Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
Drop Refurbished
Like-new products you can trustDrop Rewards
Get $5 for every 500 points you earn! Learn more
Drop Keyboard Club
Become a member and expand your keycap collectionCollaborate With Us
For Brands & DesignersFollow Drop
1. A greedy person will pay twice. 2. There's no better feeling than using a high quality tool to do a task that it's designed for.
I'm sharing and proposing some of my own suggestions for what I consider proper soldering stations. While perhaps overkill for someone that solders rarely, they constitute an essential tool for the hobbyist and professional, making their task all that much simpler and easier. Presented here should mostly be those designed for regular soldering, although some might have optional attachments for tweezer soldering or even desoldering.
So, why would one buy a $3-600 soldering station instead of one that costs $100 or even $50? Well, see my points 1 and 2. My first soldering station was a Yihua with terrible temperature stability, uncomfortable handpiece that would burn my fingers, fiddly controls, and tips that would fail one after another. Essentially money wasted, and so I wound up paying twice as per #1, this time investing some more funds, for a used OKI (Metcal) station. This was a world of difference in every regard, and I was actually enjoying soldering when using it - see #2. This happened to start my slight obsession with soldering and soldering stations in general, and trying to find the best ones via objective and subjective methods.
Note that I consider a soldering station professional grade if it (in order of priority): 1. Heats up from cold to 350C in at least 10 seconds or less, as well as 2. Has tip cartridges with integrated heaters. 3. Has a wide array of tip choices for any sort of task.
Notably the Hakko 951 apparently fails #1, but is included due to the general brand popularity and comparison purposes. Overall, it's not my favorite spec and ergonomics wise. Weller WX partially fails #2, but considering the overall package, it's not a major concern and it qualifies. On the other hand, if we take Hakko 888, which is very popular and only costs $100, it'd immediately fail all three categories above and doesn't qualify in my opinion.
There are many reasons to invest in a high quality soldering station, and I can elaborate on them in comments, but briefly:
1. Temperature stability and control 2. Heatup and thermal recovery times (joint to joint, directly correlated with fast initial heatup) 3. Comfort and working distance 4. Large amount of tip geometry choices (80+ different tips at the very least for each of pace/metcal/hakko) 5. Ease of tip changing 6. Sleep and hibernate modes 7. Tip longevity 8. This is a also tool that will last you for decades - just buy a new tip when the old one wears out and you're good to go again.
Questions? Let me know in comments! Think something deserves to be on this list? Add it!