Soldering irons test $20 vs $40 vs $400!
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- Опубліковано 17 гру 2018
- Soldering iron is a very essential tool for every electronics enthusiast so here I have 3 soldering irons that I will compare and test. Small and portable $20 soldering iron, one of the cheapest soldering stations for $40 and super professional $400 soldering station made by Weller!
$20 soldering iron: bit.ly/31UMchG
936B station: bit.ly/3hWhR7I
Big station: bit.ly/2QWzWqh
Cheaper Weller: amzn.to/3gByxCP
Weller WT1010: goo.gl/CNHjZg
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Finally a non snobby review of those things. The only thing I missed was how they perform with soldering cables and bigger pads
What are soldering cables?
Your'e amazing Nikodem. I'm perhaps older than your dad, but I learn so much from you.
Don't go plugging that Weller into the wrong voltage :D
for that price I want at least that the input voltage is universal (110 or 220V)
@@zolatanaffa87 . Yes it's silly. A soldering iron will do totally fine on a switching power supply
You guys don’t get the joke. StupidInvaders, I was thinking the same thing from the start of the video. :)
Someone is following the EEVblog :-P
Actually this one has a Fuse ;-) media-weller.de/weller/data/Bilder%20Produkte/WT/WT1_Back_2.jpg
Very good video, and I agree, for the type of soldering shown in the video (small circuit boards) any of those irons will do the job. However, many users need to solder much larger surface areas, such as a chassis ground or point-to-point wiring found in antique electronics and tube gear (and some modern gear as well). The cheaper irons will quickly run out of gas in those situations as the parts act as heatsinks and suck the heat from the tip. A better iron will hold more heat and have a faster heat recovery. It can be the difference between being able to melt the solder or not. It’s often not about how hot an iron can get, but how well it can stay at a given temperature under heavy load or repeated soldering. Additionally, better irons are ready to use almost instantly, have more accurate temperature control and many offer standby and auto features which can help prolong the life of the tips and provide better safety.
Regarding chassis soldering if someone can't afford a high powered expensive station i would say a soldering gun should suffice you can find older 200W ones for rather cheap
Yep I’ve got the $20 one... Congratulations for the video, very professional!
Thanks for the insights here! I quite like how the $20 one turned out. Looking to start into soldering, glad to hear I don't need to spend more than $100 on a good starter iron. The stand howerver... hah
Good video. Congrats on the contest. The main difference I have in paying more and more for soldering equipment is that I get less and less things to blame my soldering mistakes on.
Expected someone more critical comparisons
I don't know why, but I get nervous when I see an older Polish man seriously soldering away...😉. Great video.
Congratulations on winning the contest. It was interesting to see the comparison. It was good of your father to help provide another opinion.
Thanks! My dad help me sometimes in my projects but usually you don't see it :)
I agree that weller station is for people that solder a lot. For example I was working a month soldering a THT components(now Im working witch SMD reflow soldering) and the weller station was the best for it(It was the WSD 80 model). By my expirience I decided to buy one but more cheper. Just buyed a secondhand new iron(wp80) and the control board with transformer(wsd151) by half of the price, now Im projecting a case for it and I will 3D print it. There is one advantage for weller station by making it by yourself. You can add a fuse :D
I think you could also test the heat output/Power of the soldering irons by trying to solder big thick wire together. I think you will see quite a big difference in that test.
I have one, which is very similar to the 20$ one, although it was sold as 90W, has different button positions and included 10 tips :) It works pretty well and takes ~15s to heat up. Although I suspect that the temperature shown isn't very accurate.
I still find it cool that for some reason you are polish and I could understand your conversation with your dad easily...
I found a 90 watt iron on amazon $40.00 I'm considering. It looks like the $20 one you showed I think is 60 watt. How much should I care about the watt rating?
Hey, nice comparison :)
First time watching you... and almost certainly not the last. Your shop looks cool too, located in an old Cold War era fallout shelter that is not dilapidated like most of them. Creative Shelter indeed!
I wish I had a shelter like that, both to live and work in. Yay, my old fascination with Fallout is still alive and kicking. That's what got me into vacuum tube electronics back in 2003 :)
As for soldering irons/stations, I've been using a Solomon SL20 since around 2010 and it never failed me, other than occassional repair of the DIN plug and an ESD mod on the iron itself. I mostly do "heavy lifting" like old tube gear or PRL era electronics, but SMD work sometimes happens and I do pretty well at it. I also got a secondhand Weller TCP-S iron (with no station) my friend gave me. It runs on 24VAC and uses the tip itself as a temperature regulating part, thanks to the Curie effect.
