Choosing my first iron

Hakko FX 888 D or the equivalent priced Weller. Learning on a good iron will make your life significantly easier.

>>1113443
>>1113474
One more vote for a good iron. My favourite for now is a Weller WP80, But it is likely way above your budget. However, It looks like you can have a Weller WES51 for less than $100, which should be sufficient for a beginner. The pencil shape can be quite convenient, and tips are easy to find and reasonably cheap in time if you are a bit careful with them.

>>1113443
Hakko 937 clone from aliexpress

936/937 clone or Weller WES51. I'd go for the WES51 personally but theyre not sold in europe and work off 120V. So i have a 2nd hand WECP-20 instead, which is more or less the same.

>>1113443
I do this shit since I was 13
Just get the cheapest 60 or 70 watt
70 if you have quick hands
You don't want to burn the eletronics but you don't want to die waiting for it to heat up

>>1113443
Samefag here. Thanks for the input guys.

Do you think anyone in my area would sell a decent iron like Weller or Hakko second hand? I mean, if they last forever, they could theoretically last through two owners.

T12 station from ebay/aliexpress. 937 clones are crap.

PACE! Number one!

>>1113662
With the TD-100 or PS-90 iron?

Whats the cost, too lazy to sign up for their website?

>>1113638

Look at eBay and the other local craigslist-esque places. My WECP-20 is from 1985 btw. Condition varies depending on how the previous owners used it, some leave the iron on for too long and use one tip for anything and the iron looks like crap. Works more or less the same, but.. looks like crap. Accidental burns on the plastic casing are not uncommon with older stations.

>>1113638

google for a local freecycle mailing list. people can ask for, or offer, various 2nd-hand items.

(people suggesting $200 stations for a noob's first soldering iron are nuts - i'm a pro and i do a perfectly good job with a $50 iron)

>>1113666
I figured, i mean when i saw the price of legit hakko's i kinda went for the whole features VS price thing.

>>1113665
So the consensus is:

Get a high quality iron, even second hand and it will treat you right.

I might buy the Aoyue 469 just to start with but keep my eyes peeled locally for something older with a little character. Any models for 120V you can recommend?

>>1113474
Seconding this, the iron will last a long time, nothing worse than turning on your cheap shit iron and it not heating up when you want to get into a project.

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>>1113679

I haven't used the cheap chinese Hakko clones so it's hard to say or recommend anything. From the reviews i've seen of the Yihua etc. they do work. They might take a little longer to heat up and you might need to turn the temperature dial up a bit more to get enough thermal mass on large joints but they do work. I doubt they would last 30+ years like a Hakko/Pace/Weller but at their price you can't complain.

Btw about Weller - don't bother with their "red plastic" ones, they're the budget line and probably aren't too different from the chinese clones. It's the "blue plastic" ones like the WS81 that are used professionally. There's also a few blue "Magnastat" models that work, but don't have a temperature dial - they rely on special tips to regulate temperature, say a 350C tip or a 400C tip etc. Usable, but not as flexible.

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The cheapest 60W one on your local electronics store (support local business!) with a ceramic heater.
No temperature control or anything else fancy.
Great for learning, so cheap you won't mind when you fuck it up leaving it plugged in.

More important than the soldering iron:
Thin rosin core lead solder, the thinner the better. Under one mm, 0.3 mm is what I use. A roll like pic related will last you forever.
Paste type flux, the kind that looks and comes in a can like that of pomade.
Desoldering braid.


But just for shit and giggles, get yourself plumbing style lead solder, the kind that's 2mm and solid, without rosin core. And extra corrosive plumbing flux, too. Try using those. Protip: melt some of the solder on the tip of your iron, then tap it fast against a hard surface to make small droplets which you can pick up. Also take a look at your job a few days later. You thought you had cleaned up all the paste? Why is the PCB corroded everywhere you worked on? Fun times.

Also, a great source of thin wires in a variety of colors is computer data cables. Parallel, Serial, VGA. Great for prototyping and patching stuff.

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Another vote for the 888 here

>>1113696
>what not to do

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>>1113696
Derp

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>>1113706
>solder wick
I've always preferred the pump

>>1113696
i have 500 feet of cat5e, would the twisted pairs in there be a good hook up wire? Its solid core and kinda cheap.

>>1113709
i think ill take your advice and look into a desolder bulb or pump, not that big a deal but wick looks a little bit like a pain.

>>1113690
Thats what i thought, the neon orange/red looking ones seem like clones of clones.

So one more general question, if i do get a full station rather than a standalone iron, should i go for a digital one? Any advantages?

