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Overall Rating

THIS IS THE ONE TO GET!
Rated 5 stars.

Overall Rating

Bottom of the barrel
For the same price one can get a “Professional” series Weller iron (like this one) with constant tip temperature, or a less known brand temperature-controlled station (like this one) that will be much nicer to work with.

PROS:
Weller quality and durability.

CONS:
Price is too high for a simple iron without temperature control, the “power control” knob works like a simple light dimmer - with no feedback from the tip, so the temperature will be jumping up and down while you work.

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Side notes: for pleasant work experience and good quality soldering one needs to keep the proper tip temperature - it can’t be too low or too high. Note that in both extremes the solder will visibly melt, but the quality of the connection will suffer. When the iron is too cold: you are likely to get “cold solder” joints that look fine outside but lack internal integrity and often drop the connection soon. These are hard to troubleshoot.

If the iron gets too hot, you may burn the copper traces and they will break off the PCB, you may overheat electronic parts, and (most annoying to me) you burn out the flux before it does its job. Ironically, using too hot iron may also result in “cold solder” connections. This happens because the flux will go in smoke before it reaches the soldered surfaces to clean them and make the solder stick properly and permanently.

The only way to ensure correct soldering temperature is to use controlled iron with feedback from the tip (very important). The WLC100 has only appearance of “control” but you can’t set and hold the temperature. It is as good as the cheapest iron from Sears or Radio Shack that cost five times less.