Before watching this video i already ordered the 20$ one. thanks a lot brother for your very informative video lots of love from Pakistan
You should have added the TS100! but still great work!
Hello, it would have been good to measure how accurate they are with the temperature. I also wanted to tell you that Weller is very good but JBC is even better. The recovery capacity is very important and this is affected by the design. The T12 tips of Hakko or those of JBC achieve better performance than one with a ceramic heater then a sensor, air in between and then the metal of the tip.
I love the part you introduced your dad to test proof the devices :-) Pozdrawiam!
would have been nice if you had tested if they're all actually ESD safe and grounded, that's my biggest worry with buying a cheap one
Thanks for the info 😁
nice video, very informative
Hej, jaka jest średnica końcówki tej pierwszej lutownicy za 20$?
You gotta try the ts100 soldering iron its so small and portable and you can power it with a micro usb cable.
nice review, 2 years old but now I found it because I am now looking for a new soldering iron, couple remarks though: first of all, most soldering irons work well when they are still new. The main difference comes after about 6 months of regular use or one year of occasional use. Then it's clearly seen the quality of the manufacture. Second, I find little funny your argument on a soldering station over mains powered soldering iron. It's not where they put the electronics, it's about handpiece size and safety. One thing is to use on your ESD sensitive board something powered by 24 V dc, another is 220V ac. If you only solder wires and connectors that makes no difference though :)
Is your Weller fused?
I have recently picked up the hobby of fixing game boys and other retro consoles. Would the $20 soldering iron be good enough for that sort of thing?
If you’d be doing it a lot maybe the $40 would be a better choice overall.
What do you use now years later ?
Weller all the way! I got mine when I went to college in 1990 and it’s still going strong.
The China rework station has a soldering Iron too, but that was horrible, it isn’t kept on temperature when heating larger cables or components and it would burn the tip in time when I kept it on (really had to scrape it clean); I think my Weller I turn on in the morning and turn off at night. That Is the ultimate test.
The China rework works nice for smd and it’s worth the 125 bucks for that. My Weller cost me about 200 euros equivalent back then. And I changed the tip only 4 times! So basically once per decade :)
But I wholly agree, that when you don’t solder much, go for a cheaper one.
For professional engineers the main thing about soldering irons is to be able to supply heat constantly even to a bigger thermal plane. Weller, OKI/Metcal and similar are best at this. I would suggest looking at used market too if budget is an option. Over the years you may get into fine pitch smd rework etc and your needs will increase so if you are more than just a hobbyist then i would suggest to invest in a good soldering iron so that it keeps going on for decades :).
the weller has a teflon cable and wont melt. the cheapass 20 bucks version will burn when its touched bij the iron. but what about the 40 buck station ?
I have all three soldering iron in the video.
As a Thermal Analysis Engineer (And also an Electronics Engineer).
I'm here to give you a trick. Try to fill iron foil in the heater stick you'll get surprise result.
BTW. If I had to choose again, I would choose $20 + $5 safe soldering iron stand.
Good review, both $20, and $40 dollar ones can benefit greatly from a genuine T18 or 900M Hakko tip for extra $5-10. Genuine tips lower thermal resistance by 3 times due to their tighter tolerance.
Hi Nikodem,
the three products seem similar, as you say,
the most important difference is the comfort of use, given by the power cord as flexible and light as possible and possible grounding in addition to the insulation of the tip from the power supply circuit, which is important when working on components that are very sensitive to electrostatic discharge.
Of all the three almost certainly only the Weller has this feature (you can always unplug a moment before placing the welder on the circuit, in case there was a need)
for the one at $ 20 you can always get better support: it's hard to do it worse :-)
The one at 40 $ I think in the control box contains only a voltage regulator (with TRIAC or SCR) and at the best of my opinion a temperature sensor in the stylus to keep the temperature automatically.
I conclude by agreeing with your final opinion.
C U next video!
Hi! Thanks for such long comment :) Sure ESD features are important but just for more advanced users, I didn't face any discharges problem myself yet. There is an ESD safe mark on $40 one but maybe it's just a mark. :D Thank you!
What about JBC station?I have both WELLER and JBC station .Good thing are not cheap - cheap things are not Good.
Thanks for the review!
