cold heat soldering iron

[G-force]

You could always make an iron Mac style. Anybody rember that episode where he welded with some coins? Making something hot enough to melt solder would be cake. Can anybody say hair curler?

DISCLAIMER: Anything seen on the old TV show MacGyver usually does not work in real life, and would infact prolly cause you harm when attempted. It's really a silly show... But it's good fun anyhooways.

[superdeformed]

its not that cold when your trying to unsolder something belive me

The melting temperature of the solder doesn't change regardless of what you're doing with it. What does change is the amount of time it takes to heat up pins, as the copper pads (or planes) on the board dissapate the heat at different rates depending on their size. Using more heat than is necessary to melt the solder simply makes it take less time. You really shouldn't be trying to solder any components at 800ºF, as it's very easy to ruin them that way. The only things I solder with that much heat are bulky connectors that have a lot of metal on them. I usually consider 750º to be an absolute max for components, and even then only when they're sitting on a plane.

my cheap walmart iron eats tips too, unfortunatly my weller is an odd sized one or something, cant even find the right kind of tips in this area. only have those big ass weller gun tips or or the kind that are like a foot long and have a tip like 1/2" around lol

I was having trouble finding the tips I wanted for my station too. A few local places had the right sizes for it, but they were all bulkier ended ones. I just ended up getting a bunch off of mouser when I ordered parts for something else. Of course, you could always use one of those 60/80 watt ones and melt the whole board at once .