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

This solder station is a great upgrade to a plug in hand held Weller type from your big box type DIY stores. What this solder station is not is something along the lines of an all day every day use station. This is a solder station for light to medium use at home or a small shop type setting. When I purchased this I researched a lot about fakes and was skeptical about this purchase before it arrived. I checked online with the video from 2016 about the differences and I am comfortable to say this in my opinion is a genuine Hakko solder station. What I found in my research while confirming its authenticity is that a very large brick and mortar, as well as online now, retailer is selling a very obvious knock off of this very same model with just the Hakko name removed from the front. The model is even named FX-888D and it costs $79.99 currently at that place that rhymes with ALLMART! Really shocked places that well known and established are allowed to sell obvious counterfiet items. Anyhow, I feel this is real. The solder station itself is really great once you are comfortable using its less than welcoming controls. Why Hakko decided to put just 2 buttons on this I have no idea other than for cost savings and to annoy people learning to use it for the first time. With that said, I did have to watch their low budget video tutorials to learn how to use the 2 button commands. I highly suggest you do as well as you can set the station to a setup mode that effectively will lock you out until you command it out of that mode as another purchaser stated in another review. The iron heats up and cools down extremely quickly with a digital display rapidly counting up or down a single digit at a time so you can see the precise temperature it says it is. I have no reason to believe the temperature is off at all yet as it seems correct when melting certain materials with it. The iron stand is great for the price total but it is a little light and could be tipped over if bumped hard enough. The base unit for the power supply and temp control is heavy and solid and sits firmly on a table or desk. The materials on all parts except the power cord to the wall is top notch materials wise, but the power cord is off the wall generic hard plastic cord, no big deal though. The iron cord and rubber base at the bottom of the iron where it meets the cord is soft and allows for easy manuevering of the iron in one hand. The iron cord does not roll on itself like cheap cord does which is great. One thing to add is that I forgot to grab some extra tips and assorted tips. This only comes with a small chissle tip which is great but not for every project!

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

Since getting back in to RC, I quickly realized my 15/30W stick from Radio Shack had lived a hard life in my toolbox, and was never very good in the first place. I needed a real soldering iron. For weeks, Ive agonized over the

Bought a cheap iron on Amazon and immediately regretted it. Returned and purchased the HAKKO. Night and day. Solders like a dream and keeps a consistent temp. Using it for detailed pcb boards and basic circuitry; headers, sensors, you name it. This iron has exceeded all expectations and made me a lifelong HAKKO user. Absolutely recommend.

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

Sturdy well made unit and easy to use.

Esta es una de las mejores estaciones calidad precio desde que empiezas a abrir el paquete empiezas a ver lo pequeño que es el cautín, la estación, la calidad de los cables, la calidad y detalles que tienen está estación. Es una estación simplemente hermosa que hace que el lugar de trabajo se vea bien, es súper pequeña, pero un poco pesado el transformador, solo un poquito. Quise compra está estación desde hace unos meses pero la verdad no me decidía ya que, no me decidía entre hakko o weller y la verdad depues ed mucho me decidí por está estación. sabía que podría ser un poco costosa para mí pais por detalles de importación y envio. Pero la verdad no me arrepiento de de haberla comprado ya que el control de temperatura es exelente. Lo único que creo no es muy intuitiva es la interfaz que solo son dos botones. Pero si la configuras a modo memoria, que tiene 5, es fácil de usar. Lo que más me gustó fue la rapidez con la que alcanza la temperatura deseada en menos de 30 segundos, está lista para usar. Y la verdad antes tenía cautines y tardaba demasiado en calentar. Recomiendo al 100% está estación. Y recomiendo el vendedor fue muy rápido el envío y metardo como 5 días en llegar, solo por qué DHL en mi pais no trabaja sábado y domingo si no me llegaría mucho antes. Espero y aya servido mi opinión, y para los que no saben o no se deciden cuál estación comprár, les recomiendo esta estación.

Not a soldering guy, but I wanted to try my hand at a semi advanced job attaching a ribbon cable to an smb to an n64. Used my 20$ soldering iron...BIG MISTAKE. completely botched the job, my iron wasnt able to keep a consistent temperature and my cheap solder immediately stuck many legs together. Tried to save it but ended up reading more about the appropriate tools. Well... a few practice rounds later with the dead n64 an it so crazy how different using this soldering iron is. Expensive, but holy moly does it do a good job and Temps are amazingly stable.

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.

Hakko is a big name. Their desoldering tool is the best there is--but this soldering station is a hassle to set and doesnt hold temperature all that well. It also doesnt recover quickly. At least not as well as my old Youyue 858D (who?) which had a single temperature knob. One touch. The Hakko, on the other hand, requires several presses to set the temperature. As much as I wanted to love this iron, it slows me down. I recommend the popular cheapo alternative. Not the 888D.