>>1113709
There are times the pump doesn't work, but even then you want the wick to clean up pads and such.

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>>1113723
Fair point. Luckily I don't do much pcb work.

I'm not op but around 12 years ago I bought the 15w RadioShack iron and have used it in bursts off and on.

There have been times I've used the living shit out of it, and times where it would sit a long while.
Now that I need a new tip and RadioShack doesn't exist anymore I can't decide if I want to take the plunge on a real Hakko or just a 20$ clone.

>>1113727
>Now that I need a new tip
Make one, it's fairly easy. Just find a piece of copper that is roughly the same shape and file away the excess. You can attach it to a drill and hold the file to it, for an even finish. Electroplate it afterwards if you are feeling fancy.

>>1113716

I personally prefer analog all the way as the design of the PCB is more repairable. Digital stations look cool but rely on proprietary firmware to function, not something you can pull a schematic of and repair. Some "digital" stations control the temp with an analog circuit and only use digital for the "user interface" and 7-segment displays.

I hear digital are quicker and better at controlling temperature with fine-tuned PID loops, at least on the brand-name ones. Such a thing is probably desirable in a 24/7 production environment but not something tempting for me as a hobbyist DIYer. Not to mention that analog versions of even brand-name Wellers are about 20-30$ cheaper compared to their digital counterparts.

I think cheap chinese stations have more of a hacker community behind them due to their price, so it might not be so surprising to find custom firmware ROMs for them. Better check that firmwares exists first before deciding to go with the digital-chinese route though.

>>1113443
hand iron, on the cheap, low wattage, buy some cheap tips with different shapes too

you learn more, figure out if you can craft the shit out of a shit tool and appreciate a good tool more

>>1113727
OP here people seems to be saying the 50 to 100 USD range so id say you and i both could get a decent genuine hakko or weller iron for that price, but it depends what work you do

I plan on doing a lot of PCB work with passive component removal, if you just wanna splice cables every now and then, go for a 15 to 30 dollar iron, that seems to be what my research is saying.

>>1113732
Good point, it might be worth getting a 40 watt standalone clone iron just to compare too.

>>1113731
Thanks for the input, i think i will go analog, might as well be able to diy my diy tools if they break.

>>1113716
No one has ever regretted having good quality tools, and shitty tools make learning more difficult. The 888 isn't particularly expensive anyway. If you're unsure whether you're going to stick with it, one of the clones might be the way to go.

>>1113727
There's a Radio Shack up the street from me. They aren't all gone.

>>1113731
>PCB is more repairable
Why not get one that isn't likely to shit the bed in the first place?

>>1113736

That's just it, you can't really be 100% sure it's not going to shit the bed. Buying brand-name tools is no guarantee, even those have faults sometimes. Case and point - WSD81 with small firmware bug that causes it to heat up way over the set temp after waking up from sleep mode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c97XwgX9Zx0

It's supposed to be 380C but keeps going up to 410C

>>1113443
For the price these are good
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/soldering-station-with-adjustable-heat-range-us-warehouse.html

They're a knockoff of the old Hakko 936, and it's compatible with a large portion of tips for the 936 and even the 888 IIRC.
Mine worked pretty well until it got knocked off my bench and shattered into pieces.

I'd like to learn how to solder, but don't know the first thing about it.

Are there any kits/projects /diy/ would recommend for someone interested in soldering with no experience or knowledge?

>>1113818
find the /ohm/ thread

>>1113732
This, for rank beginners. Play around, get a feel for soldering before you sink money into a quality tool.

>>1113443
thats a prety ok iron. pair it with DT830B multimeter as well so you could save sgipping

>>1113932
>buy shit tool
>try to learn
>can't solder for shit because shit iron
>get frustrated
>post on /diy/ asking for help
>get laughed at for wasting money on shit iron
>buy recommended weller or hakko
>half great fun soldering
wasted money, wasted time

>>1113944
This isnt true at all

>>1113988

right, it's like saying your first car should be a new and expensive model. in reality, it should be an old clunker until you learn the ropes and arent getting a new scratch every 2 weeks.

>>1113443
just got the 937 version from this brand off amazon. i prefer the digital control. its sweet though. just built a pcb based amp with it and it worked great. plus tips are compatible with real hakko

>>1113988
>>1114001
Actually it's more like getting a shitty chinesium welder to learn on rather than a halfway decent one.

Yeah, it will work good in someone who knows how to get good results, but you're going to have hell of a time learning the basics.

However the opposite could be argued, in that using a shit one for a while then getting a good one will make you better faster, and will make soldering with a good iron seem way better.

