Reddit reviews DURATOOL - 48W Soldering Station

For the soldering iron any cheap adjustable iron will do as long as you're not planning lots of projects, I have this and it works fine for soldering switches. For the solder I personally use leaded 0.7mm, but anything up to around 1mm will work fine; I'd still recommend using leaded solder though. The desoldering pump you're getting is fine as long as you're not planning on doing a lot of joints as it's not the best quality. A mat would be useful as well as a fan to get rid of some of the fumes. As for screws I assume the case will come with them, if not you'll need 6 x M2 4mm screws in order to mount the PCB.

Anything with a temperature control should be decent enough for doing through-hole soldering work. I use this.

Electronics snobs will look down on it but I'm not about to spend hundreds on a professional grade one!

I use this one, don't know why is doesn't say duratool though.

48w Solder Station Adjustable Soldering Iron Kit https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01186R3AE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ncmRybJ50X0VR

That looks exactly the same as this one I bought off amazon and it's £11 cheaper. I don't have a problem with it but it's the only soldering iron I've ever owned so I can't really compare it.

This :-) If the birthday is still a bit away, Aliexpress is a good source for large kits that can be used for all sorts of projects; $22, $26 (Mega, Ultrasonic...), and single compatible UNO or Nano cost $2.60/$1.70 or so.

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I build simple car-robots with students, and while you can get a whole set for around $15, they aren't too expensive if you buy locally either (e.g. 1, 2); It's rather easy to hook up, and even with just 10 lines of programming it's ready to drive around objects by itself.

Here's a kit similar to the ones from Aliexpress, but from a German seller; http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Starter-Kit-fur-Arduino-UNO-R3-RFID-mit-Modulen-Sensoren-1602-LCD-Display-Ras-/181965808319?hash=item2a5e01e2bf:g:Jz4AAOSwepJXVUFe - so should not take too long (When I order from the UK to Germany it usually takes a week tops).

Also consider picking up a NodeMCU Wifi board, lots of fun for home automation, robots, remote controlled gadgets... (1, 2)


Does he have a soldering iron? Many try to avoid it, and you usually get away with it :-) I tried avoiding soldering as much as I can, until I got a decent soldering iron. Now it wasn't just easier, but also fun. It's actually easier then trying to splice wires, building complex circuits with jumpers, searching for loose connections... While something like the Hakko fx-888d is great, even a simpler soldering station with adjustable temperature will do to get started 1 2