Side by Side Comparison of: X-TRONIC vs Aven vs American Terminal vs Kester

This a good investment if you're getting into soldering. It has everything you need to get started other than some solder. It heats up pretty fast and holds its temperature quite well; I don't solder anything particularly big, but it never cooled off while in use. The cable that attaches the iron to the station is sufficiently long and high quality.Using the included tip I was able to easily solder through-hole connections as well as the super tiny pads for SMDs.The spool holder on the side is a bit flaky and I wouldn't recommend using it as it ended up being more trouble that it was worth. My only major complaint is that I wish the temperature controls used actual temperatures instead of 1 - 10 (output power) as it took some trial and error to figure out where the right position was for the temperature I needed.

So far so good. As a previous user of Radio Shack equipment, this is the best soldering iron I've ever had.Warning--the instructional insert suggests that you, "run it through a 'Break in Period", for about 25 minutes allowing to heat up to max temp burning off all the newness etc... However, this will oxidize the tip and insure that no solder ever sticks to the contact area of the soldering iron. Apparently its called a soldering "iron", because although it has a copper core it is still coated with a thin layer of iron - but without a coating of solder the iron coating will oxidize! If this happens, when the iron is cool, pinch the tip with 400 to 600 grit sand paper and twist gently to remove the oxidation without damaging the iron coating. Otherwise, as soon as the iron heats up, apply some rosin core solder to the tip until it is completely saturated, i.e. "tinned". Cheers!

Wow, what a great workstation for the price. I always had professional Weller brand stations but this station does everything my Weller did but not the interchangeable tips. It does come with a spare heating element/tip. Be careful when assembling that you don't put the solder holder on backwards. If you do the roller won't fit, just take it off and reverse. Comes with sponge, copper wool and flux. You need to buy solder.

For the price this Solder Station cannot be beat! I have been looking for a complete Solder Station but did not want to pay an Arm and a Leg and this is it! I also like the temperature adjustment it works great! Easy to set up and use right out of the box. This set is everything that it says it is!

This is the first video review I've ever done so please bare with me :D. I got this little beast because my small weller junked out on me(caught on fire) after only a year. With this said, I decided to buy a different brand and wound up with the 3010. Its light weight with a polymer construction but is very solid and even has a built in metal pan to hold wet sponge so you don't melt anything. One of the best parts about buying this unit vs going back to a weller was that it came with a brass sponge built into the unit with a surprise of rosin flux underneath of the sponge! Wasn't advertised and I was extremely happy. The unit looks real sleek and works from 390 degrees to 900 degrees. Seems that all of the x-tronics soldering stations have a solder role holder so it was nice that they designed this unit to hold one unlike the smoked up weller. I use this for general purpose all around the house from garage type "events" as the wife likes to call them, to replacing a capacitor in my old guitar amp. Couldn't be happier with this unit, it has every function and accessory you need besides your favorite brand of solder. For the price you just cant beat it! Highly recommend this guy!Update: 8/29/14Just a quick update to say that I have been soldering everything with this unit. I solder all my bread board electronics with ease! Ill send another update soon.

This is posted by Linda's husband, George Keefe. I am the primary user of the X-tronic 3010. This is my first soldering station purchase. After reading several reviews on different products, this one seemed to be the most favorable. It hasn't let me down yet. I use it primarily for radio control airplane soldering of wires and connectors. The variable temperature control is perfect for what I need. I highly recommend this product and model to any non-professional who needs to solder to support his hobby. I have also talked to X-TRONIC on the phone. Customer service is outstanding. Thank you X-TRONIC.Posted by George Keefe

Feels extremely cheap, as well it should for the price. I like the design, it has the roller pin so you can put on a roll of solder instead of fumbling around with it, the tip cleaner, a temp control, and a paper thin sponge(seriously, I almost threw it away before I realized it was the sponge). Like I said it just feels cheap. The unit is so light(made of plastic for the most part) that I think it will break if it's dropped. Having said that it is way better than a regular plug in. 1 year warranty is just OK, I wouldn't expect more for the price.

I like it, I don't love it.Two things bug me about this unit. First, the only indication it is on comes on the soldering handle. If the handle is turned out of view you can't see the light. The light would be better if it was by the switch or part of the switch like my old weller this is a clone of...The second is the proprietary tips. You have to buy them from X-tronic and they are around eight bucks a piece. Kind of a rip off. Clearly they are trying the ink jet printer "ink pricing model" here.I bought this because i liked the higher wattage it offered, but had I read closer about tips and getting replacements I probably would have opted for another unit.I have a higher end X-tronic surface mount rework station so this isn't a slam of X-tronic's products, I like my SMD soldering station a lot. I just think this unit is not great the way it's packaged.

