Glue guns for DC pads

[Franco]

Ive been looking at DC pad hacks and it seems the norm to use a glue gun to neatly hold the wires in place. I have been looking at glue guns on ebay and they seem to range from about 5w to 80w. I was just wondering what kind of rating people have used in the past. I want something that will keep the wires in place but will not damage the PCB.

Thanks

[pmc]

I have a tiny weener craftsman model (no trigger, just push the glue stick with your thumb). Honestly, it works fine. If you don't need it for other stuff, you can probably get away with the most inexpensive (name brand) model that you can find. I use hot-glue enough that I'll likely upgrade to a bigger trigger-model version at some point.

Higher wattage probably means faster meltage. My weener model seems to melt at a fast enough rate for me.

BTW, my hacked DC pads are not glued at all. I don't think it's a mandatory step if you aren't going to be man-handling the boards or wires.

[HaRuMaN]

I do a lot of pads for people, so I like to hot glue the wires down just to make sure they don't come loose.  If you are hacking your own pads, I would probably reccomend that you do it, too.  It makes it a lot less liable to pop off.  As for what kind of glue gun, I bought a cheapo $2 gun that uses mini glue sticks.  It does the job just fine, and the refills are cheap, like $3 for 100 sticks.

[TalkingOctopus]

I use a cheap one I got at walmart.  I really don't think there is anything to be worried about.  But just in case there is, don't press the gun aganist the board and don't put any glue on the chips.

[krion]

i used a cheapo one as well which uses mini sticks.

[pointdablame]

I don't think it is really going to matter much.  If you'd like, they make low temp hot glue guns for modelling, which is what I use.  I've also used just a regular old hot glue gun in the past and had no problems.  Just make sure the tip doesn't sit on the PCB itself (which it should never do anyway).

[forbiddenlyrics]

I too have used a cheap walmart hot-glue gun to hold wires on a PCB. Just head down there or to a craft store and pick up the cheapest one they have.