Soldering iron is basically a hand tool with a heatable tip and used to solder two materials together.
Soldering irons are widely used in Electronic industries that produce Printed Circuit Board assemblies or by anyone who needs to do soldering.

Soldering iron is typically electrically powered and comes as a complete soldering station with a variety of features such as
• soldering iron temperature can be set and controlled or locked to prevent unintentional changes
• digital display to indicate the soldering iron tip temperature
and with an iron holder.

Some soldering station requires calibration and some does not require calibration as the latter is self calibrating the temperature of the soldering iron tip.

When it is not managed properly, soldering iron can be a silent killer. ESD sensitive devices are damaged without anyone knowing it.
Ungrounded soldering iron tip could damage the ESD sensitive devices by the harmful leakage current flowing to the tip.

An ESD safe soldering iron station is basically a soldering station that is provided with a housing, an iron handler or a cord that is made of anti static material.
The choice whether to own an ESD safe soldering station is depending on the sensitivity of the device being handled at the work area.

The ESD safe soldering station is generally more expensive and is good to have but what is more important is to get hold of a grounded soldering iron.
A very simple way to confirm the soldering iron tip is grounded is by using a multimeter.
A new soldering iron should have the tip to ground resistance that less than 2 ohm, however this resistance would increase with use and it should be less than 20 ohm.

A more practical device to confirm the connection of the soldering iron tip to ground is by using a soldering iron tester. This soldering iron tester does not only allow the checking of iron tip to ground resistance, it also allows the measurement of the soldering iron tip temperature and iron tip to ground potential.
It is recommended to check these parameters periodically as to ensure the equipment is operating properly.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 13:27 and is filed under ESD workstation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.