Hakko Soldering Station, FX951-66

I love this station. Solid build quality, easy to use, it heats up quick. It does a really good job at maintaining temperature too, which I noticed another top brand would fluctuate constantly. I love the sleep feature but the way to set the temperature is a bit cumbersome when I’m working on something that requires me to swap between temp often. I also love how easy it is to swap tips, it’s so much easier than the other guys.

I have been looking for an affordable high quality soldering station and I think this one is great. What I like about it is how fast it warms up. From cold to 800F + in about 10 seconds. The sleep function works great. Beware that you have to jam the tip into the holder very deep to get it to engage with the electrical connection. If you get a E-5 display on the station, it probably means the tip is not inserted far enough. If you get a e-5 then put the tip on a hard surface with the white banded side in the holder and press on the tip with about 50 lbs of force. It will click again and will start to heat up. I had to call Hakko technical service to get my tip inserted enough and they explained the procedure. I will say that Hakko technical help was extremely helpful and patient.One more thing. There are a lot to of reviews that say the user interface is the pits. I disagree. I downloaded two manuals from Hakko's website. One of them went though the full menu of options for the station. After reading that I found the interface very easy to manage.

Every time I use my Hakko I wonder, why didn't I buy this thing sooner? I previously had purchased one of the X-tronic models that are so well reviewed on Amazon. I ended up hating it. The X-Tronic has a really annoying heating element that would constantly break and need replaced because the handle was poorly designed. The cord attached to the heating element directly and put too much stress on the ceramic casing. The result was a LOT of cracked heating elements.My Hakko has no such problems. It's obvious the design guys at Hakko put a lot of time in to making sure their products will work consistently for long periods of time. Also the user experience is incredible. The handle is light weight, which I love. The X-Tronic always felt cumbersome and I dreaded projects that required a great deal of precision. With the Hakko I look forward to soldering. It's just so graceful at what it does. It's always the right temperature, the cord never feels tangled, and it takes up very little space on my desk. The holster is 10x better as well. The X-Tronic I had was designed so that the hot metal actually touched the plastic so that over time it would melt slightly until the iron no longer fit snugly. This holster is completely metal and ceramic. I can plop the iron down carelessly into it without fear of accidentally stabbing and melting plastic.One other huge plus, this thing goes in to standby while holstered. I'm very forgetful and this has helped to both keep my room from becoming a sauna and my power bill from reaching Tier 4, which in California can get extremely expensive.Bottom Line: I can't say enough good things about this soldering station. If you have the money to purchase this over the X-Tronic models, do it. Also, don't forget that tips are sold separately!!

Astonished. This is EXCELLENT. It's actually better than the best of my Wellers, and that is Hard To Do. Main unit is heavy, feels sturdy. Overall feels well-made -- Materials are almost exclusively metal and ceramic and silicone rubber and high-temperature plastic. Blue/yellow color scheme looks better in person - not toyish at all like in the pictures. Holder is minimalist and functional, very "steam punk" looking, tough ceramic and metal; seating angle is adjustable as is height. Wire from base to iron is slim, silicone rubber, soft, pliable, feels perfect, very much like the quality Weller (and very unlike the edsyn, whose thick cable feels corduroy and non-pliable, almost like a freakin extension cord). Love the sleep feature. Heat-up from cold is very quick as is re-heat-up from sleep. I was hesitant to try something new after several decades of using numerous mainly Weller stations...glad I gave this thing a shot. Will definitely be buying more. Weller has gotten too cheap; Edsyn is not refined enough...Hakko is the new way. Hakko hand tools (pliers, dykes) are also surprisingly excellent.