soldering iron/ soldering gun

[tpatrick]

Bill Krause makes an important point that bears repeating. A soldering gun can fry your electronics. My understanding is that a gun creates a strong electromagnetic field around itself which can induce a current capable of damaging transistors. You do not have to come into actual contact with the transistor to fry it. Just get close. This is what I have been told, so I pass it along. If it is not correct, please correct me.

I never solder wires to rails. I find it much easier and just as effective to solder feeders to my rail joiners. No chance of melting the ties, and the feeder is almost invisible , sprouting out of a small hole under the rail. A new, clean and tight-fitting joiner makes good electrical contact with both the rails it joins.

[wl_keller]

As someone said earlier in this post. A soldering gun is great as long as you don't use it on PC boards. The gun uses AC current and a transformer to create heat.

It will induce voltage into printed circuits and destroy components on the circuit board.

If you are going to convert any of your equipment to DCC, I would definitely buy an iron.