Soldering Iron Showdown: $10 vs $1,000 Soldering Iron! Which Is The Best For You?
I do a lot of soldering. A LOT! Whether it's soldering wires onto printed circuit boards, or soldering battery leads on a lithium pack, soldering is just part of the game when it comes to anything that is powered by electricity. I often get asked what my soldering setup of choice is and why...
In this video I cover four popular soldering irons, in four different price categories. The range is from $10 to over $1,000! They include the LDK, Weller WLC100, Hakko FX888D and the monster Weller WX2. Which is my favorite? Which is best for you? Tune in to find out!
Is there another soldering iron I should have considered for the test? Which is your favorite? Leave a comment below!
SOLDERING IRONS TESTED IN THIS VIDEO:
LDK: amzn.to/3cFiP6k
WELLER WLC100: amzn.to/2TNc0qv
HAKKO FX888D: amzn.to/3cHqReD
WELLER WX2: amzn.to/2TwJt9T
TOOLS SHOWN IN THIS VIDEO:
Work Mat: amzn.to/3aowH3L
Solder: amzn.to/3300wnE
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I have the Hakko FX888D and I use it for PCB/electronics soldering. The reason why I watched this showdown was to validate my current knowledge, and make sure I still have a good tool for the job. Now, your overview/showdown is a rare thing. That's the way it should be. Informative and guiding your audience to make their own decisions based on the info you provided. Great job!
Thank you Bobby for taking the time to make this. I'm an RC hobbyist and was starting to run into problems with soldering and achieving a good connection or melting connectors. After your video I ought the HAKKO from your link. Thanks so much.
Shopping for the perfect soldering tools. So happy I stumbled upon this video. Now I know exactly what I need. Thanks for the great Showdown.
Fast heat-up is nice, but in almost every situation an iron can be heating up while the work is being prepared. The much more important thing--which you didn't cover, unfortunately--is thermal recovery and an iron's ability to maintain temp during use while heat is being sinked away.
Honestly, with $900 bucks to burn on a soldering station I would have gone with a JBC or an OKI Metcal.
I have a Weller WLC100 and love it! For only $33 bucks on Amazon, it's hard to beat.
I always called it the metal sponge
Soldering depends what you’re soldering and levels of your skills and professionalism.If you’re a hobbyist $40-50 bucks soldering station works fines and it can lasted for you 2-3 years easily.If you’re a in the fields of electronic technologies tech. or engineering.Soldering iron stations 🚉 about $100-150 bucks works for you in 5-6 years easily.
I am afraid it is not as simple as that.
@@user-xx1qu3ze3l Yes,it can be that simple.Before, I was an engineering testing and redesigned contractor for many startups companies and designed problems products for many decades for brands of consumer products and industrial products.I do testing and programming products codes improvements with many problems,product problems in all short of PC boards in one layer or more configuration problems and effectiveness problems functional problems products.I never buy anything consumer soldering stations 🚉 👩🏭 products more than $150..
@@Chu3505 Wow, pretty impressive.
When i started i got a cheap one that did a shit job so i learnt from it to find the best tool and don't care about the price as long as i have the money i got the wd 1 worked miles better will end up going and getting wx2 need a fume extractor so i can use it more often i enjoy it and it's useful at the same time
I used Radio Shack soldering irons to build Heatkit electronics.
hell a little over a minute isn't too bad compared to my radio shack iron, which the other night took 30 minutes to heat up...which is what lead me to this video lol
same
Thank you so much for this upload. It's not what I was originally looking for but it helped me out alot!
Thanks for the review this was super helpful.
I have the Hakko soldering station for hobby purposes like you said. It is amazing, I would never go back or go to any other I think. It holds heat really well and it heats up really fast. I would not recommend to anyone the cheap soldering stations. I bought one but the tip is oxidizing really fast even with flux, plus there are no clear temperature readings, the heating is usually slow and when you solder a joint, you have to wait again for the thing to heat up. Just buy a decent 70-100$ station. It will serve you well in the long run. The cheap stations will infuriate you and eventually you will be forced to replace them by a good one, so in that sense they are more expensive. Probably there is no need to go crazy and buy the 900$+ models either.
Helped me choose my first one, cheers.
for the price, the wx2 should also come with a hot air desoldering station. for portability, i’m looking at the recent ts80p usb c soldering iron that runs on pd 2.0 and qc 3.0 powerbanks. It heats up in seconds. i find for my needs, portability trumps stationary.
I recently had the opportunity to use a metcal for a day and I was blown away by how good they are then blown away again by how expensive they are. It did make me upgrade to the fx-888d which I'm very happy with over my previous $30 iron.
