Weller still the soldering iron of choice?

Hexacon rocks, only need to replace the tips about every 1o years!

Steve

Benm said:

This one is interesting too: Amazon.com: AOYUE 936 Soldering Station: Home Improvement

I believe its (almost?) identical to the Hakko 936 units, but can be found cheaper elsewhere.

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they may look identical, but I believe the heating elements are different!

no actual experience with said model though.. if other companies are copying the hakko 936, I bet the 936 must be good!

I have Aoyue 936. I tell you, second best investment of my life. First is my first green laser ofcourse.

It heats up to working temperature (I use 350°C) in around 20-25 seconds I think.
It'll accept all 900M series tips, from Aoyue, Hakko, or other chinese no name copies.

It is the best soldering iron I've used in my life so far. Crossing from firesticks to this station was like, a giant leap forward for humanity. Or at least a part of it residing in my room.

And considering the price payed, around $55 shipped, it was the best deal I could find.

Warmly reccomended. Though if you can afford Hakko, you won't regret that too.
Hakko = Gipson
Aoyue = Epiphone


Beats some noname copies by far.

you write heck of an advertising spiel, I find myself wanting that model now!

I have a Hakko FX-952 dual soldering station and it is EXCELLENT. This model is no longer available, but I'm sure the new models are even better.

Honestly I dislike the new Hakko designs, they look like brightly colored toys with that Yellow/Blue contrast.

Matte black stuff looks way better IMHO.

Two soldering irons, but why ? I guess you can use two different kinds of tips on each one.

I saw Aoyue stations on ebay with like, two irons, one with automatic solder feeder, and hot air, so that's total 4 stations in one. Brutal.

Eudaimonium said:

Honestly I dislike the new Hakko designs, they look like brightly colored toys with that Yellow/Blue contrast.

Matte black stuff looks way better IMHO.

Two soldering irons, but why ? I guess you can use two different kinds of tips on each one.

I saw Aoyue stations on ebay with like, two irons, one with automatic solder feeder, and hot air, so that's total 4 stations in one. Brutal.

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I agree the color choice is nasty, but they do perform excellent. Two tips gives you the ability to center smds just by touching both pads at the same time ... the reflow "sucks" the part to the surface and to the center of the pads. It also allows you to take them off by reflowing both pads at the same time and then picking up the part off the pads with the tips. But you can also do this with hot tweezers if they are available for your station, but you will not have as much power.

jib77 said:

I agree the color choice is nasty, but they do perform excellent. Two tips gives you the ability to center smds just by touching both pads at the same time ... the reflow "sucks" the part to the surface and to the center of the pads. It also allows you to take them off by reflowing both pads at the same time and then picking up the part off the pads with the tips. But you can also do this with hot tweezers if they are available for your station, but you will not have as much power.

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I never said they don't perform. I compared them to Gipson in world of guitars. I guess you don't play.

Anyhow, I do have hot tweezers handpiece for my station, but I can't have both the pencil and tweezers at same time. But I'm quite efficient at desoldering small SMD components with blob method.

I can solder ridiculously tiny SMD stuff with pencil alone too, no worries there.

My Weller arrived today (love $4 overnight shipping via Amazon prime for a 7 pound box) and so far I love it. Once I found something to grip the ribbon cable with so I wouldn't burn myself the "solder blob" method popped the thing right off. If I decide to keep building lasers and the like I'm gonna have to get one of those magnifying glasses for sure and probably order a finer pointed tip for soldering tiny things too.

Thanks again for everyone's input. I hope this thread is helpful for others in the future.

:thanks: