Side by Side Comparison of: Mudder vs Aven vs Elenco vs Kester

Very precise. I've tried soldering electronics in the past with non-temp-controlled irons and they are impossible to use without burning up components. I had a critical job to do and so I bought this. Not disappointed at all. Some people complained about a problem with the dial moving while you use it, but I didn't have an issue with that. Just be careful you don't bump it once it's set. If you've got a ton of joints to make with one setting, tape it.

Great product especially because of the variable temp control which most low cost soldering irons do not have. Also the extra 5 tips work well for various soldering needs. Fast shipping and easy packaging. Mudder 60W 110V Adjustable Temperature Welding Soldering Iron with Five Pieces Different Tips for Variously Repaired Usage

Hearts up quickly, withe temp control. Congress with a couple different tips.My other iron didn't get hot enough to melt solder, I think it was 35watt.this one does the job, and quickly! Just be careful not to set the temp too high b/c you will melt plastic and burn other things that the metal/wire your soldering to is touching, stay safe! It's easy to get burned and/or start a fire.you'd be surprised how fast some things get hot, and then you drop it, and then it burns things.... lolJust keep that in mind, consider using a holder/supports

I am a technician by trade, and have always used Weller soldering irons and stands, but I don't really need professional quality at home. I purchased this as it was one of the few that had temperature regulation WITHOUT the big display/stand. It works well, and I found after some trial and error with the solder that running it cooler than I am used to provided a very nice solder flow. As others have said - the temp adjustment is on the handle and easy to bump... just hold it so your fingers are not in the line of it and no more issues.

Compared to the other versions at similar price, this soldering iron allows for adjustable temperatures from 200C to 400C. It also has interchangeable heads for a variety of uses. I personally purchased this soldering iron to melt through plastic to create hamster cages. The iron would heat up very quickly (around 1 minute) and could be used for ~10 minutes before you could feel some heat radiating through the handle. At this point, I did not want to risk damaging the great product so I let it cool for 5 minutes. I repeated this process 4 times before finishing melting everything I needed to. I'm not sure if I needed to wait to let it cool but no need to risk damaging a new tool!

This is a high quality soldering iron for a good price. 60 Watts provides plenty of power and the temperature dial allows you to precisely control the heat. There is a "pre-heated" light inside the handle that glows red when the iron is heated to your desired temperature. The handle has a high quality rubbery grip material that feels nice in the hand. The package comes with 5 different tips that are quick and easy to swap out. Great value! 5 Stars.

This is great. Very hot, melts all kinds of solder that I've encountered. Comfortable handle and adjustable temperature means very flexible operations. I recommend using with a soldering iron stand, as the cord is stiff/thick and can cause the iron to roll around and set things alight.

Works great for soldering and desoldering, If you turn it to the "200 degrees' Which is the lowest settings, it will shut off after a few minutes, so that's great for leaving it plugged in for short periods of time.Make sure you keep solder on the tip at all times though, Otherwise it can ruin the tip.Works awesome, Heats up in seconds. and gets the job done.

Gotta love this soldering iron. It includes in one reasonably-priced unit the features that would usually only come in a soldering station: pen, temperature dial, extra tips. Only dislike: no on/off switch, so it has to be plugged / unplugged each time. One could overcome this with a switching box and it would be great. Surprisingly doesn't come with a pen rest. Bend a piece of hangar wire; it'll work fine.Surprisingly, at heats between 350 and 450 it works as a rather good woodburning pen as well-- an unexpected bonus.