The car comparison doesn't work because you don't "scratch" an iron. You have to be really stupid to do anything to your iron just starting out.

In college as an EE student, I always hated soldering. Thought it was a pain in the ass and a chore. I was using a better radio shack plug in iron.

About halfway through I bought an FX-951 with 1mm & 2mm chisel tips on recommendation of a friend.
Changed my life.
Soldering became fun and easy as fuck. A board that would take me an hour or so took me 15-30 minutes.
Best $200 I ever spent.
The 599B tip cleaner is god tier.

>>1114077
The whole idea of "you cant easily learn soldering basics on a cheap iron" is just fucking wrong.

The analogy you gave was even worse, because in the case of cheap low end welders they are actually useless and can hinder you from learning to weld.

Cheap soldering irons burn out and the tips dont last long. But they are still very functional, and for basic hole through PCB work they will work perfectly fine.

You said it yourself
>A board that would take me an hour or so took me 15-30 minutes.

It maybe takes a little more fiddling and a little more finesse, but the basic function is identical and you can easily get good results with either.

I and everyone I know pretty much started out on trash irons. Doing hacked up shit work has nothing to do with the iron

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My first soldering iron really pissed me off. It was a 5$ chinese "direct to mains" one and no matter what i did, the solder would bead up on the tip like oil to water no matter what i did. Felt like shit because i thought it was my fault for doing it wrong. Tried flux, tip cleaners, used "recommended" 60/40 rosin core solder... nothing helped. Then at one point i decided to get a real temp-controlled station and things went so smoothly it wasn't even funny. I was able to desolder DIP40 IC's and then solder on sockets for them using lead-free like it was nothing.

>>1114116
Me too. But what i did was file the tip, make new ones, find ways to get the little ball of solder to go where I wanted to (gravity, position, movement). I also learnt to avoid heating up the board. When the tools you have are less tolerant of fuck ups, you learn not to fuck up.

It is possible to solder with a nail held with a plier and heated with fire, that was how people built kit radios back in the day.

What about OKI/Metcal SmartHeat fixed temp ones ? I bought one myself because of for $70 i got power supply, a handle, like 20 different cartridges and a roll of very fine multicore solder. Heats superfast (but not fast enough for boards with massive ground layer, which need preheating).

>>1114121
Yes you can, but this wasn't so much about the ease of use, i was very annoyed at the poor quality of the joints. It felt more like i was destroying the board instead of fixing it...

>>1113443
I got a similar set for my son Christmas just gone. Was 15 English squids, so the set pictured seems a little expensive.

This was store's own brand 60w mains iron, solder, stand/sponge and IIRC a solder sucker. Basic iron + stand really has no features, so cheapest one is as good as anything else that's wired and the same wattage. Until you get to several times the price and build quality creeps up.

That's my experience with cheap and midrange wired ones anyway.

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>>1113443
EEE here:
I bought this Solomon many years ago for 50,- bucks. I thought I'd upgrade to a Weller one day, but that day never came...
It does everything except fine pitch SMD.

>>1113443
My rule for tools is always to buy the cheapest one I can find first and use it till I kill it, then replace it with the best I can find.

That way if you only use it once you aren't out a huge chunk of money, and if you use it twice you are likely to use it a third time.

>>1113709
>>1113725
Pete, go sleep in a tool box.

>>1113443
one great thing about using established brands or clones there of is that you know new tips will be available for years to come.

>wick
>pump

how do you guys live without a desoldering gun?

>>1115437
Wick tends to work better than the other options with plated through holes. Well, at least if you have good wick.

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>>1115437

Got one of these instead

>>1115448
better than a desoldering gun? I cant believe that.
I used a hakko desolderer(compressor type) at work for almost 6 years
wick can't compare, at least not any i've used.

>>1115455
so you need to change tip and wait for heat everytime you rework a pin? no thanks.

>>1113690
>Btw about Weller - don't bother with their "red plastic" ones, they're the budget line and probably aren't too different from the chinese clones.
Well that explains alot. I bought a red weller years ago before /diy/ ever existed and ended up giving it away because even my shitty radioshack one worked better.

Currently I use a super old nameless one I found in the basement of a house I rented a year ago

>>1115458
Yeah, less work to get holes open. I agree that a desoldering gun is superior with single-sided boards, though.

>>1115459
You need a separate sautering iron for that.

>>1115459
If you have a good soldering station like a hakko 888 or 951 the thing heats up in less than 20 seconds...

>>1115495
Are hakkos really that fast?

>>1115498

The 951 has tips directly integrated with the heater, this increases the responsiveness quite a bit. There are clones (generally also called 951) which copy this.