Agree, the metcal system is superb, used one for s/m work on digital cameras for years, loved it so much I've got my own, pricey though!.
The biggest issue I have with Hakko is the colour scheme. =P Looks like a toy.
I could put up with the looks if the UI wasn't so bad haha
Cool. What celsius is your tip usually at? Any techniques for soldering aluminum thin gauge wires to the same wire?
High performance generally means shorter life. For a iron to heat/recover quickly it needs a very high power relative to its nominal static power. For the heating element to last it needs to be bigger but that means a bigger bulkier pencil. Although not practical, similar results can be done manually with the use of a isolation transformer, Variac and monitoring equipment. The LDK is a 60W iron which might explain why it heats to the point of melting solder quickly. That's pretty high power for a pencil iron of its size. Warranty time is usually much shorter for professional use. Example, if consumer use it's a year, professional will likely be around 90 days.
I use the Hacko FX 951 and the FX 888D I love them booth.
i have a cheep soldering station (£40 on amazon) and it is amazing, it has a dial and temp readout, 5 tips included, heats up from switch on to melting solder a few seconds faster than the hakko. the only problem is the build quality of it, but for what i need, its just fine. mine might be faster because its running on 240v ofc. its the hanmatek sd2 if anyone is wondering.
For the Weller WLC100, the base station will handle anything up to 300w. I've used mine with my D650 300w Weller soldering gun and had no problems.
I have a Weller WD1. I picked it up in 2007, and I swear by it. I might grab one of the new models, as I like the back lighting. Good review!
WD1 rules.
I bought the Hakko. It was unable to get hot enough to salvage parts from a broken 500w computer power supply. It simply could not melt a large lump of solder with lots of medium-gauge pins & wires coming out of it. It's probably a lot more economical to buy multiple fixed power/temperature soldering irons than to fork out a bloody fortune for an extremely high-powered variable-power soldering iron.
Calibrade . I think its off with the temp settings. You can test IT with a cheap Heat laser meter.
I got a used Weller WR2 from ebay, it's huge!
Great comparison. I enjoy content.
Great video Bobby!! Looks Like I will be replacing my old faithful Weller WLC with a new Hakko!! Thanks for doing this!! Been on the fence with the Hakko but this is the final straw!! :-)
Thanks Rick! I think the Hakko is really nice, good luck with it!
if those heat up times are consistent, you're literally gaining 4hrs of work time every year right off the bat haha
Looks like the cheaper Weller uses a standard pencil with AC adapter? If that is the case most likely the control is just a variable AC voltage style pot, and other AC pencils could be used. Would be interesting to know what the voltage out was on your test since it was so slow, and if it is AC, if it's faster directly connected out. Also makes me wonder if I could use a Router control from Harbor Freight on a non-adjustable pencil although wouldn't expect much performance gain as it would only be cooler then direct connect.
Well Done Bobby! Thanks for sharing my friend. 👍 🚁👍
Thanks Larry, very welcome! Glad this was helpful!
Just bought YIHUA 939D+ III EVO Digital from Amazon about $80 fabulous mid pricer with 4 memory and sleep function. Fast start up love it.
so what do we think about that LDK for swapping guitar pickups ?
Thanks for the info.
the weller got alot of good use from me but recently just updated to the aixun t3a and man is that thing a fucking beast
what's good for installing active pickups in a guitar?
Is weller WLC good for small components?
Good Evening, Thank you very much for the very informative video. I have a question to ask of you and for anyone else that would like to respond. I would like to solder 22 gauge wire to potentiometers (guitar electronic assembling) and in the "KZhead" circles that I am researching from "a great many" KZheadrs and forum members are suggesting that basically on Kester 44 should be used as the solder. Kester 44 is a rosin flux core solder, the percentage that is recommended is 60 tin/40 lead. My question is should I greatly concern myself as to the manufacturer of the rosin flux core solder as long as it is 60 tin/40 lead? I am gathering that people think that maybe the manufacturing tolerances of the Kester are superior,.... and this may well be true. So what would be your opinion of using a brand like Kester in comparison to using an "off-shore" manufacturer. Thank you very much for your opinion(s).
You had the WLC100 set on level 2, I bet it can heat up faster on higher levels
Will this “weld” copper tubing?
my hakko 888 gets super hot , to where it ruins my tips. Even at lowest temp it juat gets red hot. Do you think the heating element is bad or can it be the actual unit?
Where I'm from that cheap one is about 3 dollars. I only have that one & I use it everyday. Works okay.
