Author Topic: Buying a soldering station  (Read 13064 times)

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Offline Kiriakos-GR

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Re: Buying a soldering station
« Reply #25 on: November 17, 2011, 08:33:02 pm »
Any opinions on this one?
http://www.xytronic-usa.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=26

Some of the Xytronic stuff seems to be rebranded (e.g. the hot air station seems to be a rebranded Atten, but I'm not so sure about the soldering stations).

The solder iron its not pictured !! 
And so there is not much to say.
 

Offline 0xdeadbeef

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Re: Buying a soldering station
« Reply #26 on: November 17, 2011, 08:45:41 pm »
While I'm puzzled that you can judge the quality of a soldering station by simply looking at the picture of the iron, here you go:
http://www.howardelectronics.com/xytronic/lf2000.html

Indeed I wondered if something is known about this station. E.g. reviews, user experience, if its rebranded etc.
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Offline gregariz

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Re: Buying a soldering station
« Reply #27 on: November 17, 2011, 08:52:00 pm »
Any opinions on this one?
http://www.xytronic-usa.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=26

Some of the Xytronic stuff seems to be rebranded (e.g. the hot air station seems to be a rebranded Atten, but I'm not so sure about the soldering stations).

The solder iron its not pictured !! 
And so there is not much to say.

Another mic socket iron... 936?

Edit: The pencil looks instead like a ripoff of the weller WSP80 (WD series) and uses LT series tips.

Something similiar is here:

http://www.hksolder.com/Smart-soldering-station-273.html
« Last Edit: November 17, 2011, 09:55:59 pm by gregariz »
 

Offline Kiriakos-GR

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Re: Buying a soldering station
« Reply #28 on: November 17, 2011, 10:43:56 pm »
Another mic socket iron... 936?


Actually this is an 7 pin metallic plug and not an 3 pin Mic socket.
But even that way, I like them.
You can replace easy the all hot iron if the repair cost about just the heating element, its not worth it.

My current soldering station, model of 90s, that I got it at 1996 and lost some power at 2010 (internal technical issue) ,
still works, and instead of an metallic plug it has an plastic one.

 

Offline saturation

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Re: Buying a soldering station
« Reply #29 on: November 19, 2011, 12:45:58 pm »
There's a lot of info on soldering stations in the eevblog forum archives.

But in nutshell, a reason for choosing either the Hakko FX888 or the Weller WES51 [ or its equivalent in the EU market] is that they conform to IPC soldering standards, and thus are equipped to provide the best soldering conditions as studied by decades of arguments of what constitutes good soldering temps, technique and construction.  The user experience bears this out too. Also, they are probably the cheapest IPC conforming stations from a reputable maker, as well as low cost to maintain in terms of added tips and spare parts.

There are of course many other stations out there, including the mixed result Xytronic [ whose claim to fame is the invention of the analog temperature controlled station in the 1970] but their quality control is mixed, so you don't know what you actually get despite claims to performing to spec.

As Weller manufacturers in Germany [ as well as MX], they do have better tax breaks for the EU community.  You'll likely find Weller a better deal than Hakko in the EU [made in Asia, Malaysia, Japan and Singapore at last count.]  Xytronic is worth exploring due to its low cost in the EU, but again, I'd only shop it if I can return it after giving it a thorough performance testing and 'take it apart' QC check.

While I have all the same info on eevblog, I think the questions raised put more stuff in a smaller thread on this other forum:

http://www.electro-tech-online.com/general-electronics-chat/119211-choosing-soldering-station.html#post993132



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