I purchased a new Hakko 936 from my local hobby shop in December 2009. Only has about 10 hours (probably less) of "burn" time on it. I went to use it yesterday and it ws having trouble melting solder. When it did melt the solder, the solder would not "wet" the tip. I pulled out my temp gun and the tip only temped about 350 degrees F...climbed to about 370 when I cranked the temp knob all the way up? Any thoughts on what is going on here? Do I need a new heating element already?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Never had any probs with mine - here's the manual - look at pg 8 - covers checking the element - may be oxidized inside -

http://www.tequipment.net/pdf/Hakko/936e199809a.pdf

Try swapping another iron to your base unit and vise versa. Then you'll know which is defective. Bring it along to the track and we can check it out.

What type of solder are you using?

I'll have to check exactly what it is, but it's the same stuff I've been using for years. What should I be using? Is there something specific I should be looking for in a solder?

Moose, next time we race I'll drag it along...I'll give you a heads up so you know to bring yours.

Tried the Hakko "live help" yesterday but was having issues connecting.

Duster, thanks for the link...I'll take a look.

Mine gets more than twice 350F and thats with the knob not cranked all the way over. The manual has a piece about measuring resistance between pins on the plug where the iron connects to the base. That should tell you what's going on with yours.

The solder is a lead free rosin core solder...dang it, can't recall the brand now...I got a bad case of CRS...can't remember s#!t...

I looked over the manual on checking the resistance across various plugs...tip to pin, pin to pin, etc. Not sure exactly how to do this? Sorry, I'm not too savy with things electric...which begs the question of why I choose to race electric I guess.

Have you tried a new tip on it? I bought a used Hakko 936 and the tip sorta worked...in a few random spots. I replaced the tip on it....it's like brand new again ;-)

I have not, but sounds like it's worth a shot.

If you have a decent voltmeter, it should have a setting to measure resistance. When they say resistance across pins 2 and 3 (example) you put the probes in pin 2 and they other in pin 3 and see what the reading is on the dvm.

If you don't have a dvm (digitial voltmeter) you should. Mine cost my $5, they're not expensive and even the cheapies are good enough. Everybody running elect should have a dvm, its a basic tool, answers a lot of questions.

Make sure to get a digital multimeter (DMM) and not just a digital voltmeter though.

Technically you're correct, but the cheapies are going to have a resistance feature, I've not seen a cheap one without. When you get into expensive, real test equip, voltmeter vs multimeter makes a diff, not seeing that with the cheap dvms, we're not talking Flukes here -

http://www.batterystuff.com/battery-...ts/YDMM05.html

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...ct_12496_12496


I use the Northern tool one that I got on special for $5. These are cheap and accurate enough or rc work.

I do have a cheap dmm/dvm and it does measure resistance...just never used the feature before.

I used some fine sandpaper to clean the tip and did get the solder to wet the tip...but it didn't hold the solder for long. My temp gun must max out at around 500 degrees...just says "hi" at a certain point. I decided to turn up the calibration pot abot a quarter turn in an attempt to see if the temp could even go higher than thr 300ish I was getting before. Went to around 450. Turned the pot about another 8th turn and that's when the temp gun maxxed out. Is it possible that I've been that far off on the calibration from day one? Waht temp do most of you guys use to do basic esc/motor wiring?

Never calibrated mine, but keep it set at 750 and its never lacked the heat for any soldering job, soldering batts or 10ga wires.

Very bad idea. Get a new tip and never do this, but if the tip is so bad that you use sandpaper it's shot anyway so you're not hurting anything really.