$80 TS100 on 6s is very powerful & gets to 350 Celsius in 5 seconds and also holds it heat during use.. Great at the field!
what do you think of Mag-Torch MT-630 30 W Corded Solder Iron
The $10 el cheapo was so difficult to work with over time that I concluded it wasn't worth the time and frustration (tips oxidized quickly, poor heat transfer, poor wetability of tip). If you solder >1x a year, then consider something more reliable... From my experience Pace has been very straightforward and reliable. I've worked with Weller, Hakko, Metcal. While all of these are great, Pace is my personal preference for my needs. I'd probably choose Weller if I were doing mostly SMD components.
I use the WLC100 but I hate that the replacement tips get stuck inside then you ruin the whole pen because you couldn't drill it out.
13:34 watching this right after I ordered a WLC100 from amazon lol...not worries about the speed though
I have the wlc and it take a while to come up to temp
I love your timing of the irons. Right over your cell phone. :) I hope that isn't spitting from a resin core solder!
The phone is sacrificial for the cause :)
@@BobbyWatts :)
Thank you! This is the best. I’m fixing a game boy speaker... do you know of any other projects I should start out with?
This is exactly why I’m here! Did you find any other projects?
@@thatdewguy22 No I totally abandoned it after I fixed it. Haha but did you know you can use it to burn design into wood?
@@clearproppea No but I do now! I’m planning on installing a backlight on my Gameboy Advance, as well as fixing some old Gameboy cartridge batteries (hopefully).
I read another review that the weller 100 tip isn't grounded. Can u confirm. I don't wanna fry boards like he did.
Try a soldering Iron with t12 ( hakko ,jbc).
I like my JBC equipment, but the Weller WX2 is a much better bang for your buck. I really love that you can have a 200W hand piece alongside a precision hand piece with dual control for around $1100 US all in. You cant get that for the same price in a JBC.
Thanks for video learned a lot. Just wondering do they all rely on mains power? Any models out there that can connect to 12v battery as well for mobile use.
You should check out the TS100
is that a harbor freight power strip in the background? BTW, Thank you, i needed this video!! i am trying to purchase the right iron for my hobby. many thanx !
Sure is!
What about the seller wlc 200?
Cheapo is great for a field iron in a pinch. Hakko for my bench.
Yep totally agree!
Ryobi Makes An 18 Volt Soldering Iron I Heard It Has A Prettygood Reputation.
have a 937D great paperweight ..solder 2 wires in about 39 minutes ..temp gauge is automatic goes from 140 to 400 and back down again.
Its weird, i have an old 936, works perfect for 12 years and counting, and the first 8 years was my 8 hours constant use tool
@@crcfran ordered bits for the iron i get a message H-E i guess is the heating element
I tried soldering 2 12 awg wires for my truck's low beam headlight, but didn't work well. I got a PT solder gun with 60 watts, but it didn't heat the wires hot enough to melt the solder on to it. What solder gun would u suggest?
I’m in the same boat bro Did you find one that worked? Let me know
how much watt do i need ?
I Got Me A Weller Wc 100 It Realy A 40 Watt Iron Came With It. Then I Got Me A Soldering Handle Where I Can Thread Different Wattage Elements Ranging from 23 To 50 Watt I Also Hava Some Finepoint Tips For Doing Electrical Work On Scooters & Power Chairs. It Heats Up Within 1 Minute.
5:21 I wonder if it's digital 🤔 😄
Do you add water to the blue cleaning spung before using or do I leave it dry ?
add enough water for it to absorb it completely but not puddle up. A dry sponge will just burn.
Im looking to solder the battery pad of a wiimote that broke of the motherboard. Will the cheap 10$ work for that?
Did u use that one? How did it go?
My Hakko 951 knockoff That I paid $37 new on sale, heats up to melt solder in like 11 seconds.
Thanks. Super helpful.
You should have tested a KSGER in this set. Way more features for the price of a Weller.
KSGER looks like a great value, but I was worried by the number of reviewers who said they received faulty units (5~20% of the reviews seem to be 1 star). I need something in short order, so I ended up getting the TS80P, which seems to have similar functionality but proportionally fewer complaints about quality.
Anyone who sees this. I'm looking for one to replace a battery in a GBA or two would the 10 one be good. Has anyone here used this one?
Possibly you can help me with a mystery. For the past 2 weeks I have been scouring the internet, including KZhead itself, looking for a source or beginner Electronics. I am yet to find one after viewing possibly 50 sources. They all either assume that you already have 5 years under your belt or they just want to tell you what a capacitor is and then tell you to go build your project. Do you have any suggestions for me? Something that will say "if a schematic has a dot here, six lines this way, a endless box drawn this way, well that means that your wires need to be soldered this way, that way, and this other way." If you have any suggestions, it would be appreciated. At this point, I am lost.
