Draper 230v Soldering Station | 40 W Multipurpose Soldering-iron Stand | Overheat Protection | Tip Sponge | Heat Output Dial | 61478

I bought this to put together a Christmas PCB kit and it was perfect for the job. Far better than the ones we used in school!After researching lots I decided I really didn’t need the more expensive temperature controlled stations recommended by Amazon around the £40 mark - they looked fairly poor quality to me.This has a good sturdy stand and there’s no risk of the iron coming loose. The temperature control works fine for me. I’m really no expert but have managed to solder some resistors onto a PCB with the knob turned to just under half way. I used a 0.8mm lead free rosin cored solder and had consumed precisely one beer for before I commenced. No dry joints. Not too shabby considering I haven’t soldered anything since GCSE electronics 22 years ago!I can highly recommend it for folks like me, just wanting to dabble a little with putting together PCBs and small projects without forking out loads of money but wanting something fairly decent. I do not foresee ever having to replace this and am extremely pleased with my purchase!

I purchased this soldering station after a failed attempt at soldering the centre pin of an N connector to some RG-8X (mini) coax. My old 25 watt iron just wasn't up to the job, so I looked for something with a bit more power.Firstly, it's important to point out that this is *not* a temperature-controlled iron. The dial you see on the front is effectively a potentiometer, to limit the power being delivered to the iron itself. There is no "smarts" in this unit, and therefore there's no compensating heating during use, which you would get with a temperature-controlled unit (but that will obviously cost a lot more!).That said, the iron delivers some impressive heating capabilities, and on trying my N connector termination again, I had absolutely no bother at all getting the large centre pin hot enough to solder properly.All in all, a great product and reasonable value for money, as long as your not after something with temperature control. I'd say it's more than capable of most jobs a hobbiest / occasional user would require.

Plugged it in, turned it on let it heat up for 5 minutes to find a fully oxidised tip, replacement tips a 1/4 of the price for the product, and sold singly....

Haven't done a soldering job in over 40 years - just tried this Draper station and managed without a problem.So much easier to use than the old one I used to have (which had tip like a blunderbuss!).Recommended.

On the face of it it's great; it's stable, holds the iron well, much better than just a soldering iron on its own, the tip is precise and the temperature was fine. It did exactly what I wanted it to for a few sessions until the time I turned it on, the light came on but the iron did not heat up. Then its replacement worked fine for a bit longer before failing in seemingly the same way.I've no idea what the failure was, but I wonder whether it was the cable; it's not particularly flexible - it could be a bit of a nuisance to make sure it goes where you want it to when in use - but it's a squeeze to put it back in the box, involving bending the cable where it goes into the iron quite sharply as the iron only just fits in the box diagonally. I wonder if it would last fine if you keep it out, but if you box it after every use the cable eventually fails.I will never know as I've gone for a different one instead, two of these is enough experimenting for me.