So I'm about 3 months in and I'm very happy with this product. Variable temperature works great, and I love the copper tip cleaner with rosin. For new buyers, pull the copper brillo-like cleaner out. The rosin is underneath that. My complaints are quite minor, given my means, but I have three:1.) The plastic cup holster piece in the coil holster fell out (not enough adhesive, I imagine). I intend to hot glue this. Im sure super glue would do fine as well.2.) The roller in the included solder roll holder is pretty loose. This doesn't really affect me, as I use the pocket pak dispensers, anyhow. But a little forceful manipulation and the weight of a roll would remedy this.3.) This is probably the biggest complaint but it's not for me. It's for those of you who would like a variety of iron tips at your disposal. Surface mounting or something I suppose. It's not as thought you don't have a selection but variety outside of flat or basic pointed is a little hard to come by.These things that don't bother me aside, I very much recomend this product. Freaking love it.

I've not used it a ton just yet, but I've put it through the "break-in" phase (very important; do not neglect to do this with ALL new irons & tips. They provide instructions on how to do it) and soldered a few cables, so I can at least attest to the quality of the basic functions without commenting on the longevity/sturdiness of the unit.It heats up rather quickly, and it gets hot enough on the highest setting that the tip as well as half of the shaft glows an orange/red color. So yeah, it's *plenty* hot for soldering electronic products. (I do not know if jewelry makers use this kind of soldering iron or if it's a special type, but I would imagine this unit gets hot enough for that sort of work too.) I didn't use the tips that came with it, as I need more of a chisel-style tip for cable soldering, but changing the tip was easy as could be.Overall, it's a solid purchase, especially for beginners/intermediate users & DIYers. If yer a pro, you might think this unit a little chintzy and probably want something a little more solid. But for the majority of users, this unit is grand.

So far and it takes about a minute to get up to temp, but most of these do. I like the station and the wire feeder/holder. It is a pain to get that feeder attached, but well worth it. It does come with some additional backup items and it does work. The cable attached to the station is long enough for most tasks. I have done de-soldering work, seven guitar repairs, 3 tablet repairs and it's still going. I have mine set to 8 for almost anything and it's perfect. It is a bit hard to read the knob and the values go from 0-9. Just remember to tin the tip and you're good to go.

If you need a low-cost but still quality soldering station, look no further. The inclusion of a solder spool holder and brass wool for tip maintenance help set it apart from the competition in this price range. Iron gets up to temperature as described and in a reasonable period of time. The spool holder is perfect for standard one pound spools, but will hold smaller ones as long as they aren't too wide in circumference as well.For higher-end users, you'll find a few minor things lacking;1. There is no temperature increments marked around the dial, so you'll need to use it for a while to figure out the butter zone for what you're doing.2. The sponge is also small and utilitarian, and even when wet, the edges are recessed in the station, so you'll be knocking the iron into the plastic a bit.3. Assembly of the spool holder is a bit difficult as the outside upright blocks most screwdrivers; you'll want a long, skinny driver to be able to fit through the holds on the outside upright; this is a minor, one-time inconvenience if you're going to use it.4. You may also need to bend the uprights inward a bit, as the rod that goes through the spool is only just long enough to sit there and isn't attached by anything beyond gravity; finger/hand strength will be enough to make the slight bend needed.And I would be remiss to not mention the customer service. Mine was missing the coil iron holder part of the station out of the box. Upon emailing X-Tronic about the problem, a service worked responded to me in less than one hour and apologized; they shipped me a replacement part the very next morning, Priority Mail, at no charge, and I got it less than 72 hours after originally opening the packaging the first time. Excellent job by X-Tronic.All in all, a great little station that has everything hobbyists will need, and can work for a number of professionals too. It has a few warts, but they're all minor and don't detract from the package too much. For under $40, you can't go wrong here.

Bought one of these, the price seemed good. It worked ok for about a month, then died. I returned it and ordered another one. This one lasted about 6 months and died. I'm going to buy a Weller this time. No more cheap junk.

I bought this soldering gun in July of 2014 and have used it fairly frequently. I works really well and I like it and all but one problem that really makes it a pain to use are the 3 little screws that hold the soldering tip to the handle have pulled out of the plastic and despite constantly retightening them they pull right out again, making the tip loose and unstable. It started with this problem around a year after using it and has gotten worse, to the point that I am now on a search for a better constructed soldering station.

Unit worked great for 49 days and now it's not working. I honestly can't say if it's the heating element or not, because to replace the heating element requires soldering and I don't have a back up unit. I will be contacting the manufacturer as the amazon warranty ended 19 days ago. I'll post the results.

Good station, bad picture. The tip is no where near as fine as depicted and I bought this as I needed it to be that fine...

Solid performance for a starter solder station. However not so great for detailed surface mount work. The tip in the photo looks a lot more conical than what I ended up with and makes detailed work difficult. Looking for replacement tips, x-tronics only offers the same conical tip as it come with along with some bevel and chisel styles.The main take away is this is good for through hole soldering, not so great for surface mount soldering. You get what you pay.