Here's the truth. I have bought 2 of these now. No they are not Pro grade, and No they are not crap. The are temperature adjustable and they can get very hot.The handle and tip are virtually identical to my Hakko 998 but the plastic is not as nice, these are rather brittle. The tips are not too bad and are interchangeable with the Hakko tips but do seem to corrode faster than the Hakko. If you tin the tip when you are finished they should last a reasonable long time.The heating element and tip retainer is virtually identical to that of the Hakko. as an experiment, I left one plugged in and set to max temperature for 24hours in the $5 addon iron holder Amazon sells. after that the blue plastic handle where the tip retainer screws on was nice and hot, the plastic had softened a bit and the whole tip assembly could be flexed. After the thing cooled down the plastic seemed to have wept some yellowish goo and the thread on the blue plastic handle we messed up. The unit still holds together and functions just file nut I would recommend doing that often.If you are looking for a cheep, hot soldering iron for intermittent duty, I would recommend this one.

It is a good soldering iron so far. The various included tips are nice to have for different jobs. The adjustable temperature is also a nice feature. There is one thing you need to be aware of though. A previous reviewing stated that the soldering iron started melting after use. You need to be sure everything is screwed down tightly before use. There is a plastic screw on cap just below where the tip screws in place. If this plastic cap is not screwed down all the way, it will start to melt.

Great price and the extra tips really seals the deal! Temperature control ... well not exactly ... the dial adjusts the power starting at the lowest setting draws about 24 watts once warm draws around 13 watts and will melt solder even though the dial says 200C. The LED in the handle also glows brighter as the dial is adjusted higher but stays on constantly. The black rubber end of the handle starts getting very warm on the lowest heat setting after half an hour and I recommend a holder that points the tip upwards instead of downwards to reduce the handle heating. I have another real temperature controlled iron that can go as low at 200F and its LED cycles on and off once it reaches the set temperature. This one definitely does not work like that but it does the job and the tips are compatible with other irons which is a plus! The next test is soldering some heavier wires to connectors and I hope it can generate enough heat to do that. So far I am pleased with its performance!

The first one i got stopped working on the same day. The seller was kind enough to send me another one, which worked fine for a couple months then it also failed. It gets hot, very very hot, very fast. Was really happy with it until it broke. It works great, but sad to say it seems as though it has a very high failure rate.

Absolutely loved this soldering iron until one day when I accidently left it turned to high heat (350-400 degrees) and found the handle section melted where it connects to the element section. If you are aware of this and remember to use high heat only briefly and always to turn the temperature down, you will be happy with this purchase.

Works great for electronic or stain glass soldering. The temperature is turned up and down by a cheap dial and it is in spot where I hit it with my finger or thumb and constantly turn it up or down. It also shuts off after about 10 min, that could just be a safety feature though.

Used a "Kill-A-Watt" device to measure actual wattage usage at various "temperature" settings with the tip exposed to 70F room temperature. Lowest setting (200C) initially consumes 18W and then stabilizes to 12W after about a minute. Max setting (450C) draws no more than 30W continuously even with the tip immersed in water.I do not have a temperature probe to measure actual tip temperature, but I seriously doubt that this device has a temperature feedback to control tip temperature.The iron does work and the various tips sizes/shapes are very useful, but it doesn't put out the advertised 60W of heat, only 30W. In soldering it is more important to view soldering as a thermal mass problem; how much heat energy is required to raise the temperature of the material(s) to be soldered to the solder melting point and how the size, shape, and condition of the tip and the part(s) it comes in contact with affects the thermal transfer rate of tip to material. This is why is takes a while to learn the "feel" for any soldering iron.Iron is still a good value for what it does, provided it lasts.

Heats up quick, easy to hold, but the cord is really stiff (cheap) and the wattage adjustment knob is in a bad spot and can be easily turned....and by easily I mean as you hold the handle your hand will brush the knob and before you know it the wattage is a max.

Reason I'm giving this a 3 star is because if you set it to the highest which is over more than it says on the description being 824 degrees, it will melt and turn to a different direction. Also you won't be able to take out the tip's which is pretty much pointless having the tips that come with it. But I still use it cause it gets the job done to solder what you need. So to go easy on the iron just set to the mid dial not max heat.

To be fair, I'm learning and should probably have been more careful with the temp settings. This might have been operator error. I was able to solder the parts I was working on and the circuit worked. But the iron got too hot and part of the handle melted. That doesn't seem right, so bought a 25 watt Weller standard duty iron. I'll see how that works.

