UNofficial Hakko T18 tips, what's out there?

[taste_tester]

A long time of using JBC style Knife tips (2.5mm Knife) made it easily my favorite soldering tip.
When I need more space or power I would switch to the 5mm Knife, but rarely pick a conical or chisel tip anymore.
Now I know Hakko only offers one Knife tip for the T18 series, the T18-K, 5mm knife.
But, I really want a 2mm or 2.5mm Knife for T18.
I know JCD on Aliexpress sells tips that fit T18- they sell cheap direct plug in irons that basically use the FX-8801 design.
But i don't know how good I feel about using soldering tips coated black 
There are also a lot of other sellers on sites like Aliexpress selling their own brands of T18 compatible tips.
I've seen smaller size knife tips from some of them.
Just curious if anyone has experience with Non-Hakko tips, or any particular recommendations.

[Shock]

Plato make (apparently good quality) compatible tips, not sure if they have extended the range though.

Another option is diy re-plate your own modified tips. Could practice on some dead or chinese tips. But when you have your technique down use the genuine Hakko larger blade/knife and file then sand it down to size. Saw a video how the cheap chinese ones were made, they were just grinding down some pre made alloy and not even plating them.

You can bet they will sell a fake copper tip as well. Don't get me wrong it's ok to practice on a few cheap chinese tips but there is no way they will out perform Hakko. Even if it appears to be amazingly thermally conductive it's probably a shit metal aluminum alloy which dissolves after so many thermal cycles. I would not trust a blackened tip either, too easy for them to use cyanide blacking or some toxic coating.

[jonpaul]

Plato out of biz for many years.

We use only genuine Hakko tips very high quality and long lasting.

All the cheap Chinese clones are junk.

Just my experience,

Jon

[rdl]

I've had good results with Plato products over the years. As far as I can tell they're still around. A subsidiary of Techspray, acquired in 2003. Techspray has since become part of ITW.

[taste_tester]

I saw Plato tips for sale at Hisco/Kimco, but couldn't find much info about them when googling around, so not sure if they are old stock or what the deal is, at any rate the Plato knife style tips are no cheaper than buying real Hakko so not sure I will go for those.

Bought 6 more Hakko branded tips today, probably won't bother with Plato.

Thank you everybody