Hard finding replacement tips for this model

Solid construction but I have yet to see it melt solder of any kind.

tip too large for electronics such as LED strips or Arduino and tips not sold from Amazon. Suggest keep searching and focus on unit with temperature readout and smaller electronic tips that are available from amazon or come with it, read a lot about something sounding like Harko but have not followed up on it yet. Tip looks small in picture, and additional tips on manufacture site look small too, but tips too large for small components.

I liked the design of the station. The solder holder is convenient and a spool adds enough weight to keep the station from sliding around. Overall it is a good arrangement.But... As other reviewers have noted, the tip will not stay secured in the iron. When hot, the tip works loose and slips, even after tightening the screw repeatedly. Having a simple screw holding the tip isn't very secure.The heater shield is longer, larger diameter, and heavier than the typical Hakko or Weller irons. It feels unbalanced and too clumsy for tight spots and fine work.I returned it.

This didn't heat up like I had hoped. Bought it to replace an old Weller pistol style soldering gun that has got me by for years more or less, but wanted something that was reliable and has more finess. Couldn't get this to melt the solder until I cranked it to max and even though I could see the barrel getting super hot the tip (which is more bulky than what I expected) just barely melted the solder. Not sure if it is the material that was used for the tip or what but was concerned that trying to operate it at full temp would quickly burn out the element. Didn't have the fine control had hoped so I sent it back.

Was not what I was expecting, the video posted on here by another "reviewer" definitely hooked me but basically this is a $15 iron, good luck working on any modern PC motherboard with the tip provided, (READ ->> WIDE, THICK). Most disappointing, there are no precision tips to be had for this unit in the marketplace (so far as I can tell) .... even the manufacturers website isolates this particular unit replacement tips as unique (and no precision tip style offered)

I purchased this unit a couple of months ago as I have been getting back to my electronics roots as a hobby. I was using a standard hand held, fixed temp unit that was working fine but I wanted a little more control over temp and this unit had good reviews. I'm not sure if I am doing something wrong (it's been decades since I last soldered) but I find the tip to be of poor quality. It has two holding screws that are opposite of each other, thus creating a pivoting point so that no matter how tight you make the screws, the tip still moves slightly if pressed at the right angle. The other quality issue I have with the tip is that it does not hold solder, it just rolls off. This makes it difficult to solder joints since there is no solder on the tip to aid in heat transfer. I would not recommend this unit but I may look for a better quality tip.

Piece of crap, save your money. Used it one day to desolder and solder about a dozen capacitors. Tried it 7 months later on a board, wouldn't heat up. Dead element. Can't locate the replacement that was supposed to ship with the unit. Looks nice on the workbench but that's about it.

Mine broke within the first 3 uses. The uses are small circuit boards. It was on for maybe 30 minutes total. Wouldn't recommend

I was having a lot of trouble soldering with this iron. It would not heat up enough to melt solder unless I set it at the highest setting for 10 or 15 minutes! At first I thought it was me, but I bought a $29.00 iron and it heats up in 45 seconds and I can solder like a pro! I'd like to get my money back for this thing, but I've probably waited too long.

Followed break in procedures. Upon first use the hot tip fell right out of iron!!!!... Inspected clamping screw and it was completely bottomed out and could not be tightened. One would expect that a manufacturer would inspect their product before shipping. This is a complete dud unit, it is impossible to tighten the clamping screw. Otherwise, the unit seemed to work fine, was a little cooler than expected (now we know why). Returning for refund. We will see how they stand behind their product, I was expecting North American quality.Check your tip for safety, and return for refund immediately before a serious dangerous accident happens.

Unfortunately this iron did not deliver what I was expecting for $40. I had the iron for a few months and the handle started cracking due to the heat of the iron of which there really is no practical fix other that replacing the unit. It was also hard to tell if the iron was "on" due to the fact there is no indicator light on the base, only a very dim one on the iron handle which is a safety hazard IMHO. The base of the controller is too light and skids all over the place with very little grip on the workbench (I had to add weight to the base to make it usable). In the end I threw it away and purchased a "937D SMD" type closed-loop temperature controlled, LED readout soldering iron for $38 shipped and it's the very best investment I could of made for my soldering needs. Please save yourself the headache and check out the 937D. iMeshbean® 937D SMD 110V Solder Soldering Iron Station SOIC, CHIP, QFP, PLCC, BGA Welder with Extra Iron Heating Element & 6 Tips USA

Needs a little more heat to do the job. Have to wait a lot longer than other irons.The ceramic ring does not hold the iron in place from touching the 'spring' part of the holder.The heat is lost from the tip and has to be waited on until it builds up again for proper use.