Dragonite | 17 Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 I’ve been looking on the bay at soldering station in the $50 range and was wondering if anyone has any recommendations. I don’t remove chips but been playing with most all other repairs on old systems and battery replacements. I’ve been using a cheap iron and just looking for something that would been the next step up. Thank you for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gloves | 11,824 Administrator · Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 Is there something your current one doesn't do that you're hoping a "step up" would accomplish? A soldering iron is really just heating up solder, it doesn't really have to be fancy in my experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khromak | 770 Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 (edited) This is the one I'm using, but it might be over $50 if you include tips and handle etc. Oh, and it's mentioned in the video but the best things about a better station are consistency of heat. If you're on a big heat sink you can lose the heat in your iron fast. Plus you can dial in specific temps as opposed to just a dial with general ranges. Edited March 18, 2021 by Khromak 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonite | 17 Posted March 18, 2021 Author Share Posted March 18, 2021 24 minutes ago, Gloves said: Is there something your current one doesn't do that you're hoping a "step up" would accomplish? A soldering iron is really just heating up solder, it doesn't really have to be fancy in my experience. Looking for something that I can control the heat on better. The one I have has a screw Dial and always seems to be to hot or to cold. I feel like I’m having to constantly mess with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonite | 17 Posted March 18, 2021 Author Share Posted March 18, 2021 1 hour ago, Khromak said: This is the one I'm using, but it might be over $50 if you include tips and handle etc. Oh, and it's mentioned in the video but the best things about a better station are consistency of heat. If you're on a big heat sink you can lose the heat in your iron fast. Plus you can dial in specific temps as opposed to just a dial with general ranges. This is great thank you. Found one shipping from California for $59.99 which includes the handle he talks about in the video and the knife tip. So just one more question, will any of the t12 tips work in this model? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khromak | 770 Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 8 hours ago, Dragonite said: This is great thank you. Found one shipping from California for $59.99 which includes the handle he talks about in the video and the knife tip. So just one more question, will any of the t12 tips work in this model? Yeah they all work, I picked up a pack of the tips with like ~20 different styles and they're easy plug-and-play. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNESNESCUBE64 | 552 Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 I was thinking about getting one of the kesger irons for my tool box. I am tired of constantly having to remove my hakko from my bench. Maybe I should finally buy one... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bowser | 600 Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 Does anyone have feedback on X-Tronic soldering stations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056 Posted March 19, 2021 Share Posted March 19, 2021 I have a Hakko that I love and many of the production people at my work (make power supplies) use them as well 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austin532 | 467 Posted March 19, 2021 Share Posted March 19, 2021 On 3/17/2021 at 8:53 PM, Dragonite said: This is great thank you. Found one shipping from California for $59.99 which includes the handle he talks about in the video and the knife tip. So just one more question, will any of the t12 tips work in this model? I use this and recommended it as well. However since different companies use the same design, I recommend opening it up and make sure it is indeed good quality inside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sumez | 2,989 Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 (edited) If your budget is around $50, you can't really do much better than the TS100. In fact even if your budget was several times as big, it would probably still be your best bet. It looks like a cheap china product, and it kinda is... except it's really, really good. It heats up to full temperature in a matter of few seconds (I had to see it to believe it), so you can pretty much just turn it off whenever you're not using it, without needing to wait for it to heat back up. Due to how light it is, you crazy good precision, like using a pen, and it's easy to carry around with you or reach annoying areas. It trasfers heat exceptionally well, and is overall on the level of much, much more expensive stations. It gave me a much easier time soldering a lot of things I didn't think could be improved from my old soldering iron. I tried a friend's some years ago, and went out and got my own immediately after. Haven't used my old big soldering station since. Edited March 21, 2021 by Sumez 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonite | 17 Posted March 24, 2021 Author Share Posted March 24, 2021 (edited) On 3/21/2021 at 5:21 AM, Sumez said: If your budget is around $50, you can't really do much better than the TS100. In fact even if your budget was several times as big, it would probably still be your best bet. It looks like a cheap china product, and it kinda is... except it's really, really good. It heats up to full temperature in a matter of few seconds (I had to see it to believe it), so you can pretty much just turn it off whenever you're not using it, without needing to wait for it to heat back up. Due to how light it is, you crazy good precision, like using a pen, and it's easy to carry around with you or reach annoying areas. It trasfers heat exceptionally well, and is overall on the level of much, much more expensive stations. It gave me a much easier time soldering a lot of things I didn't think could be improved from my old soldering iron. I tried a friend's some years ago, and went out and got my own immediately after. Haven't used my old big soldering station since. Thank you for the info but I ended up buying the Ksger T12 that Khromak recommended. Just waiting for it to arrive. Edited March 24, 2021 by Dragonite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireHazard51 | 2,051 Social Team · Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 On 3/21/2021 at 6:21 AM, Sumez said: If your budget is around $50, you can't really do much better than the TS100. In fact even if your budget was several times as big, it would probably still be your best bet. It looks like a cheap china product, and it kinda is... except it's really, really good. It heats up to full temperature in a matter of few seconds (I had to see it to believe it), so you can pretty much just turn it off whenever you're not using it, without needing to wait for it to heat back up. Due to how light it is, you crazy good precision, like using a pen, and it's easy to carry around with you or reach annoying areas. It trasfers heat exceptionally well, and is overall on the level of much, much more expensive stations. It gave me a much easier time soldering a lot of things I didn't think could be improved from my old soldering iron. I tried a friend's some years ago, and went out and got my own immediately after. Haven't used my old big soldering station since. In that photo the guy bridged FOUR chip sides.....I guess they didn't get the smoke trail they wanted and had to keep using a ton of solder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sumez | 2,989 Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 Lol yeah there's a lot of stuff not quite right in that picture, but I just went for one demonstrating its size 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jono1874 | 144 Posted March 25, 2021 Share Posted March 25, 2021 On 3/18/2021 at 2:35 PM, bowser said: Does anyone have feedback on X-Tronic soldering stations? I used an x-tronic 3010 for about a year. It was decent, and I was able to effortlessly recap several Game Gears with it. I ended up replacing it with the KSGER in the video posted above, which is much better. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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