the flame tip.,but keep the flux to a minimum, cuz it catches on Faaahhrr.. & of course the insulation suffers a bit,, just depends on the job & location how I go about it.

I just use cheapie dollar store irons...
... and if you look at my solder joints... you can tell... ...

I would invest in one of the butane jobbies,.. but, I can never fill them correctly.... I can't even fill a butane lighter right...
I don't get it... you have all those little plastic fill-nozzle adapters, and I can't ever tell which one is right...

PS... I have used a butane refill to freeze off a finger wart... so, it's not a total loss...
...

If anyone can give me some tips on how to successfully fill butane... I'd appreciate it...
Pics would help... I'm 'tane tarded... ...

Serowbot wrote on 04/15/13 at 10:18:26:

A good way to figure out which tip you need is to take the tip before your butane device is empty and hold the device upside down so that the fill port is facing up, and then press the tip down on to the fill port.  If you get a pressure release then that's the tip you need,  if you don't get a good pressure release or not release at all, then it's the wrong tip.

When filling you should be able to hear it releasing the butane into the device. I makes kind of a hissing noise while it's filling.  Once the noise stops the device is full. Also make sure your pressing it straight down onto the fill port.

R.F.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 04/15/13 at 10:29:53:

At one point I had so many different butane devices I had to learn the hard way.  I love my little butane torch I had for the longest time till someone stole it.  I twas one of those that was the size of the big aspirin bottles where the flame went to the side and it had self ignition on it.  It was great for doing battery cable connections and stuff like that.

I also had alot of those refillable butane lighters that were the jet flame type that were supposed to be better in wind then a zippo but they weren't.

R.F.

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 04/15/13 at 10:37:49:


Absolutely not,  I did the cables away from the batteries then let them cool before I put them on. I'm not that dense