Resistance soldering from gun?

[Anonymous]

I think there no problem using a soldering gun for resistance soldering.
In fact i use a scrap wire no 14 solid wire for my gun in place of the standard tip.
Much less expensive.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE:
You can use a soldering gun as part of resistance soldering system, it will not be a very powerful one, but should be okay for detail parts. One of the many important points is that the highest resistance in the secondary circuit must be the joint.

We're talking about a Weller 100 watt gun. I'm not looking to do 1/4" brass or anything.

I've used a 12 volt 60 watt (5A) tranformer to try to solder turnouts together. The thing doesn't generate enough heat to solder unless the rail is tinned beforehand. Even then I sometimes end up separating the cladding from the board material, and more often than not the breaker trips before I get the joint finished.

I'm thinking I should be able to at least solder a turnout together with this transformer-from-a-gun setup.

[nfmisso]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jay_c

Here's a question I'm going to ask because while understand basic electricity (E=IR, P = RI^2), I wanted to bounce something off the more savvy guys here and ask would this work or why not? I seem to remember this getting bounced around rec.models.railroad some months back and I don't remember the answer or the reasons for it. That said...

Could I use the transformer from a soldering gun to power a resistance soldering unit? I've measured the output at 2 volts or so, so at 100 watts my potential amperage is on the order of someting like 50 amps if I remember the calculations I did a few months ago when I took the reading.(too tired to redo it now).

There was some discussions about the transformer not being able to be used like that, because of inductance versus resistance or something. I thought a transformer is a transformer is a transformer (ignoring iron-core and all that)..

No. There are more variations in transformer design that there models of cars. And each is optimized for a particular use.

QUOTE:
When I use it for fairly long periods in the gun, the transformer gets warm. Since I'd be putting the same load the gun with resistance soldering (once the joint forms and resistance drops to zero) but for less time, I don't have to worry about overheating the transformer, so would this be workable or not?

You can use a soldering gun as part of resistance soldering system, it will not be a very powerful one, but should be okay for detail parts. One of the many important points is that the highest resistance in the secondary circuit must be the joint.

[Anonymous]

Here's a question I'm going to ask because while understand basic electricity (E=IR, P = RI^2), I wanted to bounce something off the more savvy guys here and ask would this work or why not? I seem to remember this getting bounced around rec.models.railroad some months back and I don't remember the answer or the reasons for it. That said...

Could I use the transformer from a soldering gun to power a resistance soldering unit? I've measured the output at 2 volts or so, so at 100 watts my potential amperage is on the order of someting like 50 amps if I remember the calculations I did a few months ago when I took the reading.(too tired to redo it now).

There was some discussions about the transformer not being able to be used like that, because of inductance versus resistance or something. I thought a transformer is a transformer is a transformer (ignoring iron-core and all that)..

When I use it for fairly long periods in the gun, the transformer gets warm. Since I'd be putting the same load the gun with resistance soldering (once the joint forms and resistance drops to zero) but for less time, I don't have to worry about overheating the transformer, so would this be workable or not?