Much appreciate the video review. “Not the worst …”
Soldered instead of crimped connection for the ground wire, “better than nothing” …
…
“Check out the PCB and yes, it does look as bad as you’d expect …”
Wonderful.
I wish speech-to-text would handle the Australian accent — this review deserves to be in searchable text.
I got one 2 + yrs ago. Very good buy. $27.07 . $15.62 +SHP. HK has some screwy prices . Going to the Link NOT LOGED IN I get a price of $18.34 changing to $17.03 . If I am Loged in $17.69 is all I see. I clean 2 Cookies in FF and get a price of $17.03 .
The three prices for most items are advertised price, member price (all new members are Gold Members), and Platinum Member price.
$18.34 - advertised
$17.69 - Gold Member
$17.03 - Platinum Member
Unfortunately due to the complex way HK handles advertising w/ the advertised price and using “one time offers” with the Platinum price and some other shenanigans it’s easy to get stuck with wrongly priced items.
Bump - now $11.00 + shipping from USA-West Warehouse
Just ran across this thread while searching for info on soldering stations, and followed the year-old link just out of curiosity. Turns out the price is even better now! Be sure you select US Warehouse from the drop-down, if the link doesn’t take you straight there. Shipping to northeastern US was ~$9 for me, so total was around $20 ($21 after I added some cheap epoxy).
If you’re a new customer, and if you goof around on the site for a little while, they might give you a pop-up ad offering a further discount - I ended up getting this solder station for $10.22 before shipping. (apparently Platinum Member Pricing?)
HTH!
Andy
I had tried to pull the trigger on this model for a couple of months now, and just couldn’t hit the enter button. I just happened to go back earlier this week, and saw the new price. Needless to say, I just got shipping notification. Still had the old one in the cart, and it was over $30 shipped, I couldn’t resist this time.
I got the same price, $10.22 plus shipping.
Just leave the webpage open for a while and the pop-up ad offering the lower price will appear.
$11.00 was good enough for me not to wait. Came to $21 with SH - yeah I can deal with that.
For $10.22 I figured I would give it a shot… Less than $20 with shipping (FedEx was cheapest!) will give it a whirl…
Has anyone found a good deal on some genuine Hakko tips to use with this?
$10.22 with $9.64 shipping for me. Ordered. Thanx for the heads up!
Just bought one for 19.85 shipped but I hope it’s better than the last one, used once and was broken when I tried to use it the second time.
I think that the best prices I’ve seen in the USA are from Sparkfun: $7 + shipping. I ordered one of these stations for a friend during a brief promotion at the Chinese warehouse a while back. It came with a very sharp tip (eg hard to use). I’ve loaned my friend a genuine Hakko tip to try instead recently, but I don’t know if they’ve tried it beyond physically installing it. If that seems to work well we’ll probably try out one of the cheapy 10pc tip sets to go with the cheapy soldering station.
EDIT: The trick with the genuine Hakko tips is that aside from examining the quality (wall thickness, weight, etc) it’s pretty easy to fake these tips! If a person does not order directly from a trusted reseller there is no way to be confident that an original has been purchased. $1 is obviously a fake. $7+SH from a trusted source is genuine. What is $5 from a random seller? Clearly that’s enough money to produce a lookalike with appropriate packaging and markings…
Thanks Wight. I was on the fence about buying the clone a few times, but with the shipping to AU it bumps the price up a bit more. Then add on more $$ just to get the good tips…
I know that one day my ~30 year old Weller will pack up it’s bags, & I’d like to have a replacement. I think ‘for a few dollars more’, I’d rather get the Genuine Hakko 888d, which comes with a variety of tips.
I’ll do my best to post back here about the clone tips if they get purchased. Now that I think about it though, I think that I may already have clone tips packed up somewhere that I could give to my friend.
As far as the FX-888D: It only comes with a variety of tips if you pay extra to get a variety of tips. The ~$99 version includes a single tip. I’ve been very happy with my FX-888 . The tip I loaned to my friend is Hakko’s T18-D16 - a very good tip I think. In a few minutes I’ll try out Hakko’s T18-C3 which is a ‘hoof’ tip.