1. I'm not sure the chinese are really ESD safe.
2. You should try heating up bigger pads or ground pads that absorb more heat to compare the thermal mass.
3. Check out the TS100 I'm really happy with it, small yet powerful.
It is not ESD safe. 99% chance that 20$ and 40$ have temp accuracy +-50 deg.C even if there is a calibration. Weller is overpriced and it is not 90W.
@@vant4888 I bought chinese soldering station (heat gun + soldering iron) for ~ $60, took me about an hour to calibrate this thing and in main temo range i use it's +/- 5C and at the lowest/highest temps possible to set it's ~10C. So after calibration it is quite good.
Dziękuję!
Interesting comparison. I use an equivalent of the 20$ soldering iron but I pay 60$ for it. I'm sure that the cheapest iron takes advantage of the opensource hardware mine is based on. It's cheaper than mine because of its display quality but if you happened to tear it down, I bet you would get the same schematic the opensource recommends. Thanks for the comparison Nikodem! Your dad is your guinea pig isn't he? The 400-bucks Weller is great however and I think that it's a good investment for serious hobbyists. A one-shot investment of course. Hence it's not that expensive as people usually think.
I just use the orange Weller WLC100 5 to 40-Watt Soldering Station ($40.00 US). It has a temp range from 1 to 5 so not scientific. Put a micro tip on it instead of the huge chisel tip it comes with and it's been good to go for a decade.
I think you may find more difference if test with 4 or more layer PCB or PCB with large ground plane between high end and low end soldering tools. Also, using solering station is more comfortable especially when long time working because it weigh less.
and, I have owned the Weller station too (WT1014, different soldering pen but same station in this video), I'm quite sad to find that there is no feature that wake up from sleep mode by shaking the soldering pen. If I have known that, maybe I would purchase a HAKKO instead.
Hi. Do you know a way to solder aluminum wire (thin gauge) to another aluminum wire (same gauge)?
If you are asking how to solder, here is a good video by ChrisFix ua-cam.com/video/Zu3TYBs65FM/v-deo.html But if your just asking how to solder aluminium wires, its just the same as normal copper or tin wires. I hope this help's!
@@cody_d3628 Thanks. I did all the techniques to solder aluminum wire, it won't stick to regular flux and I think won't work with regular soldering lead.
Are there other ways to solder aluminum wires?
@@SevenDeMagnus If you want you can send me an email with a picture for me to evaluate at and ill try to help if you want. I would find it easier to help if you show me a picture. If you are okay with that ill type my gmail address and then delete it so that scamers dot get it! However, if not ill just try to help you through here. Its up to you:)
Copper-clad aluminum solders normally. Soldering bare aluminum is extremely difficult, requiring special solder, special flux, and special technique. Bare aluminum wire really isn’t used in normal electronics.
I think you should mention the difference in tip prices. It will be very cheap to find replacements for the chinese soldering station. All those cheap Hakko 936 clones uses tips found for like 2 USD for a 10 pack! Weller would be super expensive and for the 20 USD, you might not even find replacement tips at all.
Great video! The cheapest 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 to be temp. controlled. It only has a power control, like dimmers do, but no sensor in the tip. It should really be scaled in Watts instead of Celsius degrees.
Nice compassion video
Seemingly very good review, however, to make it even better, I would definitely include soldering some electric wires.
I personally went with a 50 euros one simply because i wanted safety. since we're dealing with very high temperatures, i don't want one that will catch on fire
The 1010NA is under $150 USD on Amazon...
I have a cheap soldering iron/hot air gun station it works for me but I don’t even solder every week never mind every day. I’ve had it two years in June and thus far I’ve had no issues, but that will probably amount to less than 100 hours. That will be less than a professional uses their iron in a month.
Please do a video soldering bigger wires
As for weller, it will last a long time, I would not be so optimistic ... Weller has a lot of defects, technical support is terrible. Usually, after the warranty period, it is scrapped. Don't consider weller at all.
Nikodem, bardzo ciekawy filmik. PS. Mow 20% wolniej i bedzie supper :)
Ciekawe porównanie.
Greetings from germany.
I love the polish people.
They do not give a shit about people who tell them how to think
Thanks!!! That’s true, especially for me :) haha
Good review! I had to listen twice at your pronunciation of "manufacturer" at 5:21 'cause to me it allmost sounds like "motherf*cker". I know at least one person in Australia who will agree...(something with fuses).
Thanks! Sorry :) English is not my native language
I thought he said MF too lol
Erm... It looks like you forgot the Hakko FX888D for just $100.
I don't have one :)
Wished the Hakko's were available up here in the Norths.
