Recommendations for a Soldering Iron Station

Here's some info and a good solder station recommended...

New Hakko Digital Solder Iron and FET | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

Hakko fx888... I dumped all my old school irons after I had the Hakko for about a month.  Not expensive,  Iron heats up fast,  excellent control.  The biggest thing for me was a good articulated, lighted magnifier so I could see what I was working on.

Just found this on the 888 tips... they have others for other models...

http://lincolnequipmentliquida...earch/Hakko-888-Tips

I agree, once I used the 888 I don't want to go back. 

or ...Best Soldering Station | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum (ogaugerr.com)

For holding stuff, I use KOTTO Helping Hands Holders.  They have nice heavy bases and you can position the arms in all kinds of crazy positions.  I'll have to check out this Hakko.  I've yet to find a soldering iron I like.

Hakko. Do a search as this has been discussed to death and Hakko is the overwhelming favorite,

I recently picked up another Hakko iron to work under the layout.  My FX-888D is on the bench, and it stays there, so I am using the

Hakko FX601-02 Adjustable Temperature Controlled Soldering Iron, 67 Watts for when I go on the road.  The one change I made was to buy the HAKKO Cap nut, Protective pipe set B3730 Soldering iron tip so I could use the more commonly available T18 tips for the iron.  The new iron proved itself in wiring all my switches, so it's a keeper.   It also has a calibration feature, something that I insist on for any iron I buy going forward except for stuff like the Weller 100/140W gun I use for track work.

By the way, I bought the Hakko DEsoldering gun. Too expensive until I used it to remove a 16 pin LCD display last year. Incredibly easy. Swish swish swish 16 times and done!

Hi, I've worked in the electronic repair business for over 30 years.  We've always used the Weller WTCP solder stations with great success, but it's now obsolete and repair parts are hard to find.  Looking for a replacement, we bought two Hakko FX-888D (around $110.00) stations and two Weller WE1010NA (around $130.00) to try out.  While they're both really nice solder stations, we've decided to go with Weller since the Hakko didn't deliver enough heat when de-soldering component (mostly electrolytic capacitor) ground wires on double sided boards with lots board area to dissipate heat.  The Hakko is spec'd out to have 5 more watts at the tip, but in practice, the Weller seems to have more power at the same temperature setting.
If you wanted to spend more, the Hakko FX-951-66 at around $270.00 is a truly amazing solder station!
Hope this helps.

Dave

Thank you everyone for the responses. After reading them I went out to Micro Center and picked up the Hakko FX 888 with a set of tips. I also decided to go with the QuadHands helping hands since it’s made in South Carolina and is pretty hefty.

Again, thank you for the help!