Out of Curiosity: Why Have Over 200 People Applied for the Weller Soldering Station Roadtest?

Wait! Did I miss out on this?? Hmm... got into Element14 too late :-(

All of the above options to vote and all the comments are the correct answer.

May the force of good solder joints be with you all.

- W.

I'm new to the community and thought it would be a good way Into getting involved and completing further road tests/design challenges. Within my "wheelhouse" of expertise and also offers a chance for me to setup a home lab rather than relying on work!

I already have two soldering irons but both are geared to solder joints used in the 1990's and earlier. Now I'm back to soldering, after a pause of some 20 years, and would like to use a state-of-the-art iron. Simple as that.

I waited a long time before submitting an application. I had purchased a station a few months ago. After reading comments about the product, I got thinking about a RoadTest review approach. I thought my ideal was novel that might snag me some free stuff for the model railroader club I work with. Who can't use a good solder station?

I then thought, reflected in another post, this product is ideal to be reviewed by the novice and maybe the selection committee should give newbies some added weight.

I didn't see GREED on the list and figured I could sugar coat the reason:) Augh crap, rscasny was looking for a mechanism to screen applications and I wrote my own warrant.

Maybe rscasny you could twist some arms at Weller and politely ask if they could perhaps let you have some more to test! With a whole crowd of people interested, it could be one of their best marketing decisions ever.

I think the reason being is that is a common tool and probably a not-so-complex to review -from my point of view- as it doesn't require a lot of technical knowledge to get started and the required parts to actually use it (solder, parts, wire, PCB) are widely available and cheap.

Luis

I think that's very true too, I see some road tests and think "geez, it would take me 2 months just to figure out a good worthwhile way to test it" but with this you can do some soldering, use an IR temp gauge to check temp rise / decay time, etc. Not a ton of planning required, and the road test could be done pretty thoroughly in just a few hours.

These are a spectacular product. The auto shutdown when you put it in the holder makes it very safe for use. Plus I have a bit of different raspberry pi / beaglebone projects i'm working on so I could use a new good soldering iron instead of the cheap junk i'm using to put together the dev boards from kits.

Just a though. If you are currently using a cheap soldering iron (like many other people) then perhaps you are the exact roadtester they will be looking for. Someone who can explain the benefits of this product compared to alternatives? Such an elated roadtest report might make other readers think about saving and investing in a better solder iron?