Soldering station - advice ?

[Eonir]

Many people use cheap chinese 936 clones. They are repairable, have tons of tips available, they're cheap.

If you want to perhaps save a bit of money on your station and have it functional until you earn some money on a better one, sure, you could buy one of these.

Just don't expect them to work for too long. I once bought one that worked for a whole few minutes out of the box - the temperature sensor was broken and it burned its heating element. It wouldn't take a lot of effort to put failsafes in your device to prevent that sort of thing from happening. But unfortunately, I have yet to find a well designed soldering station that's cheap.

If you want to buy something that will work for many years, stick to brand names!

[Markybhoy]

I use a Xytronic Station and have had no issues with it.  For your budget you could get a Xytronic LF-389D from rapidonline.

[andreiu21]

I can recommend the "I-Con Pico" from ERSA http://www.tme.eu/en/details/ersa-i-conpico/soldering-stations/ersa/i-con-pico/
I used it all summer long at my local CB radio repair shop where I worked as repair guy, and starting from soldering smd stuff until desoldering massive metal shields with great thermal mass inside radios, and I was very impressed of the station's capabilities.
It's true that the price is a bit higher, around 200$, but if you really use it daily, it makes difference.

[Amarbir[Lynx-India]]

Well, if I can justify the difference in price between Hakko and some of the other stations I can give some more money...The point is that I am still a beginner (1st year student) so I need soldering station from time to time for trivial soldering (nothing special). So far nobody said what is the real advantage of buying good brand soldering station (apart of the obvious -reliability )...

A soldering station offers no advantage at all, apart from being bigger and taking up more room on your bench.

What you really need in an iron is temperature control, and most stations have this, as do some standalone irons like the Antex I mentioned.

With temperature control you can adjust the tip temperature so it is just right--hot enough to activate the flux, transfer heat to the joint, and make the solder flow freely, but not so hot that it burns the flux, lifts traces from the board or damages sensitive components.

The nice thing about temperature control is that it can feed a lot of heat into the job when needed, but automatically dial the heat flow back and keep the tip at the right temperature when the heat is not needed.

  ,
          Well what are you talking about ? .The soldering station offers no advantage ? .Let me clear this .There are two type of soldering stations with and without transformer .The Goot PX-501 i quoted before is without one .The with transformer one has better isolation to mains and even less tip leakage .The other matter of fact is that When the tip is actually giving its heat to a large ground plane your product will have no juice in it to handle that also  . The thread starter was asking that whats the difference between 50 watts and 80 watts the thing is that the 80 watts wand will not blow your pcb tracks as you can temperature control the same .The Advantage would be that when you need the power you will have the juice .There are many people selling old brand name stations and wands everywhere grab one of these  .Put a brand new tip and enjoy life .If you will follow this great remember me sometimes that there was a guy who gave you the right advice ,if not then remember me more thinking oh god i wish i had done what he said  .I would also recommend you plato USA tips for all type of stations .They have and make kick ass products .you will not regret this at all  .

[dvdt]

I have a Aoyue 906 SMD soldering repairing station, with soldering iron and hot air. I like it because i can use hakko tips.

[shadowcomputer]

Some people already recommended the Weller WES51. I would recommend spending the extra and getting the Weller WESD51. It's more money but the digital temperature display is really nice to have. With the analog one you have to guess what the temperature is. If you ever need to solder temp sensitive parts it will be worth having.

[Johndowacc]

Thank you, guys. I really appreciate your help ! I will probably go for Weller WHS40 Z or the version with digital temp. display.. I still think it is above my needs but I guess I won't need to replace it in near future so it should be a good investment

About the Antex soldering iron - I actually prefer having soldering station and their cheapest is 135 pounds which is much more than what I intend to spend on soldering station. 

[peterthenovice]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-3-in-1-853D-Rework-Soldering-Station-Air-Gun-Solder-Iron-DC-Power-Supply-Set-/370723158665?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5650d27a89 Is this station any good?

[commerou]

I use a weller ws51 which is very nice, I am currently saving up for a Weller WD2M and a weller wmrp

[nanofrog]

I have a Weller WD1 + WMP + WP80. But if I had to do it over again, I'd either go for the Hakko FX-951  on the less expensive side, or go with JBC (both have heating elements in the tip). My reason for this, is due to a decline in QC from Weller as of late (mine's been fine so far, but the reports make me nervous considering the cost of repair parts).

[blewisjr]

Has anyone had a chance to try out the new Hakko FX-888D.  Looks like it is the FX-888 but digital instead of standard dial display.  Was thinking of picking one of these up.

http://www.hakkousa.com/detail.asp?CID=49&PID=5085&Page=1 

Only $108 seems like a good deal.

[mariush]

Adafruit has the non-d version for 95$ : https://www.adafruit.com/products/303

Sparkfun has it for 100$ https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10553

And you can get the new one on eBay from a good seller for 92$ http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hakko-FX888D-23BY-FX888-Digital-Read-out-Adjustable-Temp-Soldering-Station-/380553856557?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item589ac7062d

And the old one from same seller at 83$ : http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hakko-FX888-23BY-FX888-Soldering-Station-Replace-model-936-12-/380578774054?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item589c433c26

Not including whatever shipping fees ebay charges/.

[nanofrog]

Has anyone had a chance to try out the new Hakko FX-888D.  Looks like it is the FX-888 but digital instead of standard dial display.  Was thinking of picking one of these up.

http://www.hakkousa.com/detail.asp?CID=49&PID=5085&Page=1 

Only $108 seems like a good deal.

I looked at a .pdf copy of the manual, and though it's not the nicest way to control a digital station, and is missing some of the nicer features (i.e. sleep), it's usable IMHO, and the price is right for a good station for a hobbyist (without spending an arm+leg).

But as mentioned, the analog versions are still available as well, so you still have a choice ATM between the two. Just don't wait too long if you prefer the analog model.