Hakko FX888D-23BY Digital Soldering Station FX-888D FX-888 (blue & yellow)

This station oozes quality. The material used for the iron holder and the control housing is top notch. The holder is solid metal and the control housing shell seems to be some type of plastic. It is built like a brick, and should withstand a good beating. While it does look a little Fisher-Price, the shade of blue is actually a bit darker when looking at it in person, so it looks better than in the picture. The build quality more than makes up for the color. The holder has two mating pieces, so you can clean inside it or replace the metal cleaning ball, then easily put it back together into a solid assembly. My only complaint would be the sponge. It could mate better with the holder for it, but maybe it will be better when wet. In any case, it shouldnt matter, as it doesnt take much pressure to clean a tip. It started up fine on the first try, and quickly heated the tip. It came with the chisel tip, the T18-D16, which is kind of small at 1.6mm in diameter, but it provides better heat transfer than a conical tip, and should be easy to work with in fairly tight board layouts. I might recommend buying a few larger tips for larger components, as I did. I look forward to working with it, seeing all the positive reviews. Your tip might smoke a bit on the first use, but that is normal, as they are usually coated with a protective layer for storage.

I love this soldering iron, it heats in less than 15 secs and the quality is very good. Im not a professional but I using the soldering station very often and this one is the best you can get for the money. Hakko is one of the best brands on the market.

Having safely made the jump from a $20 soldering iron (Velleman) to this wonderful $80 soldering iron I can now say that I know how to solder. If you are trying to decide if the extra $60 is worth it then stop right now and just buy this one. I went from putting down globs of solder to creating finely shaped tiny works of art. Here are a couple of things that are different between this soldering iron and the one I came from: The Hakko gets AT LEAST 200 degrees F hotter. I dont know how hot the other one gets, but I had a hard time getting lead free solder to melt with it. The Hakko does so easily at 700 degrees (goes up to 900). I havent tried it out at a lower temp yet. It is nice to know what temp I am using. The tip that came with the Hakko is larger than the one that came with the velleman. In spite of this it is considerably easier to solder small parts. Replacement tips for the Hakko run about twice as much, but they also last at least twice as long. Ive done more soldering with the tip that came with (T18-D16) than I did with the last two tips I used on the velleman and it still looks brand new. It was next to impossible to tin the Velleman tips. It is quite easy with the Hakko. The Hakko comes with setup, calibration, and cleaning instructions. The Velleman came with a box. Having a flexible cord is quite nice, although personally it isnt a selling point. One extra thought for anyone else who is considering upgrading from a lower end soldering iron: This one comes with an on/off switch. This is important to note so that you dont just turn the dial like you did on your cheap one and then panic when it doesnt do anything (like me). The tip in a bag that is pictured up top is the one that comes with it. It is not an extra tip. You only get one tip. It is a good general purpose tip. I am going to buy the T18-B, T18-BL, and the T18-I to complement it. Oddly enough, this isnt iron I meant to buy. I had added it to my cart while I looked at the Weller with the LCD screen. I ended up deciding that I wanted the digital temp readout but forgot to add the Weller to my cart. When I was done shopping for other things I didnt look closely at my cart and didnt realize I had the wrong iron. So far I do not regret my mistake, but I DO wish I had a digital read out and a tip temp sensor. Oh well :D

It was fine but I ended up replacing it with a pinecil, which is less bulky, way more controllable, and has all sorts of cheap tips available.

Its a workhorse in my shop. Nothing else to say.

Ive been doing electronics work for a long time - both for fun and at radio stations and my home recording studio - and Ive used a lot of irons. Ive used mostly the pencil sort and not paid any attention to how worn the tip was and such, because Ive always thought of the extras more as frills, and if I can do surface-mount laptop motherboard repairs with a 25w Weller, why do I need anything else? Because it makes life easier, thats why, and I was an idiot. Sure, its not as portable, and I still have my pencil irons for when I have to reach into cabinet equipment, but on the whole I wish Id had one of these 10 years ago. Mostly I just love the speed; theres no wait to speak of for heat up or cool-down, you dont have to dive in and out super-quickly for temperature-sensitive components, and, most of all, I dont have to worry so much about some of that stupidly fragile (and heat-sensitive) insulation thats floating around out there in audio cables these days. I havent had to re-do a cable end due to insulation heat failure since I bought this iron, and I _very_ much like that. I put extra tips in the back behind the metal sponge, and it all just fits together nicely. Its a lovely little design. If you dont like the looks - and I think it looks fine, I dont know what people are complaining about - wait till its out of warranty and paint it. But buy it, regardless. Its a good little iron.

