Hakko is what everyone recommends but I have no idea why. It's awful stuff with a design from the 80s. The UI is awful and inscrutable without the manual, the tech is long obsolete.
Get a TS80 or something else that's actually modern -- it has excellent temperature control with a tightly integrated thermocouple like one of the expensive Hakkos (FX951), but costs less and actually displays stuff in readable English. It also has nice features like using an accelerometer to sense its own orientation and turn itself off if you leave it lying around, instead of burning a hole through your desk.
yeah my god. These Chinese soldering stations that can accept JBC cartridges are _absolutely_ the way to go these days. The TS80 is not particularly ergonomic, but the thermal regulation and variety of tips just absolutely eclipse the 888 at a fraction of the cost. I see these units from SUGON and JABE which have the separate base station and JBC-like handpiece. Those seem like the ticket.
Every company besides the chinese companies like Pine, Miniware have the same stratification of soldering equipment.
Hakko 888 is cheap, and has old style carts. Weller has a similar offering. For the $300-range you get the 'proper' thermocouple-integrated tips like the FX951, and Weller likewise has a similar offering. JBC is a premium brand so they don't have low-end stuff, but their pricing isn't too far out of that range ($500ish?).
I agree the Hakko 888 is an outdated recommendation, but it's not really like their company strategy is just outdated. They're business-first, which desires having a full soldering station... not a portable thing like the Miniware/Pine stuff.
What I mean is that the FX951 is a bad offering in modern times. I mean, a 7 segment display and looking up codes in a manual in 2023? Come on! A proper display is a tiny fraction of the cost of any Hakko product, and would be far more pleasant to use.
They're just resting on their laurels. There's cheaper and less known brands that make far better products because they take advantage of things like decent micro-controllers, displays and accelerometers that have existed for decades now.
You could say they are medium range units (especially since the models usually recommended are not the very lowest end models of those brands), but the gap between a cheapo from the hardware store and a Hakko is like 10x bigger than the gap from Hakko to the highest end model for a professional PCB assembler. Incidentally I work in aerospace and I rarely see anything in lab besides Hakko 800 series, 900 series, or 200 series (rework station).
The new wellers are very good. I have a weller WE101, a Weller Curie-point iron from the mid 2000s and a Metcal 5200. I also have a Metcal rework station at work which was actually cheap for a metcal rework station at just under $10K. The rework station came with almost all of the screws rattling around the preheater and the heating profile menu is so convoluted its barely usable. The new 5200 I have spontaneously goes into a calibration menu that I cant find documentation on.
The older metcals we have a re more rugged although the older 500 series doesn't actually turn off the main power supply when you flip the on/off switch to "off" (look at the schematic online if you don't believe me) only the regulators turn off. The WE101 is rock solid although most people that solder alot don't use temperature adjustment, but I keep it around in case I ever do need it.
Point is, any weirdness with the metcals are made up for with their selection of tips and the heating speed even when soldering components to chassis' or ground planes.
If you can find a used metcal, even if its not working, you can fix them up easily and they are worth the $200 bucks even for a broken one on Ebay.