They seem to be moneys worth. Up here the XYTronics are the best bang for the buck.
Would be cool to compare those brands.
I would recommend not buying Weller products, some are dangerous apparently. I might be wrong. One I use is the t12-952 from AliExpress or eBay, I have been using it for my electronics repair business for years.
Lol I was absolutely sure you're Indian until you spoke to your dad PO POLSKU XDD
What you're paying for is the quality of the tips, IMHO. With the $20 version, the tips will corrode quickly, even if you properly tin/clean them. Especially with cheap Weller tips. The $40 variety will probably be good for 6 months to a year. Less if you're a professional who uses the iron all day, every day. The $400's tips will probably never corrode at all.
In order to be wetted by solder the tip should allow diffusion with solder and that means that solder slowly "eats" the tip. Best tips are of pure copper but they are eaten quickly, the more robust tips are the harder it is to use them.
I have several 'cheap chinese' soldering stations, two of which have worked for years - I don't solder all that much, but it's several times a week, often old or corroded parts. The tips have never corroded, but I am careful. IMHO, a lot of the chinese stations are fine, knowing which one to buy is a crapshoot. If you are really concerned about brand, buy a Hakko (or a Hakko clone if you're broke) and if you have too much money,, get a Metcal. Weller used to be good, but as the fuse incident and their reaction to it has proved, they are no better than any other chinese made station, no matter what the price...
@@ckm-mkc Thanks for the tips (pun intended). How do you maintain your tips? I tin my tips by wrapping them in a layer of solder and then heating them up. This keeps good tips lasting forever, and bad tips will last a month, tops. If you've some good advise for how to better maintain them, I'd be grateful, as I just opened *two* which corroded almost immediately (first circuit board), despite the tinning.
@@vant4888 Best tip lifetime I've seen so far are Ersa tips. They can go on for years without corroding. Wetability is also excellent, and stays constant over the lifespan, so I don't believe that this is related to the lifetime of the coating in any way.
Probably- or probably not.
Punyaku solder kesayangan adalah sunshine 120w digital bagus tapi ga mahal dgn 400$dolar
i have delixi its awesome
What you really need to test is recovery after soldering something which sinks a lot of heat (like a heatsink soldered to a PCB)... That is probably the most important test. The other important thing is tip availability/compatibility. Ideally they would be Hakko compatible and easily available... Those are the two things I would care about. After that, I would want to know how likely it is that they would burn your house/office/lab down in case of an error or if you left them on all night by mistake. Check for stand flammability/stability, flammability of power leads, auto power shutoff/sleep and fusing.
The Weller is plastic too
It is very uneven the comparison has to be the weller with a hakko or a jbc
Does the weller have a fuse for $400? Lol
Yes, it does :)
Ja kupiłem swoją w Lidlu za 99 złociszy i ma to samo co te które testowałeś czyli działa.
Lutowałem już bardzo wieloma lutownicami i wydaje mi się, że jedyna różnica pomiędzy nimi wsyzstkimi to jakość wykonania co przekłada się na to że tańsze zepsuje się szybciej. Jeśli chodzi o samo lutowanie to raczej nie ma różnicy :)
hello, I have the lidl station as well, but the heating element broke, do you know if I can replace it in poland? how is the piece called? dziekuje bardzo!
Good video, but there is no possible comparison between the Weller and the other irons. The problem is not if they all melt solder. They do, you can buy a power controlled solder iron ... not temperature , for as low as 6$US delivered at home.
The difference apart from the Superb ergonomics of the Weller is not that the others do not melt solder. It's the fact the if you solder 8 Hours per day the other solder irons would last like ... 6 Months ... The Weller even in a Professional 8 Hours a Day work would last 10 Years at a minimum .... hence the 400$US is actually a very good price.
Granted there is a premium on for example solder iron tips and handle and so on. But there again the Weller solder iron tips last much much longer then the inexpensive Hakko 900M Clones from the other 2 solder irons.
Another thing is that the cheap one is not even grounded so it is not ESD safe. And it not Temperature controlled, it is only power controlled.
Ile masz lat?
19
@@nikodembartnik Koniecznie musisz dowiedzieć się jak wymawiać "iron". Nie piszę tego oczywiście złośliwie, polecam kanał Arleny, sam tam staram się szlifować angielski:
ua-cam.com/video/3v-It9S9730/v-deo.html. Poza tym powodzenia w kolejnych projektach i filmach.