Paul Carlson of “Mr. Carlson’s Lab” uses one. Mark from “Blueglow Electronics” uses one. 90% of every EE video I see has an FX888D in the background. That’s enough of an endorsement. I bought one and love it. Temperature control is not as bad as everyone claims. It heats up quickly and adjusts the newly-set temperature quickly. The grip is wonderful. It’s such an improvement over any Weller. I *do* wish the iron stand/holder had more heft to it but that’s about it.

Ive been soldering for about 55 years and am an electronic hobbyist. In the 50s, I had a Weller gun. It looked like a gun, had a trigger like a gun and worked fine on radios and TVs that I worked on. As electronics got smaller and more sensitive to overheating, I switched to a Weller or Unger iron. I think one has since bought the other. These irons and 1/8 tiplets served me very well for many years. The only problem was that the tiplet would eventually break and need replacement. They are threaded but it is impossible to get the old one out unless you drill it out. Too much work so I just bought a new heating element and put in a new tiplet. My tiplet broke and I decided to search the internet. Perhaps someone had by now figured out a way to replace the tiplet without drilling. No luck, but I kept seeing replies that essentially said toss your Unger and get a Hakko soldering station. If youve looked at soldering stations, you will see that prices are all over the place with some too expensive for a simple hobbyist like me. I think you could find something for less but then I dont know if it would be as well rated. So, I purchased this unit. I really dont need precise temperature calibration so I just set the dial in the middle. The reason that I like temperature regulation is that the the iron heats up extremely fast, about 15 seconds to melt solder. Im so old that I cant afford to wait 3 to 5 minutes just to solder one joint. Temperature regulation also ensures that the iron wont cool off if you have several joints to solder. I also like the very small handle and very flexible cord. The smaller handle gives you better control when you have to very accurately position the tip. It wasnt clear which tip the unit came with so I ordered a D16 chisel point separately. I was afraid it would come with a pencil tip which I dont like because its sometimes hard to put enough heat into the joint. It did come with the small chisel tip I prefer so I should have waited to order the extra tip. The two tips will outlast me, Im sure. Lastly, the base unit comes with a sponge and a metal cleaning wire which looks like a cross between a Brillo pad and a wad of metal shavings. This seems to work pretty well. Ive always just used paper napkins to remove excess solder and clean the tip. This is not a perfect process as sometimes solder goes places where you wish it wouldnt. Like, I have a solder-splash shaped tatoo on one foot. The quality of this unit looks very good on the outside. There is an article online which shows how to modify this unit so that the light on front indicates ON as well as Tip Heating. As it is, the light only shows when the tip is heating so one might be concerned about leaving the unit on because there isnt an ON light. I wont make this mod because Im very careful about leaving stuff powered. The point here is that the article gave me a chance to see what the guts of the base unit looked like and it also looks to be of high quality. Soldering is not that hard, but there is a learning curve. I would recommend this unit to beginners as well as experienced solderers because it just makes it more easier to make precision joints where connections are closely spaced and parts are more heat sensitive. If youre just soldering railroad track together, you dont need this. For IC and microprocessor work, this unit will save you time by not having to rework cold or bridged joints.

The soldering iron was a little skinny to hold but performance was more of a deciding factor. When applied to the workpiece the iron was unable to maintain heat transfer and was not useful. I was unable to measure actual power draw. The two piece design is thoughtful and allows for flexibility in placement of the iron

Bought this after using one at a college lab. That was 4 years ago. Mine is still working perfectly, for the price, no regrets! This is a quality product, not cheaply made junk.