For a lot of hobbies involving electronics having a decent soldering station (and possibly a decent hot air station) is extremely useful. A Hakko FX-888D isn’t terribly expensive, but even a Pinecil or TS-100 will get you far for cheap.
Indeed so, and even some $80 soldering stations sold on amazon are remarkably not terrible these days. Some even come with hot air guns. somewhat randomly chosen example:
I’m always wary of no-name stations not because I think they’re inherently garbage or something, but that few people who really care about a quality station would give them a passing glance so reviews come from people who have no idea what even makes a quality station. I have seen tear downs of Hakko counterfeits that could be confused for the real thing and others that have serious reliability, consistency of safety issues - and these random Chinese direct-to-Amazon ones have the same problems.
Do they probably work most of the time? Sure. But I want the temperature display to mean 500C when it reads 500C and not 450C, and for my iron to be up to temperature just as quick as my FX-888D does without being a fire hazard or potentially let out the magic smoke because some cheap component died.
That said, if anybody is looking for a hot air station don’t buy from Hakko - they’re current models are overpriced and take forever to heat up. Atten (a Chinese brand) sells fantastic stations in the $250 price point that heat faster and have a saner interfaces. Point I’m trying to make here is don’t spend money for a well known brand if you don’t have to, but make sure whatever you buy is equipment you can trust instead and that means having reviews from trusted sources outside of Amazon customers.
