Going from a 'gun' style soldering iron to this - makes a big difference when trying to solder smaller things in tighter spaces. It heats up very fast and works well. There have been zero issues with it.

Going from a 'gun' style soldering iron to this - makes a big difference when trying to solder smaller things in tighter spaces. It heats up very fast and works well. There have been zero issues with it.

It’s good quality

It’s good quality

Nice unit, heats up quickly and the temperature control panel shows set temperature but also the current temperature as tip heats up so you know when it's ready rather than waiting an arbitrary time until you think it's ready. The solder spool holder doesn't click in place so if moving unit around the solder roll will fall off but that's only an issue if not using it on a bench.

Nice unit, heats up quickly and the temperature control panel shows set temperature but also the current temperature as tip heats up so you know when it's ready rather than waiting an arbitrary time until you think it's ready. The solder spool holder doesn't click in place so if moving unit around the solder roll will fall off but that's only an issue if not using it on a bench.

This setup is used for soldering items for my HO model train layout and for the installation of DCC systems. Works really good! Temperature control and "hands" are great. Actually, just needed a good iron and I got that, but having all the other stuff in one complet station is a real bonus

This setup is used for soldering items for my HO model train layout and for the installation of DCC systems. Works really good! Temperature control and "hands" are great. Actually, just needed a good iron and I got that, but having all the other stuff in one complet station is a real bonus

EDITMy station died. About 10 months after purchasing it, I went to use it and it would only display 181. The iron would not heat up.I have only been using it a few times a month so it is not under heavy usage. I would consider it moderate use.Because of the 181 displayed and the fact nothing would work I assumed it was the station itself and not the iron since the element was still in excellent condition.I contacted X-Tronic through Amazon. They asked me to go to their website and start a claim, which I did. I explained how the unit was functioning currently (not at all other than the 181 on the display). They sent be a complete brand new unit. It took about a week to arrive.So they have very good customer service.Note one thing I realized about this unit that I should have thought about before is that you cannot just replace the iron if it goes bad. There is no jack to plug the iron in, it's wired directly into the base station. If I have a problem I will replace the new iron with the old one by removing the wires and rewiring in the old iron, but the average person with no spare parts will have to replace the entire unit.When this unit is working it works well, but if the base station dies again I think I will spend the extra money for a Hakko or a Weller.I would take a star off because the iron broke down, but there customer service was so good I think they deserve a star for that.Original Review:I have been a professional tech for over 30 years.I am constantly soldering, although nowhere near as much as I used to. I had been using a HAKKO soldering station that was pretty good but the unit had been dropped at least once, had a heavy part dropped on top of it, and the power switch failed (I soldered it closed so it powers up as soon as you plug it in).I use a Weller at home that I have had for almost 30 years. Even though it was beat up and had no iron when I found it, I cleaned it up, bought an iron and it's been working like a champ ever since. However, Weller soldering stations are expensive. I did not want to spend $200 or more for a soldering station I don't use as much as I used to.Cruising around on Amazon gave me a bunch of choices. I picked one out based on the availability of tips and heating elements, as well as satisfaction shown in reviews.I received this XTronic station today. I have set it up and tested it. Everything seems to work very well. The iron heats up quickly, the regulation works well, the iron is nice and light, the cords nice and flexible.At this point, this station looks like it should work perfectly for my needs. I am little worried that the manual says the heating element may only last a year under heavy use. On the Hakko we would get about 5 years of heavy use, and on the Weller I have never had to change either the tip or the heating element, but it is used sparingly.So, I have to say the station looks excellent and I was very happy with the testing I did. At this point I just need to know what the longevity is like. If I have any issues in the near future I will come back and edit this review.

