<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>rex_lupi</author><text>Absolutely. I can personally attest to the fact that $5 soldering iron is good enough for most common (non-smd) jobs. I&amp;#x27;ve seen people do smd soldering with a big chisel tip, even a soldering gun, but it takes training. But I get OP&amp;#x27;s point. It&amp;#x27;s extremely frustrating if not impossible to do the job if the iron is super bad, if the flux or soldrr is bad etc.&lt;p&gt;For a beginner, a soldering station or a high-tech iron is absolutely not necessary. You just need a non-garbage iron, some decent quality lead-rosin solder and a decent amount of flux (cheap rosin would do). Nevertheless, having high-end tools will make things much, much easier and simpler. But at the same time, I believe you&amp;#x27;ll get a great training if you learn things the hard way.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Etheryte</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think this is a good idea at all. This is like saying you should buy lifting shoes, a belt, a pair of gloves and bands before you go to the gym for the first time. Literally any setup that does the job is fine when you&amp;#x27;re just getting into it — you don&amp;#x27;t know what you don&amp;#x27;t know and having a cheap entry point is a good way to figure out if you like it at all, what kind of a workflow works for you, etc.</text></item><item><author>kayson</author><text>If you want to get into soldering, do yourself a favor and invest in a good station, iron, and tips. If you want to de-solder, good quality soldering wick is also really important (I use chemtronics).&lt;p&gt;I was lucky enough to snag an old Metcal from work for free, and it&amp;#x27;s fantastic. The way they work is really cool too: it sends a high power RF signal (i.e. AC voltage) to the coil in the tip. Because of the skin effect and curie point, it will heat up until the point where the coil loses it&amp;#x27;s magnetism, resulting in a self-regulating tip temperature that doesn&amp;#x27;t need a thermo couple! [1] It responds very quickly to thermal loads, too. It&amp;#x27;s an expensive system to be sure, but totally worth it especially if you can find it used. They&amp;#x27;re also great about support even for older units, and you can get the entire schematics online if you need to make any repairs.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.metcal.com&amp;#x2F;hand-soldering&amp;#x2F;how-smartheat-technology-works-a-tutorial-2&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.metcal.com&amp;#x2F;hand-soldering&amp;#x2F;how-smartheat-technolo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>IronOS: Open-source soldering iron firmware</title><url>https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>15155</author><text>Maybe when you recommend a $20 Saturday night special to a newcomer, they get it, think soldering is hard, and then hate it?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.aliexpress.us&amp;#x2F;item&amp;#x2F;3256803576447342.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.aliexpress.us&amp;#x2F;item&amp;#x2F;3256803576447342.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;This blows everything sold at Microcenter or at this price point out of the water - ~$100 is a pretty cheap entrypoint compared to the FX888 that has been touted for decades.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#x2F;Metcal owner</text><parent_chain><item><author>Etheryte</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think this is a good idea at all. This is like saying you should buy lifting shoes, a belt, a pair of gloves and bands before you go to the gym for the first time. Literally any setup that does the job is fine when you&amp;#x27;re just getting into it — you don&amp;#x27;t know what you don&amp;#x27;t know and having a cheap entry point is a good way to figure out if you like it at all, what kind of a workflow works for you, etc.</text></item><item><author>kayson</author><text>If you want to get into soldering, do yourself a favor and invest in a good station, iron, and tips. If you want to de-solder, good quality soldering wick is also really important (I use chemtronics).&lt;p&gt;I was lucky enough to snag an old Metcal from work for free, and it&amp;#x27;s fantastic. The way they work is really cool too: it sends a high power RF signal (i.e. AC voltage) to the coil in the tip. Because of the skin effect and curie point, it will heat up until the point where the coil loses it&amp;#x27;s magnetism, resulting in a self-regulating tip temperature that doesn&amp;#x27;t need a thermo couple! [1] It responds very quickly to thermal loads, too. It&amp;#x27;s an expensive system to be sure, but totally worth it especially if you can find it used. They&amp;#x27;re also great about support even for older units, and you can get the entire schematics online if you need to make any repairs.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.metcal.com&amp;#x2F;hand-soldering&amp;#x2F;how-smartheat-technology-works-a-tutorial-2&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.metcal.com&amp;#x2F;hand-soldering&amp;#x2F;how-smartheat-technolo...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>IronOS: Open-source soldering iron firmware</title><url>https://github.com/Ralim/IronOS</url></story>