Cordless solder iron

There is no such thing as a good cordless soldering iron.

 

I disagree with that.  I purchased a butane iron from radio shack years ago and it works very well. Of course if you're talking about a battery powered rechargeable I don't know. 

Edited by Balmoral - 11/14/10 at 10:10pm

I have the battery powered Weller BP645. It heats up fairly fast and great for small project or fixing things up, but it does eat battery pretty fast (3 AA). I uses it with rechargeable AA battery and keep it close so I don't have to blast out the big gun every time. Overall I am quite happy about it.

X2. Unless you're moving around a lot and don't always have access to a live socket, there's no point in going cordless. If you're just going to work on a bench, get a corded one. I'm partial to the Hakko 936.

Butane irons are sort of passable for field repairs (butane over battery due to power delivery characteristics). Is that a soldering iron in your pocket? It goes well with the "pocket multimeter" and similar devices - it's a total POS for everyday use (populating PCBs), but you can pack it with you which makes it kind of nifty for that specific situation.

Otherwise...get a cord.

Edited by gimble - 11/15/10 at 5:37pm

great!!

I was going to say it really depends on what exactly you're doing.  If you're serious about soldering it's probably liken-able to having wireless headphones :)  If you're soldering wiring harnesses for a car it's probably a lot more convenient to have a cordless iron.

In terms of usability, having the iron reliably stay at the temperature you need >> not having a wire.

Having a wire isn't that bad. After a few hours with your iron, you'll almost forget it's there.

Also, a corded iron will give you the opportunity to use a lot of different tips. You'll really appreciate having that flexibility.

Butane is the only way to go for heavy soldering. I have the hakko battery portable and have followed a lot of comparisons posted online which mostly say it's better than most battery irons. It's very nice for wires, but couldn't solder 18ga wire to a crimp terminal. That's just too much metal for those little batteries. It can do a 3.5mm headphone jack, though. But butanes have their own problems--they're really horrible irons.