EDITMy station died. About 10 months after purchasing it, I went to use it and it would only display 181. The iron would not heat up.I have only been using it a few times a month so it is not under heavy usage. I would consider it moderate use.Because of the 181 displayed and the fact nothing would work I assumed it was the station itself and not the iron since the element was still in excellent condition.I contacted X-Tronic through Amazon. They asked me to go to their website and start a claim, which I did. I explained how the unit was functioning currently (not at all other than the 181 on the display). They sent be a complete brand new unit. It took about a week to arrive.So they have very good customer service.Note one thing I realized about this unit that I should have thought about before is that you cannot just replace the iron if it goes bad. There is no jack to plug the iron in, it's wired directly into the base station. If I have a problem I will replace the new iron with the old one by removing the wires and rewiring in the old iron, but the average person with no spare parts will have to replace the entire unit.When this unit is working it works well, but if the base station dies again I think I will spend the extra money for a Hakko or a Weller.I would take a star off because the iron broke down, but there customer service was so good I think they deserve a star for that.Original Review:I have been a professional tech for over 30 years.I am constantly soldering, although nowhere near as much as I used to. I had been using a HAKKO soldering station that was pretty good but the unit had been dropped at least once, had a heavy part dropped on top of it, and the power switch failed (I soldered it closed so it powers up as soon as you plug it in).I use a Weller at home that I have had for almost 30 years. Even though it was beat up and had no iron when I found it, I cleaned it up, bought an iron and it's been working like a champ ever since. However, Weller soldering stations are expensive. I did not want to spend $200 or more for a soldering station I don't use as much as I used to.Cruising around on Amazon gave me a bunch of choices. I picked one out based on the availability of tips and heating elements, as well as satisfaction shown in reviews.I received this XTronic station today. I have set it up and tested it. Everything seems to work very well. The iron heats up quickly, the regulation works well, the iron is nice and light, the cords nice and flexible.At this point, this station looks like it should work perfectly for my needs. I am little worried that the manual says the heating element may only last a year under heavy use. On the Hakko we would get about 5 years of heavy use, and on the Weller I have never had to change either the tip or the heating element, but it is used sparingly.So, I have to say the station looks excellent and I was very happy with the testing I did. At this point I just need to know what the longevity is like. If I have any issues in the near future I will come back and edit this review.

Im not going to say im the master of the soldering iron by any means. but for me this iron gets the job done.learn from my mistake and remember to remove the plastic protector on the end of the iron prior to turning on or itll be a smoky mess... one thing that irks me is they did not include any flux but included a bit of decent solder in the box.because of the size of the whole unit the "helping hands" are rather useless for anything larger than a business card as there is no counter weight. the little sponge to assist to clean your tips was a nice thought but doesnt really assist.as for the soldering iron proper, the display is very easy to read however i didn't check the accuracy of the readout to actual temperature but it feels relatively close. I would say prior to first use allow the iron to hang with the wire stretched out as there is a fair amount of memory which creates awkward bends which are a bit annoying.final critical thoughts:I like how there is included solder however( a problem with every soldering iron) there is no included flux. both are required for 80-90% of connections you will do when soldering so why not include a small amount of general purpose flux? also they included a tip cleaner but no solder wick? Small inclusions like this would turn it from a 4 star item to a 5 star item as it would set them apart from the competition

Im not going to say im the master of the soldering iron by any means. but for me this iron gets the job done.learn from my mistake and remember to remove the plastic protector on the end of the iron prior to turning on or itll be a smoky mess... one thing that irks me is they did not include any flux but included a bit of decent solder in the box.because of the size of the whole unit the "helping hands" are rather useless for anything larger than a business card as there is no counter weight. the little sponge to assist to clean your tips was a nice thought but doesnt really assist.as for the soldering iron proper, the display is very easy to read however i didn't check the accuracy of the readout to actual temperature but it feels relatively close. I would say prior to first use allow the iron to hang with the wire stretched out as there is a fair amount of memory which creates awkward bends which are a bit annoying.final critical thoughts:I like how there is included solder however( a problem with every soldering iron) there is no included flux. both are required for 80-90% of connections you will do when soldering so why not include a small amount of general purpose flux? also they included a tip cleaner but no solder wick? Small inclusions like this would turn it from a 4 star item to a 5 star item as it would set them apart from the competition

After purchasing and returning 2 of these because they did not work, the owner of the company contacted me personally to apologize and offer me another one to try in order to see if it would work better. This third one worked perfectly, exactly as I had hoped the first 2 would. I can say that the customer service from X-TRONIC gets an A+ and their product works great!This was my previous review:I needed a soldering iron for some electrical/circuit board work I was going to be doing. I looked online and read articles and reviews of different soldering irons before I bought anything. This particular soldering iron from X-Tronic was rated as the best soldering iron in a bunch of head-to-head reviewed tests online. I always try to buy the best tools and the best quality that I can afford, and I figured that I should get the best when it came to soldering irons. My goodness, was I in for a surprise.I ordered one of these soldering irons and I immediately noticed that it did not seem to melt solder very well. I kept it for about a day and tried to work with it, I thought initially that maybe I was doing something wrong. The solder that I was using had a melting point somewhere in the low to mid 400°F range, so I set the temperature on the soldering iron to about 530°F. You would think that this would work perfectly, but it seemed like the iron was not heating up properly and it just did not really want to melt the solder. I have never seen anything like it in my life. I turned the temperature up on the soldering iron to 600°F and it still was having a difficult time melting the solder! I would hold the iron on the solder for literally 15 or 20 seconds and it would deform the solder, but it would not melt the solder. Unreal!I figured I must have gotten a defective unit, so I returned it to Amazon. I then ordered the exact same X-Tronic soldering iron again. I figured this time I would get a good one and everything would work the way was supposed to. Wrong again! This new soldering iron was just the same as the first one. It had the exact same issues where it did not seem to want to melt solder. I kept this iron for a couple of days, I even had my father-in-law try it out to see if I was crazy. I thought he might say that the iron was fine and it was user error. My father-in-law is much more experienced in soldering than I am and he's very good at it. After using it for about five minutes he looked at me and said it's no good, just return this junk. He pulled out a cheap soldering iron that he bought online for about eight dollars and he used it on the same stuff that he had just tried the X-Tronic on and it melted the solder like a hot knife through butter. There was no comparison. The cheap junk soldering iron was light-years better. So I actually returned my soldering iron for a second time and I bought a different soldering iron, from the same brand that my father-in-law purchased his cheap one from. I'm here to report that the new one from the cheap brand works great. Can't say enough good things about a soldering iron that came with a case and set for less than $20! Here is what I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0744P55YR/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1I don't know if the two X-Tronic irons that I purchased and returned were both defective and from a bad batch or if the design is just no good, but it's just shocking to me that this iron has so many great reviews but yet I bought two of them and neither one worked well at all. It might be a defective heating element, it might be that the thermostat is calibrated wrong from the factory. I just don't understand it.

