Please recommend me a new soldering station to be used in the UK. Looking at a Weller unit.
I would get this one
1 Like
I bought an Atten 8586 and it has both soldering and hot air. I’ve had it for over a year now and it gets used almost daily. Good idea to order extra tips for it and with the larger ones you can do good SMD work if you use tacky flux and flood solder them.
I use the hot air pen a lot more for heat shrink but it has been used a few times to rework boards.
Best bargain I ever got and loads on eBay. Here’s just one.
1 Like
I use one similar to the one Architect linked to and love it. In fact, it probably is the same one but sells under the name of Kada. I’d definitely recommend one with hot air. If you’ve never used it, you don’t know what you’re missing.
It’s also worth mentioning that I have 10 of these that we use for soldering workshops. For the money, it’s one heck of a deal. We’ve had a couple crap out every once in a while but its usually just a matter of soldering on a new fuse or something else simple due to sloppy Chinese construction.
I use the one that Dave recommends too. I use it a lot and it sure helps with patching what the reflow oven struggles with as far as the hot air is concerned. Iron has a good temp range and control.
thanks for the links, I will do comparisons.
Another vote for the Aten 8586 dual station (got mine on ebay as well)
I also like Hakko soldering stations.
If I understand correctly, Atten and Aoyue mostly produce(d) clones of Hakko stuff. It’s good stuff (I own a clone myself), but Hakko is the “real deal” (and is priced accordingly).