It works ok at the lowest temperature setting. However, when set at the max temp setting, the plastic handle became very hot to the point that I could not hold it. Once, I left it in a holder (at high temp setting) unused for 5 or more minutes, the handle became soft; then the soldering iron was deformed, the handle was separated from the metalic heating element at their joint. I let it cool down and screwed the heating element back on. It continued to work afterward. I plan to take its guts and transplant it to another iron which has high quality plastic handle. The soldering tip seems to hold well, not easily pitted or worn.

dam i wish i knew more about this before i bought it. took me forever to figure out how to change the tips and i almost broke it doing so why because this place assumes we the customers were part of making this thing so we know everything about it already no need for directions.then there is that dam dial made for a barbie doll if you up there like me good luck trying to read the dam thing i just guessed by the light when it went bright i was on high dimmed low exactly knowing what temp i am on i don't know i even had trouble seeing it with 140 power reading glasses. but it did burn good solder went on great you just need to get an extension cord or do like me and make it longer and it does not come witha cooling stand i had to use my old one.

worked good for a while, but one day i plugged it in and turned up the temp to max and something inside it blew up and it stopped working.

Worked great for soldering but after about an hour or so of use (not on High either) I noticed the base of the iron was really hot. When putting even slight pressure on the handle to use the iron the metal part of the soldering iron started to move (as in the plastic base started to get too hot and melt) and I was afraid to use it anymore as it could burn me or become disconnected from the base. I was hoping for a decent soldering iron for cheap that you can adjust the temperature but it doesn't seem like there will be one out there that can handle the temperature.When I first purchased this it arrived broken (no temperature dial) and I had to purchase another one which was very disappointing as I had set aside time to do my project the day it arrived. Shipping speed was amazing though, I got one the next day.If this could just handle the heat it can output then it would be a GREAT product.

It seems very nice, but the needlepoint tip didn't fit and that was very disappointing because that was the one I needed most for some through-hole soldering. It is shorter than the others and therefore it won't allow it to screw back together.

While it works well at first, the durability of this soldering iron is awful. This unit is re-branded all over amazon and they consistently break where the 2 pieces screw together at. I've owned 2 and the first on I had literally broken in half but I decided to get it a second chance since it lasted 3 months and worked well during that time. The second one last 2 weeks before it begin to thread itself... terrible durability.Another issue is that the temperature knob moves so easily you will consistently move it while using it without knowing until you start to notice bad solder joints. While this iron is cheap and can get the job done, its really a poor quality iron.

After about 15 minutes of use, at about 275 setting,while hanging over the edge of my work bench where I was resting it between uses the complete end melted off, fell on a rubber mat on my floor and caught it on fire.I have used and owned in my career as an avionics tech probably 30 different soldering irons. And the first 12or so minutes with this one was great. But with all the irons I have owned ($3.00 one to a $300.00 soldering station) I have never had one melt in half!This iron is dangerous and should be pulled off the market

Within 15 minutes of first time I used the Mudder Soldering Iron the HOT metal end melted out of the plastic handle and fell on a brand new Vinyl floor TWO (2) days old and of course burned a large spot in the Vinyl before I could get something to pick up the hot soldering tip and holder.The soldering Iron came with the temp dial set at its lowest setting and I had not changed it.This purchase has been a very costly error on my part.Carl John

DOA obviously tells you that the product isn't tested prior to shipping. I contacted the seller to see if there may be a simple solution and all I got was a blanket answer.

FIRE HAZARD!!!!!DO NOT BUY!!!!!!Metal retainer that holds tip and heating element is pressed directly into plastic, if used for more than 20 minutes at a time the handle will melt and the element will fall out!!!!!! seriously, this thing is a danger!!!!!

The first time I used it, it melted! Only an hour and a half at around 300 degrees and this thing is trash! Do not buy this product!