After purchasing and returning 2 of these because they did not work, the owner of the company contacted me personally to apologize and offer me another one to try in order to see if it would work better. This third one worked perfectly, exactly as I had hoped the first 2 would. I can say that the customer service from X-TRONIC gets an A+ and their product works great!This was my previous review:I needed a soldering iron for some electrical/circuit board work I was going to be doing. I looked online and read articles and reviews of different soldering irons before I bought anything. This particular soldering iron from X-Tronic was rated as the best soldering iron in a bunch of head-to-head reviewed tests online. I always try to buy the best tools and the best quality that I can afford, and I figured that I should get the best when it came to soldering irons. My goodness, was I in for a surprise.I ordered one of these soldering irons and I immediately noticed that it did not seem to melt solder very well. I kept it for about a day and tried to work with it, I thought initially that maybe I was doing something wrong. The solder that I was using had a melting point somewhere in the low to mid 400°F range, so I set the temperature on the soldering iron to about 530°F. You would think that this would work perfectly, but it seemed like the iron was not heating up properly and it just did not really want to melt the solder. I have never seen anything like it in my life. I turned the temperature up on the soldering iron to 600°F and it still was having a difficult time melting the solder! I would hold the iron on the solder for literally 15 or 20 seconds and it would deform the solder, but it would not melt the solder. Unreal!I figured I must have gotten a defective unit, so I returned it to Amazon. I then ordered the exact same X-Tronic soldering iron again. I figured this time I would get a good one and everything would work the way was supposed to. Wrong again! This new soldering iron was just the same as the first one. It had the exact same issues where it did not seem to want to melt solder. I kept this iron for a couple of days, I even had my father-in-law try it out to see if I was crazy. I thought he might say that the iron was fine and it was user error. My father-in-law is much more experienced in soldering than I am and he's very good at it. After using it for about five minutes he looked at me and said it's no good, just return this junk. He pulled out a cheap soldering iron that he bought online for about eight dollars and he used it on the same stuff that he had just tried the X-Tronic on and it melted the solder like a hot knife through butter. There was no comparison. The cheap junk soldering iron was light-years better. So I actually returned my soldering iron for a second time and I bought a different soldering iron, from the same brand that my father-in-law purchased his cheap one from. I'm here to report that the new one from the cheap brand works great. Can't say enough good things about a soldering iron that came with a case and set for less than $20! Here is what I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0744P55YR/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1I don't know if the two X-Tronic irons that I purchased and returned were both defective and from a bad batch or if the design is just no good, but it's just shocking to me that this iron has so many great reviews but yet I bought two of them and neither one worked well at all. It might be a defective heating element, it might be that the thermostat is calibrated wrong from the factory. I just don't understand it.

Out of the Box:The unit came with the base station, hot pen holder, Tip Cleaning scrub with Rosin basin, Cleaning Sponge, Solder Roll holder/dispenser, and Manual.Pros:I found these to be very well design elements of this unit both before, during and after using it:Base unit: The base unit has a holder for your brass filings tip cleaning with rosin on the bottom, large spring pen holder, built in reservoir for the cleaning sponge, adjustable temperature setting, and a soldering roll holder/dispenser.Sleep Mode: I found this very useful. During my DIY project I often find myself getting side tracked by non soldering activities. The device goes into a sleep mode after about 10 minutes of non use. Then somehow, not sure how, it knows that you have picked up the pen for use and immediately reactivates. Granted it doesn't instantly go back to the temperature you set, but for this feature I can wait a few seconds.Long Pen Cord: This is very important when working with soldering project, not having to fight the power cord. The Pen cord is totally separate from the power cord which both are connect via the base unit. Not to mention that the pen cord seems to be tangle free!Pen: The manufacturer doesn't use cheap hard plastic here, they went the extra mile to provide comfortable and heat resistant materials on the pen. Not one time did I get fatigued or felt as though the pen was getting hot. Nicely done!Cons:Temperature Knob: This really isn't a con but more of a I wished they would have done something different. The knob has a smooth rotation, and getting a precise temperature is rather hard to do. Sometimes the temp advances multiple degrees at the slightest movement. But at the end of the day, how often are you going to need an exact temperature for soldering.Manual: This has to be the first time I have listed a manual as a con for a device, but in my opinion this needs to be updated with a bit more information on the product and descriptions of the accessories and their uses.Wish List:This is my own personal things I wished would have been included on this product that would have put my rating over the top.Extra Soldering tips: The unit comes with just a basic needle point tip. A set of an additional 5 basic tips would have been perfect for inclusion within this package.Adding a clicking feature to the temperature knob. In my opinion this would allow for better control of the temperature setting feature of the unit. Again, this is just a wish they would have included this, but this seems to their basic model, and for what you get, it is most impressive.They also assume that you already know how to solder and therefore know how to set up a soldering pen/iron by "tinning" it. Unfortunately they do not have a procedure for how to do this in the manual. There is a section in the manual on page 4 is a sort of trouble shooting of why solder isn't sticking, but the all important method of tinning isn't described in detail and I wished it was. This would be a nice item to have in the manual, and I hope they read my review and act on some of these items!Assembly: Really, this has to be one of the easiest parts of the whole thing. Within minutes you are up and running and ready to go!Maintenance:Tip maintenance is required as it is with all soldering units. other than that and adding water to the cleaning sponge before use, there really isn't any.Personal experience:I'm building a DIY powerwall for my house, and a lot of soldering is required. The needle tip the unit came with will not work for the project I'm doing, which lead me to ordering a extra set of tips. Once I got the new tips, the unit has performed perfectly and my project is moving at a nice pace.Bottom Line:Overall this product works as advertised, and performs perfectly on both large and small jobs.Recommendation:Damn Good Buy!

