Geek Stuff 4 U - For Geeks By Geeks Thanko USB Soldering Iron

You can use up to two ports in order to get a power supply of 5V / 1000mA. If it's not enough, Thanko offers you the possibility to plug a 9V battery.

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I have one of those "As seen on TV" arc soldering guns that was given to me. It actually works, as long as you can get both of the points on metal. For an emergency, it'll do. Poorly, but it might get you back to town.

Someone needs to buy this USB gun and see if it works. I'm not sure what the point is, other than to run down your laptop battery, but what the heck.

I tend to have my laptop in front of me when I do work, incase I need to look up specifics of build or look at a pdf diagram or something. I have to keep my laptop plugged in anyways :P

looks like a cool 'oh shit' iron.

That soldering iron looks like a blue translucent vibrator. See: Odyssey2 : Rock-in - blue translucent waterproof

http://images.sextoysex.com/CNVELD/WF1244.JPG

That could be dangerous... I remember when I was younger all the Catholic girls had religious statues that looked like dildoes from the back. I'm thinking this was not a coincidence. That's a while ago, obviously...

mini torch

So what's the best semi-portable iron? Should I just get a cheap piece of shit radio schack iron? I feel stupid carrying my weller into the garage and setting up my little iron stand.

Not sure what you mean by semi-portable, but IMO it will either keep you chained to an electric outlet, or not. For soldering anything in the garage or on the car I use a little butane iron. It's a cheap one, bought it on a lark one day at Home Depot and it has worked surprisingly well. It's about as portable as you can get, heats up pretty quickly, and butane refills are cheap. Has a little built-in bipod/kickstand thingy so you can set it down on your workbench, or in my case, on the floor. Mine lacks piezo ignition though, which means I need to keep a lighter handy. Definitely get one with built-in ignition.

They buy cheap irons.

Grrr. I hate it when people have opinions which differ from my own, particularly when they back them up with facts or first-hand experience.
:brain: