Soldering iron recommendations

ThePrettyDamned

Found a review of the atten soldering Station I was looking at on YouTube and it seems it's a piece of junk.

Maybe I'll stay away from building pedals for a while. 

Ossyrocks

I went to the Hakko site and added the station plus various bits to the basket. Price does not include VAT or shipping, but with those added on it came to around £200. So, I hesitated.

I've just asked DWJ what he uses and recommends, and it's also the bloody Hakko FX888D. 

I'm just going to have to bite the bullet.

Philtre

I got my Hakko FX888D for £125 incl. VAT in Feb 2018. So gone up a bit in price.

Dave_Mc

Ossyrocks said:

robinbowes said:

Yeah, the Hakkos are great. Watch out for fakes. Buy from here:

https://www.hakko.co.uk/product/fx-888d-digital-soldering-station-silver/

I’m going to go for one of these, my Weller has just bitten the dust.

I have a question about tips. The kit comes as standard with a T-18B, but the others available are a little bewildering. Can anyone recommend a couple of other useful tips? I’ll be mostly working on vintage amps.

Cheers

I think I'm using the T-18 C3, but I'm only doing guitar soldering (plus I haven't tried anywhere near all of them). IIRC @sixstringsupplies was using a completely different-looking tip in his Youtube vids!   EDIT: I could be wrong but I think the B has a flat end whereas the C is slightly curved outwards, and I found the curved one slightly easier to use.

normula1

I picked up one of these last week purely to solder pickup covers on as my very ancient and incredibly dodgy Weller finally totally died (the thermal sensor had long ago turned to carbon dust so the iron got hotter and hotter, but with a big piece of insulation wrapped around the handle to save my fingers was pretty good for soldering on the covers )

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08P6HGDGT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

No idea how long it'll last but I reckon for occasional use it's going to get £20 was a bargain. 


Update: this iron is remarkably good for soldering covers on. Cranked it to the max, cover was firmly soldered on in a couple of seconds per side.

Ossyrocks

Dave_Mc said:

Ossyrocks said:

robinbowes said:

Yeah, the Hakkos are great. Watch out for fakes. Buy from here:

https://www.hakko.co.uk/product/fx-888d-digital-soldering-station-silver/

I’m going to go for one of these, my Weller has just bitten the dust.

I have a question about tips. The kit comes as standard with a T-18B, but the others available are a little bewildering. Can anyone recommend a couple of other useful tips? I’ll be mostly working on vintage amps.

Cheers

I think I'm using the T-18 C3, but I'm only doing guitar soldering (plus I haven't tried anywhere near all of them). IIRC @sixstringsupplies was using a completely different-looking tip in his Youtube vids!   EDIT: I could be wrong but I think the B has a flat end whereas the C is slightly curved outwards, and I found the curved one slightly easier to use.

I've done it. Ordered three other tips too. This has been a very useful thread, thanks all.

FelineGuitars

TrentGuitars said:

Lovely, I'm going to get a XS25 to tide me over - they have an excellent rep and then once I get even busier I'll pick up a Hakko and have the XS25 with a big tip on it for utility tasks,

Thanks so much gang.

Here  is the chisel tip that I love so much for pots

https://www.antex.co.uk/products/replacement-bits/for-models-xs-mlxs-and-older-x25/b005260/

Ossyrocks

@FelineGuitars ^ that's very much like the one on my XS25. Thanks for the info though, it's reassuring.

TrentGuitars

FelineGuitars said:

TrentGuitars said:

Lovely, I'm going to get a XS25 to tide me over - they have an excellent rep and then once I get even busier I'll pick up a Hakko and have the XS25 with a big tip on it for utility tasks,

Thanks so much gang.

Here  is the chisel tip that I love so much for pots

https://www.antex.co.uk/products/replacement-bits/for-models-xs-mlxs-and-older-x25/b005260/

Thank you kindly @FelineGuitars !

TrentGuitars

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HAKKO-FX-888D-Soldering-Station-70W/dp/B08VBHY78F/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=hakko&qid=1626113246&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExMFYxTko0RDJZS0REJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMzc4NzgyWERYRUcxUjY5QVZHJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyMjQzOTQzSFhQSjBSN05CS1RBJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ&th=1


Are Amazon at the risk of being non genuine?

Philtre

TrentGuitars said:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HAKKO-FX-888D-Soldering-Station-70W/dp/B08VBHY78F/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=hakko&qid=1626113246&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExMFYxTko0RDJZS0REJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMzc4NzgyWERYRUcxUjY5QVZHJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyMjQzOTQzSFhQSjBSN05CS1RBJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ&th=1


Are Amazon at the risk of being non genuine?

I got mine from Amazon 3 years ago and it's genuine.

With that listing I'd be more concerned about: "Usually dispatched within 1 to 2 months"

TrentGuitars

Ah yes, that was on the non prime one, the one without the extra tips is next day

Philtre

TrentGuitars said:

Ah yes, that was on the non prime one, the one without the extra tips is next day

Didn't see that one, right-o. If it's fake send it back.

TrentGuitars

Ok, it's on the way!

Dave_Mc

Ossyrocks said:

Dave_Mc said:

Ossyrocks said:

robinbowes said:

Yeah, the Hakkos are great. Watch out for fakes. Buy from here:

https://www.hakko.co.uk/product/fx-888d-digital-soldering-station-silver/

I’m going to go for one of these, my Weller has just bitten the dust.

I have a question about tips. The kit comes as standard with a T-18B, but the others available are a little bewildering. Can anyone recommend a couple of other useful tips? I’ll be mostly working on vintage amps.

Cheers

I think I'm using the T-18 C3, but I'm only doing guitar soldering (plus I haven't tried anywhere near all of them). IIRC @sixstringsupplies was using a completely different-looking tip in his Youtube vids!   EDIT: I could be wrong but I think the B has a flat end whereas the C is slightly curved outwards, and I found the curved one slightly easier to use.

I've done it. Ordered three other tips too. This has been a very useful thread, thanks all.

Nice!  

TrentGuitars said:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/HAKKO-FX-888D-Soldering-Station-70W/dp/B08VBHY78F/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=hakko&qid=1626113246&sr=8-1-spons&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExMFYxTko0RDJZS0REJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMzc4NzgyWERYRUcxUjY5QVZHJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyMjQzOTQzSFhQSjBSN05CS1RBJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ&th=1


Are Amazon at the risk of being non genuine?

I think it should be ok if it's actually sold by Amazon.

TrentGuitars

Just got mine and did the full strip down, it’s completely genuine 

normula1

Dave_Mc said:

I think it should be ok if it's actually sold by Amazon.

A colleague mentioned a few days ago that where an item is sold by Amazon, they basically get supply from "wherever" and stick in a container in the Warehouse and the item is removed and sold at random. So in theory it's actually more likely to be non-genuine as they won't know who / when an individual item was supplied to them..

I'd like to think that in this day and age of everything being tracked to the n'th degree this wouldn't be true, but who knows?

TrentGuitars

Well mine is genuine, not sure Amazon can afford to be associated with fakes?

Danny1969

Amazon is awash with fakes of everything and they don't give a shit even when it's pointed out by qualified people that some of the products they allow to be sold can cause fires and kill people. 

Amazon sell things directly but they also stock and ship from third parties and lastly and worse ... allow people to sell anything on Amazon directly shipped from home. There's several back doors to list stuff without the correct ASIN ... that's how we got started selling on there. 

We used to sell around 30 to 40Ks worth a month on Amazon. Mainly batteries, chargers and other electronic. All  products were genuine Dell, IBM, HP etc with the correct short circuit / over current protection and built to the correct safety standard for 240V products. After a while we noticed other sellers were advertising the supposed same products for half the price and I suspected they were fake. So I purchased some for examination and sure enough, complete fakes made with none of the protection circuits or shielding required by law. They were half the weight and poorly glued together. There was no required  separation on the board between the directly rectified 240 side and the secondary. 
I contacted Amazon and told them, they weren't interested. I emailed  them a picture of a charger that had blown apart when exposed to 250V, they weren't interested. I pointed out all the chargers I purchased had the same identical serial number sticker and they weren't interested. 
None of the listings were removed and we gave up selling genuine spares on a site awash with cheap fakes. 

I buy on Amazon myself but there's certain things I won't buy for safety reasons. I'm not gonna risk a fire to save £20

TrentGuitars

I can't believe you're ruining new tool day for me like this