My partner loves crafting, not a day goes by without her making or designing something. Often that means she’s got a soldering iron running as she perfects jewelry or wood burns pencils. This raised two questions in my mind: How much electricity is this using? And can she use it off-grid in a campervan?
Below we will discuss and test soldering iron wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is a Soldering Iron?
An average soldering iron uses between 25 and 60 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your soldering iron. For example, a basic iron uses 25W or less while the hottest melters push upto 60W+.
You can perform most tasks with any sort of soldering iron. The difference in power level relates to how quickly the appliances heats up.
The higher the wattage the quicker it heats up. More power is a benefit when working on bigger or more intensive tasks. It enables the device to maintain temperature. A lower-powered device will lose temperature for every piece of soldering, so when you might have to wait for it to regain temperature.
How to Find Out Your Soldering Iron Wattage
There are 3 ways you can work out the wattage of a soldering iron.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the soldering iron’s specification. The watts (W) are usually written on a sticker on the base of the iron. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your soldering iron to get instant information.
I used one to test my soldering iron which gave a live reading of 37.5W.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your soldering iron you can use this to find the maximum watt rating. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Soldering Iron Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts a soldering iron draws. Below is a collection of modern soldering irons with their listed power ratings.
| Soldering Iron Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| SREMTCH Soldering Iron Kit | 80 |
| LDK Soldering Iron Kit | 60 |
| Weller WLC100 Soldering Station | 40 |
| Weller WE1010NA Digital Soldering Station | 70 |
| Soldercraft Soldering Iron Kit | 25 |
| Draper Soldering Iron – Blue | 30 |
| Soldercraft Pyrography Iron | 60 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different soldering irons. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does a Soldering Iron Use?
You can use soldering iron wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your soldering iron.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour (Wh) is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, a soldering iron drawing 60W would use 60Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 60W soldering iron running for 1 hour uses 0.06kWh.
Let’s say you solder for 30 minutes a day. This means a 60W soldering iron uses about 30Wh or 0.03kWh electricity a day. That’s 0.9kWh a month and 11kWh a year.
That’s a rough electricity cost of $0.13 a month and $1.65 a year to solder for half an hour every day.
Using a Soldering Iron Off-Grid
If you’re planning to use your soldering iron in an off-grid situation like a power outage, RV, boat, or truck, the information above is important. You can accurately select and install the correct electrical equipment.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to deliver AC electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your soldering iron. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To solder, it is best to have 100W power capacity. This will run most devices and is the smallest size you’ll find an inverter.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the soldering iron for the required amount of time. As we already know, it can use about 30Wh electricity for 30 minutes soldering This is the equivalent of 2.5Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does a Soldering Iron Use Summary
I hope you have enjoyed reading about how many watts a soldering iron uses.
To conclude, these are low-powered electrical devices despite their ability to generate plenty of heat. You can solder away without worrying about using too much electricity. Plus if you want to make jewelry, fix circuits, wood burn, or even make homemade solar panels while living in an RV it is no problem. Most inverters will cope with the requirements and your batteries won’t get depleted quickly.
