What Soldering Station to Buy

[deep six]

After doing much research, and taking into account I have 5 machines, none of which work, I decided I should probably get myself a decent soldering station, time to chuck out the old pencil soldering iron that never did work very well.
Did a quick search on Ebay but immediately overwhelmed by the amount of different setups available.
Can anyone advise what would be a good setup to buy, guessing I will be spending around $100. Probably light use, first use will be to solder in my new flipper coil for the Gottlieb Wipeout, after that possibly start poking around some boards, de-soldering and re-soldering components.
Any advise appreciated

Cheers

Ric

[deadlydave]

Hi Ric
Been through the same dilemma !!
I really wanted a genuine weller or hakko but could
Not justify the expense, I ended up getting a Atten 936
(hakko knockoff). Probably had around ten hours use
With no dramas and very happy with it. I am using a genuine
Hakko tip though and I could see the quality diff in tips when
Compared side by side. Not sure if using the genuine tip has helped
With overall performance.
Think I paid around $70 for iron, and tip from local electronics
Shop was around $25. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Dave

[Strangeways]

Soldering Iron is an important tool. Good advice would be to buy a soldering station with temperature control and a good selection of tips. I've had really good Soldering Stations - like "Royal", but they don't make them anymore. That soldering station is almost 30 years old and STILL works.

OK - Dick Smith have a decent range - more than Jaycar - but it would be worth looking at both stores to see which one you like.

Here's an entry level station;

http://dicksmith.com.au/product/T1976/adjustable-temperature-soldering-station

More advanced;

http://dicksmith.com.au/product/T2200/temperature-controlled-soldering-station

This station looks like a copy of the Weller Station

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=TS1564&CATID=29&form=CAT&SUBCATID=627


eBay Stations are more "hit and miss". At leat with a store you can buy tips etc - which is great for the hobbyist.

[Steevsee]

+1 For Dick Smith

I use a T2200 which I have owned for about the last 10 years.

[63wizz]

Dick Smith works fine for me.

Ian

[Redback]

I'm really liking my
Anyoe from ludtronics $48 came with a couple spare tips.
Adjustable temp, solder gun/wire holder

Starting to get a lot of use,

Red

ps also bought the induction unit, over $100 and not getting any use.   ... yet

[Marty Machine]

Just last week i picked up a PACE MBT-350-3Channel solder/smd/rework station, only cost $3k, but now i can un/solder anything ;-)

It has a thin pencil iron, with assorted tips, the finest tip is about the size of an atom, damn its fine....(perhaps i can solder atoms together now?)
Secondly, there's the vacuum desolderer with assorted size tips for different pad-sizes.
Thirdly are the solder tweezers, basically 2 mini irons in a tweezer handle with twin tips (assorted sizes) to heat & lift SMD components off a board in 0.5secs  ;-)

oh yeh, the tips go from cold to 350degrees in 6secs!!

Now i can move forward with a whole shipload of projects i have in the pipeline....

At the end of the day, no matter what you buy, just make sure you CAN get spare tips, internal heater elements and whatever else might die or break over time.....

Some of the ebay/chinese imports are great for what they do, and cheap, so you should consider buying 2 (or more) to use for spares sometime down the line.....

MM.

[Redback]

Wow,

3g you must do a lot of board work.

For the hobbiest (sp?)

http://www.ludatronics.com.au/

Regards,
Red

[Marty Machine]

Wow,
3g you must do a lot of board work.

A little, but i'll certainly do more now, coz i can ;-)