Me who's been working with a 10€ soldering iron for a year💀
these types of soldering stations are out-of-date, unfortunately they put as much energy into the heating of the shaft as into the soldering tip
@Deep Throat Soldering stations with cartridges, they produce the heat in the tip, e.g. JBC or Pace
Without Multimeter, expensive Soldering iron dont justify for repairing electronic device.
I have the 40 dollar station one and it's just fine but the tips are garbage only good for a few uses and they lose tin and melt away.
Nice Hakko knockoff lol
Bro you look like alexa Grace's brother
Cheap soldering irons usually work great the first few weeks but they tend to turn into garbage pretty quickly
Not really, I have using Hakko for many years, I have a desoldering 808, soldering fx-888 and Fx-951.
Pass year I bought a Yihua 950, 150 watts induction soldering and works like a champ without any problem.
Best Regards.
@@treadmillrepair754 neither of those are cheap though? I was talking about $20ish irons not $120
@@aoshot That's right, Yihua 950 cost Us$300.
@@aoshot even if you tin and keep the iron clean?
I have Yihua cheapo US$35 and it's working great after 5 years. I am DIYer and use solder probably few times a month
too much reverb.
weller? Why is the cut-out part when the soldering pen is inserted into the holder? Because its problem. Very poorly designed holder. Iam using this soldering station. I dont understand weller designer. Design very nice. But only for watching. Very expensive for watching...
are you seriously testing solder station with 300°C heating? Шt will not show the leader. You need to test 280 max. 260 better.
As expected of the Weller.. They don't care about delivering quality anymore.
I would almost bet that the 400 dollar Weller doesn't even have a mains fuse.
10 seconds for heating 300c is ridicolously long time... Wouldn't call that professional.
Gotten flack alot of times for pissing on Weller from alot of fanboi's. In my opinion why
Weller became so popular was because the competition of the time sucked.
There are alot of brands that are better than Weller today. Up here in the Norths
you'd much better get a XYTronics, much more bang for the buck.
The worst Weller I've ever tried was the WHS 40(that red one), you'd be happy to
even do coldsolder with the fekker. I had a friend who got the tip stuck during a solder.
Had to get another iron to get it lose again. The pricetag on that fekker was around 130 dollars..
Have a look at Dave Jones's from EEVblog vids of Weller.
It has a Fuse ;-) media-weller.de/weller/data/Bilder%20Produkte/WT/WT1_Back_2.jpg
10 seconds isn't "ridiculously long". Notice how there was zero overshoot indicated after heating up. Probably you can select the control loop preset to allow for faster heating at the expense of slightly overshooting the set point.
Hindi use
Weller used to be industrial standard.
Now they are cheap junk
A bit of an unfair comparison, different technologies and different powers. I'm more of the opinion that something like a soldering station should be built rather than bought. Pick your preferred soldering-iron technology, your preferred micro, a transformer, and make a board for it. There's not much to it really.
dolars
The “$40” option u got which actually costs $27 dollars after shipping from amazon.
I’m very familiar with this soldering iron bc I’ve bought well over ten of them over the past couple years. I use them exclusively to dab with since they have a ceramic core. So I take off the covering for the heating element and it works fantastic with A tooter, a small silicone bowl, and some fire shit to smoke. Kinda sketchy looking if you aren’t familiar with the method, but when I think abt it, it’s brand new so no solder or anything, and ceramic won’t vent or outgas toxic fumes. Ceramic also doesn’t affect what ur smoking with any foreign tastes like metallic flavor or anything
sorry i didnt watch whole video, i scrubed thru it, but difference between soldering irons really shows when desoldering industrially made boards with few layers, etc.so this comparison is not good at least not for me.
lol some people who are only do basics won't mind paying less than $5 kiddo. No one cares about the station...you can build your own with a 10c sponge, iron holder $2 Ebay.
I see you know what you are doing, but I did not saw fume extractor. Save your health, fumes are bad for you.
With your heavy accent, machine gun speaking method and mic placement and/or mic quality causing an echo, it seems to imply you havent asked anyone for advice or there opinipn. Geeezzz!
ECHO - You need a lapel microphone -
The acoustics are not ideal -
Sounds like you are talking with a bucket over your head.
Thumbs down for poor quality audio.
tbh this is a very narrow minded test
400 for a soldering iron is not really that much
Honestly only wanky youtubets buy Weller to show off nothing wrong with a cheaper iron ultimately it's upto the user on quality at the end of the day they all do the same thing
why u touch the solder..stupid..just create holding for safe..simple