Soldering iron / Lawn mower analogy :)

[uniserver]

So the difference between a

20-40 dollar " dial temperature controlled "

and a

"Digitally Controlled" soldering iron is like this.

Most lawn mowers have a governor that limits the blade speed.

if the mower boggs down, the throttle is automatically increased to maintain blade speed.

if you had a mower that was just fixed throttle, once it bogged down, it might stall or stop cutting the grass.

This is like soldering with rheostat controlled cheaper soldering irons. With mine, I ended up leaving it all the way up

and after a while the tip would explode…

with this new digitally controlled iron, its smooth sailing. set the temp and it will kick in as needed, to keep that solder flowing.

 

[olePigeon]

I still use a push mower, where does that fit in to your analogy? )

 

[mcdermd]

Somewhere beside a blacksmith's fire.

 

[uniserver]

Yeah, push mower aswell.

as your pushing your mower if you hit a thick patch o grass, it will increase the throttle automatically.

if you didn't have a governor you would have to increase the throttle manually and then decrease it as needed.

like you would with a 20 dollar dial pot soldering iron.

LIke a weed wacker or a chainsaw, but with those uses, they are intermittent anyways

a mower's engine speed has to remain constant, so the lawn ends up looking half way decent when you are done

 

[olePigeon]

Somewhere beside a blacksmith's fire.

It was cheaper to pay someone to run the billows than to buy a new soldering iron.

 

[uniserver]

At crossroads their blacksmith shop had electric billows

what a cheater.

but they have a real working steam CHOO CHOO train… my son loves it.

check this out,

they show how fast it takes a haako soldering element to full temp

http://www.hakkousa.com/controls/player_CDN.asp?Video=681

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