Hey Jon, if I were you I would start by purchasing some "build it yourself" types of electronics like Arduino based robots, Raspberry pi based smart devices, DIY flashlights, etc. I think that the skills you learn from these types of projects are so much more practical than anything you read in a book. Something like this might be a good start: amzn.to/3hyjCef
@@BobbyWatts Thank you kindly. I will take a look at it.
I borrowed my brother's ldk like iron and it is total poo. I got the heat turned all the way up and it barely melts anything. You gotta hold it in one place for about 3 minutes for it to get hot enough to melt solder. I'm no professional but pretty sure it shouldn't take so long to get hot.
That wire mesh is a scotch bright stainless steel scrubber
Man I beat on one of those little cheap ones for a year and it stayed in the fight until I broke the element
One thing you can do to help with heat up time is to hit it with a blow torch or a cigarette lighter. I have a piece of shit 15W soldering iron that's ready to go in 2 seconds flat.
I use a hakko everyday for a few years now well worth $100
A few folks need to take half a minute for a calm walk, to talk about English words that have silent L. Solder isn't alone 😅 Me, I'm going to eat my salmon with almond crust, then get back to soldering. 🤠
Was considering the Hakko, it looks pretty decent, but god those controls are just awful... A dial is far superior for quickly selecting your desired temp, or hell even a Up AND Down arrow would have been nice. With the Hakko you have to hold the enter key for a few seconds, and select your desired temp 1 digit at a time, this is just an unnecessary waste of time while working.
It looks like you left Wellers dial on 2.
I have two myself A wes51 and a ec2002m
Very nice I'll look into them, thanks for the feedback!
@@BobbyWatts they are pretty old though I have had them for years , of course the EC2002 needs and iron but the power unit still operates. Best iron ever made in my opinion
Checkout the hanmatek sd2 on amazon
I have like 5 soldering iron station each of them have different tip and one quick rechargeable soldering,why wasting to change different tip for different work.
My $5 iron from harbor freight is doing alright
I like the guns go from cold to Melting solder in about 2 seconds
Always used the metcal smartheat system for about the last twenty years, wouldn't use anything else, interesting video though.
Weller WE1010
My el cheapo only lasted a day or two.
I love Weller's industrial design and interface but I think Hakko is more durable when it comes to the pencil and tips:-) Japan vs. Germany. A combo of 31 years, I've only spent US$320 (includes alcohol, cotton buds, 99.9% alcohol etc,) but that's as a hobbyist. I just got my new soldering workstation, the amazing KSGER T12, it's stylish, very cool OLED, has the heating element and sensors in the tips (10 piece tip is cost effective vs. buying per piece), can boost to more about 550C, I believe or above 500 (for a minute or so but it can be set to boost up to 60 minutes but it can do 480, but 475C safe for me, not to overheat it, if I need that much heat). God bless, Rev. 21:4
Hakko user interfaces are amazingly terrible but they overpaid some fashion designer to shit it up (and got rid of their superior dial design in the process). I like mine but won't use it for SMD work. It's fine for wiring harness and other crude tasks though.
That weller is $80 here in canada.
What a fitting name. LOL!
Hey Bobby, watts up? :P
Lower the wattage, longer the wait. ;^)
the ldk if you can get it for 10 $ it have got to win cause 60whatts is not a joke
TRY JBC .
6:17 am I the only one realising it is not connected to electricity but it still gives smoke from the sponge ?
Magic!
❤hallo kak nyimak punyaku solder sunshine 80watt sayang sekali masih bagus buat masa depan kerjanya lumayanlah OLED bisa di atur panas 500derajat😊
I have a Weller that's older than you are, still going strong. I used the same model for 10 years in an electronics shop that was on 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Only turned off to change the tip when it wore out. www.amazon.ca/Weller-WTCPT-Temperature-Controlled-Soldering/dp/B00004W463
Wow. Five days later the pandemic happened...and now inflation drove the Weller up to $65 haha.
The whole deal with letting your iron sit is so that it can heat up to a temperature that's just below the melting point, engineers always over thinking it... probably works at a military contractor if I were to guess under the J-standard for class 3 products lmao
I feel any of these over the 100$ are just taking advantage of people willing to pay stupid amounts for what amounts to a heating element. Who cares if it takes one 6 seconds more to heat up than the other or that it holds temp to 4 degrees. That literally cannot matter but its like buying a rolex...its a flex
I'm looking for a good soldering iron, which one would you recommend?
2:28
Lol,I have exactly same silicone mat
This video seems 5 years old. Times have changed. Half of those are considered obsolete