Weller make stations. Weller make some seriously professional stuff well over $1k. They also make some hobby oriented stuff of great quality for usually $200 or thereabouts, Ive seen them for $250. But a post was made where one was available for $150, no hot air gun though.
Theres another thread or two here where what I think is a couple of different Chinese stations with hot air and iron are both lauded and condemned. Aoyue (I think its spelled that way) and a YiHua.
A station with hot air could be very nice for sense resistors and LED reflow. It'd also be nice for through hole capacitors in other electronics. A rework station may have a soldering iron with a hollow tip that sucks up solder, which again would be very nice for through hole capacitors.
You could also go cheap and get a butane soldering iron. Some people still buy those to go along with their soldering stations.
If I were buying a station now I’d probably get one of the combined hot air rework and solder pen stations.
I have Atten 858D+ hot air rework station, and Aoyue 936. Reflow with solder pen and butane torch is possible with care, fine tip etc, but it’s harder to get consistently nice results.
I’ve been repairing electronics for decades and finally upgraded to a hot air station. I went all out and got this AOYUE 866
I use the preheater to re-flow LEDs. It works great.
Looks nice and the price is very reasonable. I've been using Weller Soldering Stations since the late 70's. Before that, just regular Weller 40 watt irons. My latest one is the WESD51 which is now 10 years old with no issues. BTW, I've also been fixing electronics for 40+ years. I'm now mostly retired. I fix old tube guitar amps on occasion these days.
Oh yeah, I have a SparkFun 303D SMD Rework Station as well.
Going and paying for a name brand usually will assure you of ample replacement parts, likely a better standard of QC and a solid warranty. Some people have great experiences with clones. Some do not. Short of an IC lab or clean room assembly line, any of the eBay hot air/iron clones should serve you well but check on the warranty. Buy from a US seller in any case. Shipping costs back to China will make any return from the US cost prohibitive. Another caveat: some name brand companies will only honor a warranty on a product sold in an authorized retail channel.
Like anything else, there are boutique soldering stations just as there are exotic cars, exotic guns and exotic flashlights. You can easily drop 1G for soldering cachet.
I used to build Heathkit and Dynaco amplifier kits with 40 watt irons. Yeah, 40 watts is more than enough power. Maybe too much power or heat for small circuits if you're not careful. Regular non temperature controlled soldering irons get very hot so you have to to be quick with your joints. This is why I recommend a soldering station where you can control the temps. I usually solder at 700F.
Just purchased a hakko 888d from Amazon. I used it for the first time about an hour ago, had an old 502b that I havent messed with yet. I couldnt believe how fast it was up to temp. (800) 30 seconds max. Works like a charm and maintains temp. I could actually solder the proper way now without touching the solder to the tip. Great unit, not cheap at almost 100 dollars, but is well made and hopefully I will get some time out of it, its been a hassle playing with sub par irons. The 888d is 70watts, 65 on the iron.
Definitely consider the Hakko Presto. 40 watts is good for general purpose electronic soldering but you’ll have a hard time unsoldering a board from a pill because it simply draws heat away too fast. But the turbo button on the Presto is 120 watts. I’ve soldered 4 gauge automotive power cable with it and generous use of the turbo button and a chisel tip.
Also Hakko tips are the longest lasting when taken care of. Weller tips seem to pit and corrode a lot easier, within a few dozen hours of use. My Hakko’s been going strong for years with not sign of pitting, just take care of them, clean them well, I don’t use brass wool. At most I use scotch bright when it’s cool and don’t clean while hot to prevent nicking the tinning.
If you’re looking for a simple budget-friendly iron, try this. You have to take into account shipping is another $15 though. So basically it’s a $30 set-up. I use it for lights- sometimes I wish it got a little hotter. I think it’s about 50 watts.
99% Sure this is the same one at MCM Electronics. MCM frequently has this one on sale (currently $19.99 on page 74 of the "Catalog Highlights" flyer using source/discount code "WA401") and can often catch a $5 or $6 shipping special weekend (one just ended). You can even view their sales/promo flyers online (and they give you the "source code" to enter for the discounted price). They ship next day and ship out of Ohio. I do see it's on backorder now though!
i solder everything with weller 25watts iron, that i paid about 10-15 bucks for. i reflow leds on gas stove on tiny frying pan. never had any problem with any of those 2 tools. (well if you solder very thick wires, than you’ll need 90W iron, but for anything falshlight and house electrronic related 25w seems more than enough to me.
not to be rude and all, but i don’t see why anyone that is not a lab tech in a lab would need to spend more than 20 bucks on soldering iron, and why he’d need station at all. i do without them just fine.
i think it is an overkill.