I would greatly appreciate some input on a soldering gun of good build quality to replace a soldering gun I borrowed from my dad...it fell off my desk and broke a chunk out of the housing so I need to replace it.
While the unit still works perfectly fine I can't return it like it is, pretty sizable chunk shattered off. It really only needs a new plastic housing and I might be able to "fix" it but I would only do so to use for myself. Whether he wants this gun back or not I also need to give him back an undamaged unit of equal or greater quality...only right thing to do.
It was an allied 150 watt 54-15sg soldering gun, sorta older unit, plastic housing feels like thick, strong plastic...just doesn't handle being dropped 4 feet of course. I couldn't find any for sale online.
I apologize if this has been covered to some degree but the 300 search results for "soldering gun" I looked through mostly turned into recommendations for the best iron or iron station...I can't give my pops back an iron when I borrowed his gun. I've seen some good and bad reviews about weller guns and that brand did pop up in some of those threads, but I wasn't sure about them. Would something like the d550 be a good replacement or are there differences in build quality even among weller guns? Are there better built guns? His isn't dual heat so it doesn't need to be but I don't care if it is so long as the wattage is similar and the build quality is on par/better than the one I busted.
I once bought a radio shack gun but the plastic was thin and weak, it warped badly after a few consecutive uses, then completely melted around the "vents" after some more use. Then the part that screws the tip on separated from the gun. Turns out the "heating element" which holds the screws that hold the tip was actually soldered onto the internal heating element inside the housing but they used solder that couldn't hold up to the guns own heat *headscratch.
While the unit still works perfectly fine I can't return it like it is, pretty sizable chunk shattered off. It really only needs a new plastic housing and I might be able to "fix" it but I would only do so to use for myself. Whether he wants this gun back or not I also need to give him back an undamaged unit of equal or greater quality...only right thing to do.
It was an allied 150 watt 54-15sg soldering gun, sorta older unit, plastic housing feels like thick, strong plastic...just doesn't handle being dropped 4 feet of course. I couldn't find any for sale online.
I apologize if this has been covered to some degree but the 300 search results for "soldering gun" I looked through mostly turned into recommendations for the best iron or iron station...I can't give my pops back an iron when I borrowed his gun. I've seen some good and bad reviews about weller guns and that brand did pop up in some of those threads, but I wasn't sure about them. Would something like the d550 be a good replacement or are there differences in build quality even among weller guns? Are there better built guns? His isn't dual heat so it doesn't need to be but I don't care if it is so long as the wattage is similar and the build quality is on par/better than the one I busted.
I once bought a radio shack gun but the plastic was thin and weak, it warped badly after a few consecutive uses, then completely melted around the "vents" after some more use. Then the part that screws the tip on separated from the gun. Turns out the "heating element" which holds the screws that hold the tip was actually soldered onto the internal heating element inside the housing but they used solder that couldn't hold up to the guns own heat *headscratch.