Soldering iron fails to work when it comes to join heavy pieces of metal together. For such a situation where you have to solder big and heavy pieces, you need to look for some best soldering guns.
There are certain soldering guns there that are designed for working with low power electronics circuit boards (which we will also look at). But the main goal of a soldering gun is to provide power and heat at a high level.
Now, as a beginner or new buyer, you may not have enough information about what to look for when picking a high quality gun for soldering. You may not know about the famous brands, may have a few questions, and perhaps so much more.
Hi, I am Abbas. In this article, we will look at some well known best soldering guns for electronics as well as general work. We will see what parameters to look for when selecting your guns, and much more.
I am not perfect, nor this article is going to be. This is just my limited knowledge try to help you somehow.
I hope you will enjoy it.
Best Soldering Guns
As the name is describing itself. This tool is in the shape of a gun which we use in applications where more heat is required as common soldering irons use lower power.
Mainly, this tool is used for joining stained glass, light sheet metal, and heavy electronic soldering work. When you need to solder intermittently, the soldering gun is much more practical as it cools much quicker.
The best soldering guns that the field professional recommends are the Weller D550PK and the ATD Tools 3740. They are the best because they come from trusted brands, are reliable, are used by thousands of people, are high quality, and come with a decent price tag that anyone can afford.
Alright!
Let’s see first what parameters to look for picking these guns.
Choosing the best soldering guns
The selection of these guns depends on your budget as well. The higher and more professional level guns will cost you more. This is what you should keep in mind.
Let’s see the parameters one by one.
Power rating
Power rating is the first thing you should be looking at. It is rated in Wattage. This number must be between 100 to 240W. The higher this number, the better. What this rating means is how quickly and how much power the soldering gun can provide.
Ease of use
As soldering guns are heavy. Because they have transformer inside it. So the design of the gun you pick must be practical and easy to use.
Temperature control
Every situation is different. And different projects require a certain level of tip temperatures. So the gun you pick must have a tip temperature control feature. And this feature must be easily accessible.
The temperature control in a soldering gun lets you control the temperature at which you are heating up the solder on the tips. This can be through the trigger or through some other knob setup.
Tip replacement
The issue with soldering guns is their tips. The tips are basically copper loops. The issue with these copper loops is they gradually dissolve and must be replaced frequently.
So the gun you pick must have easy to available tips and the replacement mechanism should be straightforward so that it doesn’t waste your time.
Safety
These guns become super hot at no time. They are heavy and sometimes very hard to handle in some situations. So, safety should be the key priority of the design you pick.
Front light
It is a small bulb that is placed in the front of a soldering gun. It helps to see the soldering point clearly in dark lights. Also, sometimes in some situations, our hand shadow is falling on the point of joints. This front light becomes very useful in the mentioned situation.
So your gun must have this feature if you will work in a dark place.
List of some best soldering guns
I think I have shared all the information that I have about the topic. Now let’s have a look at some soldering guns. I will start with very basic guns then I will talk about the intermediate models and then will end with some professional ones. So please keep on reading.
Also, keep in mind, that I am not going to repeatedly talk about the above must have features of a soldering gun over again and again. They are applied to all the below mentioned models.
Also, I am not going to add some fancy-looking models that you will see a bunch of them online. Look man, I am an engineer and technical terms are more romantic to me than the looks.
1. Weller D550PK
Weller is the first company that patented the concept of soldering guns back in 1917 or something. So it is a very old and trustworthy brand when it comes to soldering tools. Even Steve Wozniak from Apple built Apple 1 with the Weller soldering station.
The best soldering gun, the D550PK, is an amazing gun that has a rating of 260W.
Important features:
- Professional strength and control
- Comes with a set of useful accessories
- Clear front facing lights for clarity in dark lights
- Pistol grip design with easy adjustment
- Fingertip trigger which switches between 260-watt and 200-watt settings. Choose which you required easily.
- Quick heating, heats up completely in just 6 seconds
- Comes in a well designed kit so that you can carry the soldering gun anywhere you go.
In a short summary, Weller D550PK (Amazon link) is a remarkable soldering gun for serious hobbyists. It gets ready to use in 6 secs and has a trigger that allows you to easily select high or low output.
2. Weller 9400PKS
This soldering gun is from the same parent company as the above one, the Weller. The only difference between this model and the above one is that this model, the 9400PKS is a low power (100/140 Watt) as compared to the above one.
Important features:
- 6 seconds heat up time, which is so quick and handy
- 3 built in LEDs that provide a spotlight on your project and help eliminate tip shadow
- Strong grip
- Comes with accessories and a well designed box kit
- Most importantly it comes with a 7-year warranty, another reason to trust a great legacy brand
In a short summary, Weller 9400PKS (Amazon link) is a low power best soldering gun that you can use for heavy duty electronics projects like soldering a thick wire to big stereo loudspeakers and things like that. It is reliable and can be a life long tool for your lab.
3. Noevsbig Soldering gun for electronics
This gun is geared toward electronics soldering as it is rated for 60W which is a perfect power rating for almost all electronics components.
