Electronic equipment and general questions [Basic]

Dear forum members,

I'm an automotive engineer! Last year i've been working on auto ecus and electronics! I've been reading memories and microcontrollers and stuff like that!
I have to mention i'm a total noob!

I just wanted to take some advice from people that know what they are doing! :-D

Soldering Station:
I have a chinese soldering station! :shock: ! I've been working with this station for the past year and i've decided that it's not a professional solutions (i've realized that after i burnt some memories :evil: )!
I've heard that there is a station with inferated light or laser that DOES NOT heat the whole PCB! Is that true? Can you suggest a good soldering station?

Besides that,

What other tools do i need to make my work easier?

One last question..... :shock:

I've heard that in order to "understand" what i read from these memories i have to learn assembly! Is that correct?
Do you have something in mind?


Thanks in advance!

Sorry for the longggg thread!

...in order to "understand" what i read from these memories i have to learn assembly!..

your doubt is very general.
if you want to know the bytes in memory , you can use an already available routine to read.

unless you specify what type of controller is attached , it may not be possible to give you any direction.

I've used this station for the last 5 years and it does everything we need. Excellent temp control. Hot air is a nice feature. Also has extraction tool.

**broken link removed**

Contact-based soldering irons fall into two primary categories. Resistance heating and RF heating. The low-price, low quality irons use an element that gets hot when current is passed through it (think light bulb, or nichrome wire). You can find some good stations with thermistor or thermocouple-based temperature control for around $70-$200. Weller makes a good line of relatively inexpensive irons that will get you a long way, if you have some basic soldering skills.

The next level up are the professional-grade irons. Many of these use high-frequency radio waves to heat the tip of the iron. Many of them operate around 9-11 MHz (some industrial sized bulk heaters also run in this frequency range). Those solder stations are quite expensive, as are the iron tips. We use them at my work, but our lab techs have them in-hand 7 out of 8 hours a day, in a lot of cases.

I'd recommend a good Weller iron with a variety of tip sizes for different types of soldering jobs... 1 small, 1 medium, 1 large. The more metal you have, the better you can heat and remove large solder joints. The smaller tips won't dump as much heat into your target, but are handy for dealing with small pins on ICs (i.e. memory chips, as you mentioned).

The next level up are the professional-grade irons. Many of these use high-frequency radio waves to heat the tip of the iron. Many of them operate around 9-11 MHz (some industrial sized bulk heaters also run in this frequency range). Those solder stations are quite expensive, as are the iron tips. We use them at my work, but our lab techs have them in-hand 7 out of 8 hours a day, in a lot of cases.

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Can you tell manufacturer and type of "MHz" driven solder tools? I found that some of the devices (e.g. OK Metcal series), that have been said in internet forums to use x MHz are specified by the manufacturer with a 450 kHz heater frequency, which sems more reasonable for induction heating.

FvM said:

Can you tell manufacturer and type of "MHz" driven solder tools? I found that some of the devices (e.g. OK Metcal series), that have been said in internet forums to use x MHz are specified by the manufacturer with a 450 kHz heater frequency, which sems more reasonable for induction heating.

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Metcal is the one I'm most familiar with (the one we buy the most). I've seen some different models on a few lab techs' benches, but I don't know the make/model.