Edit: I’m surprised HK hasn’t put some of those in the Australian warehouse…
I’ve just been looking into a unit known as BK950D from Bakon. It uses Hakko’s fancy T12 type tips/heater combos (eg the type used on Hakko’s FX-951 unit). From a the small amount of reading I’ve done it sounds really great for the price… it’s quite small, apparently has a real tip temp readout, and ~$32-$40 depending on source (eBay sellers also carry the BK950D).
BK950D - http://www.banggood.com/BAKON-950D-75W-Mini-Portable-Digital-Soldering-Station-with-T12-Tip-p-982824.html
T12-D16 tip - 1 Stück T12-D16 Lötkolbenspitze für Hakkoo FX-951 FX-952 Lötstation Sale - Banggood Deutschland sold out-arrival notice-arrival notice
T12 tip set - http://www.banggood.com/T12-Series-Solder-Iron-Tips-for-Hakko-Soldering-Station-FX-951-FX-952-p-932701.html
The Achilles heel seems to be that there is little/no factory calibration done for the temp readout. This is a common problem with budget units anyway, but I suspect that the problem is more bothersome to most people when looking at the digital readout. Using a tip thermometer to calibrate is the correct thing to do about it, but most people shopping for a budget iron can’t afford a tip thermometer to go with their unit.
Here is a tip thermometer that is certainly not a real Hakko unit. I wonder if it’s any good?
$15 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/HAKKO-191-Tip-Thermometer-Solder-Iron-Tip-Digital-Tester-/121545354484
Actually BG has an even cheaper unit with a 10 pack of the sensor wires. Again, clearly a fake but it has good reviews…
$12 - DANIU FG-100 Lötkolbenspitzenthermometer Temperaturtester 0-700℃ Sale - Banggood Deutschland sold out-arrival notice
… so to me it’s looking like $32 on eBay (BK950D) + $4 on BG (T12-D16 clone) + $12 on BG (FG-100 clone) = $48 for a tiny soldering station… which might actually be good and might actually be 75W as claimed.
For $18 delivered, I finally pulled the trigger on this 936 clone. I’ve been using a cheap 25W rat shack pencil iron since forever and the ‘club foot’ tip is soo pitted, I decided rather than another $5 junk RS tip, finally get a better iron. I have a Weller 140W gun for the heavy stuff. I have done plenty of soldering many years ago, …but before there was SMD. Yes, I actually managed to rework SMD 0603 with that RS iron!
I haven’t played much with this new 936, but it does heat up so much faster and will make mods so much easier. The fine point tip it comes with is of limited use though.
I am planning on ordering some quality tips for the 936; either Hakko or Plato. Has anyone ordered from ZORO? They carry a selection of both tips at good prices, $5 shipping. I will get several chisel tips from 1.2mm to 3.2mm sizes.
…I will spend more for a few quality tips than for the iron though……
Yes, I’ve ordered from Zoro several times. They occasionally have good sales (%off, $x off a $y purchase, free shipping, etc.) so if you’re not in a hurry you might wait for that. They also have an ebay store, same stuff, occasionally slightly cheaper or offering different promos. I’ve ordered several types of safety equipment (hard hats, gloves, safety glasses, respirator, etc.), a few metal gas cans, various tools, etc. Always quick shipping and accurate orders. They’re a subsidiary of Grainger, which is one of the huge (and seemingly well-respected) industrial supply companies.
No affiliation, but definitely recommended if you want a reputable source!
HTH
Thanks Andyman, for the feedback on Zoro. I saw their ads on ebay, same price and shipping so I’ll place the order direct with Zoro. I’ll get a couple Hakko and Plato to compare. Plato has a good quality rep as well, with just a bit less $. I’d rather have one quality tip, the right fit, size & shape, than 5 or 10 like the one that came with the iron. I don’t solder that often so should last quite a few years with care.
as far as a tip thermometer goes, can we just use an IR gun ??