Out of the Box:The unit came with the base station, hot pen holder, Tip Cleaning scrub with Rosin basin, Cleaning Sponge, Solder Roll holder/dispenser, and Manual.Pros:I found these to be very well design elements of this unit both before, during and after using it:Base unit: The base unit has a holder for your brass filings tip cleaning with rosin on the bottom, large spring pen holder, built in reservoir for the cleaning sponge, adjustable temperature setting, and a soldering roll holder/dispenser.Sleep Mode: I found this very useful. During my DIY project I often find myself getting side tracked by non soldering activities. The device goes into a sleep mode after about 10 minutes of non use. Then somehow, not sure how, it knows that you have picked up the pen for use and immediately reactivates. Granted it doesn't instantly go back to the temperature you set, but for this feature I can wait a few seconds.Long Pen Cord: This is very important when working with soldering project, not having to fight the power cord. The Pen cord is totally separate from the power cord which both are connect via the base unit. Not to mention that the pen cord seems to be tangle free!Pen: The manufacturer doesn't use cheap hard plastic here, they went the extra mile to provide comfortable and heat resistant materials on the pen. Not one time did I get fatigued or felt as though the pen was getting hot. Nicely done!Cons:Temperature Knob: This really isn't a con but more of a I wished they would have done something different. The knob has a smooth rotation, and getting a precise temperature is rather hard to do. Sometimes the temp advances multiple degrees at the slightest movement. But at the end of the day, how often are you going to need an exact temperature for soldering.Manual: This has to be the first time I have listed a manual as a con for a device, but in my opinion this needs to be updated with a bit more information on the product and descriptions of the accessories and their uses.Wish List:This is my own personal things I wished would have been included on this product that would have put my rating over the top.Extra Soldering tips: The unit comes with just a basic needle point tip. A set of an additional 5 basic tips would have been perfect for inclusion within this package.Adding a clicking feature to the temperature knob. In my opinion this would allow for better control of the temperature setting feature of the unit. Again, this is just a wish they would have included this, but this seems to their basic model, and for what you get, it is most impressive.They also assume that you already know how to solder and therefore know how to set up a soldering pen/iron by "tinning" it. Unfortunately they do not have a procedure for how to do this in the manual. There is a section in the manual on page 4 is a sort of trouble shooting of why solder isn't sticking, but the all important method of tinning isn't described in detail and I wished it was. This would be a nice item to have in the manual, and I hope they read my review and act on some of these items!Assembly: Really, this has to be one of the easiest parts of the whole thing. Within minutes you are up and running and ready to go!Maintenance:Tip maintenance is required as it is with all soldering units. other than that and adding water to the cleaning sponge before use, there really isn't any.Personal experience:I'm building a DIY powerwall for my house, and a lot of soldering is required. The needle tip the unit came with will not work for the project I'm doing, which lead me to ordering a extra set of tips. Once I got the new tips, the unit has performed perfectly and my project is moving at a nice pace.Bottom Line:Overall this product works as advertised, and performs perfectly on both large and small jobs.Recommendation:Damn Good Buy!