I wanted to share a new addition to my bench. Some on here like this stuff.

For those of you that have no idea what this is, just move on.

It's a Weller WE1010 70W Solder Station. It comes with the WEP 70 pencil iron and uses the ETA tips. This unit is production grade, meaning it is meant for day-to-day use in a production environment.

Being that it uses the ETA tips, there are tons of aftermarket tips out there, especially for SMT and even custom THT soldering.

I've had a Weller WES51 for well over a decade, and wanted to upgrade to a digital interface. I could've went to the WESD51, but it's the same one I got, just digital. I heard the rumor of a newer WESD51 (rumor mill had it at WESD70). But it came out to be the WE1010. Where Weller got that name is of no clue.

It was either this or a Hakko FX888 or a FX951. I didn't like the Hakko, only because it seemed rather cheap. Even though it's got great reviews, something about it, I didn't like. Then the FX951's tips were stupid expensive. Then I had the problem: Oh my, I got a boat load of ETA tips. Hmm... well, the WE1010 it is. No brainer.

Anyhow, I've had it for about a month now, and use it almost every day. It heats up to 700F in less than 20 seconds, meaning I don't need to worry about running my iron excessively, has customization for auto power off, security password, and 3 presets. Which is awesome if you are working with different grades of solder (lead/no lead/silver bearing, etc). It is also ESD safe (when properly grounded).

I am quite impressed with it. Since using it, I don't know how I did it with my old setup. It is very nice having the fine tuned control of the digital interface. It also has much better temperature control when doing large flow jobs or high speed repetitive tasks. For example, I get a block of 100 THT LEDs on a PCB, and that is 200 solder joints. I can go from next to next to next, without worrying about a bad solder joint or needing to slow down for my iron to keep up. If I went too fast with my WES51, I'd have to wait 20-30 seconds for the tip temp to stabilize, between sets of 8-12 joints. This sucker I can go as fast as my hands will allow and no messing around. It even shows when the heating element is active on the LCD, which is awesome!

The only thing I don't like about it, is the fact the LCD isn't backlighted. It would've been a nice touch for it to be blue or white backlighted. Maybe I'll mod it. lol

It's a very neat unit, and if you are a serious EE major, enthusiast or do production grade PCB assembly or rework, I highly recommend the Weller WE1010.

I still have my WES51, and plan on keeping that as a backup unit, in case this one ever gives trouble, or I need to run 2 irons (never had the need to, but you never know!). I also have a Weller WLC100 out in my garage/shop, which is a great beginners/light duty iron.

Here's a pic of it on my (rather cleaned up) bench:

 

That would have come in handy back in the day when I used to build Heathkits!

 

ddellwo... where have you been?

 

Funny you mention this... I just got done repairing a Heathkit for someone two days ago.