You can clearly see the difference between this gun and the above ones. This gun doesn’t have any copper tips instead it has a pencil tip. This gun is geared toward PCB soldering. It is a soldering iron with an automated solder wire feature and gun shape.
Important features
- It is rated as 60W
- Comes with 5 different soldering tips which you use depending on your project requirements
- Also comes with a sucker, screwdriver, and quality tweezers
- Inner-heated ceramic technology makes soldering iron heat up very quickly
In a short summary, the Noevsbig Soldering gun for electronics (Amazon link) is a great option for those who want to solder electronics circuits board with a soldering gun.
You will find guns more useful when you are making a power connection, i.e., trying to connect a wire to the hole on a PCB board. Usually, with a normal soldering iron, you first melt a solder wire on the PCB hole then try to attach the wire because you have only two hands. But with guns, you can make such connections much faster and effectively.
4. Toolour Soldering gun
Another best soldering gun for electronics is from the Toolout brand. This is similar to the above No.3 gun we just saw. You can consider it as the best alternative to the above one in case you didn’t like the above one that much.
It comes with the Toolour solder wire, tweezers, and a quality sucker as well. You can operate this gun with one hand, no need to point your tin wire and tin gun with all your hands again, completely free your hands.
If this tool has got your attention, then here is the link to Toolour Soldering gun (Amazon link) for your own further research and investigation.
5. Wall Lenk LG400C
This is a heavy duty soldering gun rated for 400W. This gun is from a famous brand called the Wall Lenk.
Important features
- High and low 400/150 dual wattage rating
- Due to high power, the tips heat up in seconds which is very nice
- Maximum Tip Temperature 1000 Degrees
- Very easy to use
- Built-in work light – the large 1-inch light fully illuminates the work area
In short summary, Wall Lenk LG400C (Amazon link) is the USA manufactured amazing soldering gun for some heavy connections.
6. NEWACALOX Soldering Gun
When it comes to soldering Newacalox is the brand that makes all kinds of high quality soldering tools for professionals and hobbyists.
There are many soldering gun models out there that are made by this brand. But I choose the following gun because it is very useful for PCB circuit board soldering.
You know, this gun works like this. You press the trigger button this push the solder wire toward the hot tip, the solder wire melts down, and a connection is made.
Important features:
- It comes with a desoldering pump, 2 tweezers, and solder wire
- It is ideal and the perfect helper when connecting various electronic components
- Easily operated by one hand
- Thermostat range 200 °C – 450 °C
- Longer service life and heating fast
In a short summary, NEWACALOX Soldering Gun (Amazon link) can meet your daily work and hobby requirements, such as electrical repair, home improvement, and other soldering projects.
As I shared earlier this band makes a lot of cool soldering guns. If you are looking for a cordless soldering gun for electronics, this brand has got your cover. See the following model:
This cordless gun comes with an adaptor, screwdriver, tweezer, and solder sucker. This design is unique for its 45-degree angle which makes the soldering experience much more effective and better.
If you want to know more about this product. Here is the link to, NEWACALOX cordless soldering gun (Amazon link), for your further research and investigation.
7. ATD Tools 3740
Our last best soldering gun for electronics is the well known Advanced Tools Design (ATD) brand. It is a professional heavy duty soldering machine. This has almost the same duty cycle as the Weller brand. That is you should use it for 1 min and let it cool down for at least 4 mins.
Important features:
- 8 piece dual holster heating soldering gun kit
- Maximum of 230 wattage heat and a minimum of 150 wattage
- This gun comes in a blow molded case which is amazing
- The initial heat up time is almost 30 secs which is very slow compared to Weller’s 6sec window.
In a short summary, ATD Tools 3740 (Amazon link) is a professional level heavy metals soldering gun that you can use for making big joints (which requires a lot of heat). The best part is it has a low price tag and its handle has ergonomic grooves to it that makes holding the gun much easier.
Conclusion
Soldering plays an important role in joining two pieces of metal together. These pieces of metals may be the terminals of electronics components or some thick copper wire for some electrical work.
Now, if we talk about electronics. You will notice that the related joints are small and don’t require that much power and heat. And that is why we use soldering iron of power rating between 30 – 70 Watt.
But when it comes to soldering heavy connections these soldering iron become useless, and we go for high power soldering guns.
Soldering guns are gun shape tools we use for professional high power soldering. The power rating of a typical gun is in the range of 100 to 240 Watt.
Luckily, these days some guns are designed for low power electronic works (such as PCBs) as well. They are called soldering guns only because they look like guns. But by soldering gun, we actually mean high power soldering tool. Don’t get confused by the terminologies.
So in this article, I try to explain the above in much detail. Also, I give you a buying guide on how to pick up the right gun for your situation. I also share a list of some amazing best soldering guns for electronics as well as for general professional work.
That is it. That is all I have for you to share about the best guns for soldering. I hope you enjoyed it.
Thank you and have a grateful life.
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- #12 tools needed to solder a circuit board (Must have)
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- 7 Best soldering fume extractor (cheap & professional)
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