The coupling between heater and tip in the older Hakkos and their clones is a bit iffy (can be improved with a bit of graphite).

>>1115498
Not quite that fast, but still pretty fast apparently

https://youtu.be/dNZljb23Jok

>>1115588
My 951 will warm up in 15 seconds.

is soldering station so much better, than a soldering iron?

>>1115845
are you stupid?

>is soldering station so much better, than a soldering iron?

they tend to be better because they're built better, like using a more flexible cord that's burn resistant. but dollar-for-dollar there is no appreciable difference.

temperature control is not that important. you just hold it longer when you need more heat.

>>1113697
there are cheaper knockoffs that seem to fairly well buid
https://pl.aliexpress.com/store/product/HAKKO-FX-951-fx951-Digital-Soldering-Station-set-kit-Electric-soldering-iron-set-kit-75W-Replace/1770115_32441796375.html

>>1115851
thx man

Any recommendations on soldering iron/station I can buy in Germany?
Yihua's look overpriced here

>>1113443
I have literally that exact soldering station, and I got it like two weeks ago. It's pretty good, and the tip's miles ahead of any crappy pen iron. I suggest checking out the Aoyue 936 ($33) or 937+ ($60) instead, though - the former's basically the same as that iron but with a rudimentary temperature control (thermocouple in the hot part that varies wattage depending on temperature of the tip - the 936 only lets you have a constant wattage, so temperatures could vary on larger solders), and the latter's got that and a digital display.

That being said, you'd probably be pretty happy with any of them (including the 469) if you're just starting and you're on a budget. Definitely way better than a crappy pen one, which usually take about 15 years to heat up and are a step above a lighter and a paperclip.

>>1113716
To be honest I'm not exactly a professional, but I use cat5 wires for nearly everything low-power. The fact that you can get a fat bundle of 3+ foot wires from that old box of cables you have in your basement is amazing, and the wires are also ridiculously easy to solder and are just flexible enough to use in even somewhat mobile applications.

>>1113443
Casting another vote for the Hakko 888. You can buy combo packs with an assortment of tips or like $130 or just the iron for like $100. A good iron will make ALL THE DIFFERENCE learning to solder!

Beware of Hakko clones, even on Amazon and other reputable sellers. Fake Hakko 888s will have a very visible seam right down the middle of the blue body. The iron station should be heavy for it's size and the iron stand a heavy blue anodized metal.

Can't remember the brand I use but it keeps the temp on the tip from fluctuating within a few degrees during use. I have like 100 different tips for it, varying from shit that you use to take off microprocessors all the way down to tiny. I got it cheap when a telecommunications company left town and had a "garage sale"

I think I paid like $50. Shit retails for $600-$800.

My advice would be to read up on how to maintain your tips.

My opinion is that I like to purchase good quality tools, so thatwhen something happens, I know that the mistake was mine and not the machine's.

>>1118067
How do people even find these ``garage sales''?
Do they just list them on Craigslist or something?

where should i buy the iron accessories (i.e: solder, wick, flux, pump, stand)? should i order online via amazon or go to Fry's or RadioShack (i'm in US).

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I've been using an Antex 690D for a few years now, wouldn't change it for anything, except maybe for a Weller. It is quite cheap, the tips are really durable compared to the Weller's ones (especially when it comes to lead free soldering) and they come in a large variety of shapes and forms. It heats up very quickly and the temperature is very stable.

>>1118086
Very, VERY good advice.

>>1118090
Word of mouth and paying attention to what's going on in your town. Sometimes they do post stuff like that on Craigslist though.

>>1118086
"A poor craftsman blames his tools"

Words to live by.

I've been using a cheap as fuck Solomon 40W hand iron for over ten years to do /diy/ projects and repair work on broken electronics. Can go down to soldering 0402/01005 smd parts without any magnification or effort. I've also had the opportunity to use very expensive soldering stations. Yes, they are very pleasant to work with, temperature control is good, the cords are way better, more flexible, the irons themselves feel more ergonomic, but if you're just starting out and not even sure about if you'll continue on your electronics hobby you'll just pay a lot of money for tools expecting they'll do the work for you, but ending up collecting dust for you.

>"A poor craftsman blames his tools"
And a good craftsman can craft the shit out of shit with shit tools. Don't be the former, be the latter and when you feel you're ready treat yourself to a respectable brand.

>tfw just got my hakko soldering station in the mail
It's so fucking nice not having to wait 10 minutes for the iron to heat up bros

>>1114129
Metcals are what pros use and are really expensive new, sounds like you got a good deal.