T12 Soldering Station MINI STC V2.3 Temperature Controller Electronic Welding Iron Tips Handle DIY Aluminum Alloy Case Power Equipments DC24V

This is (now) an excellent soldering iron. When I received mine, it worked great for soldering but would lock up & reboot when trying to enter standby, boost, or sleep modes. I messaged KSGER and in less than 12 hours, they had diagnosed the problem and dispatched a replacement for the faulty controller board. The new controller board PCB is slightly different than one it shipped with so they've made a revision to fix the issue.I've been using mine for a few months now and figured I'd break my review down to pros and cons.Pros:- build quality is really good, IMO. All aluminum, just feels well constructed. Controller board issue was discouraging but KSGER took care of it.- heats up very fast. It's ready to use from completely off in about 8 seconds.- tips are easy to change and hot-swappable. I use a corner of my silicone soldering mat to pull the hot tip out and swap it with others.- UI rocks. The display is easy to read sitting on my bench, the rotary encoder has all the settings at the flick of the knob, and it's just intuitive to use.- the handle is well balanced and comfortable. Grip to tip is pretty darn short making fine soldering work easy.- the unit itself is very small and takes up very little room on my bench.- although it doesn't have instant setback like more expensive stations, I've trained myself to give a quick CCW turn of the knob to put it in standby after I've returned the iron to my stand (my method of 'instant setback'). I have the auto Standby time set at 2 minutes to cool the tip to 150degC if it doesn't detect iron motion. It's ready to solder in a couple seconds when pulling the iron out of the stand.- I set sleep mode to 10 minutes so if I forget about it, it will automatically shut off.- boost mode (quick turn CW of the knob) will boost the temperature to x degrees above what it's currently set at to tackle large ground planes or something else that needs more heat than normal. I have boost mode on mine set to +30C.- The K (knife) tip it was shipped with was odd to use at first but I've grown to like it for desoldering many legs on an IC at once or clearing solder bridges. The station really shines with the D16 and BC2 tips I purchased separately.Cons:- I don't like the ILS tip that came with it, but to each their own.- the display is small, so some people might have a hard time reading the secondary information, but the most important information is in a big font.- the silicone cord that connects the iron to the station STUNK when I pulled it from the bag. Let it air out somewhere for a couple days and it'll be fine.- Celcius readout only. That doesnt' bother me at all, but will irritate some folks.- the speaker/buzzer/beeper can be a little annoying. I had turned it off after a while, but I missed hearing when the station was up to temp (especially when using the fat DL32 tip) or the short chirps to indicate it was about to go into standby or sleep modes. A piece of scotch tape over the speaker hole makes the beeps much quieter but still useful.Other thoughts:- You have to push the tip completely into the iron to make a full connection. If you're not doing this, you'll get errors on the screen.- Standby timeout needs to be shorter than sleep timeout! Standby puts it in low temp mode so a simple shake will get it back up to temp quickly. Once the unit is in sleep mode (iron off), you need to press the knob to wake it up.- Sensitivity of the mercury switch in the iron handle (rattle) can vary. Mine rattles but works perfect and is pretty sensitive to motion. Make sure that wake up mode is set to [SHAKE] in the menu. If you leave the beep enabled, it'll warn you that it's about to go into standby by emiting a short chirp a few times before it does it... that's your cue to shake the iron if you're still soldering.- When the tips are new, the current temperature reading will bounce all over the place. Set it to 250-270C and tin the tip a few times and let it 'burn in' for ~5-10 minutes. The current temp reading should stabilize. Once it does, you can calibrate the tip if having accurate tip temps is important to you.- The iron handle fits great in a Pace iron stand.- If you have issues, message KSGER from the Amazon app and they'll take care of you.Update: I've been using this station almost weekly for well over a year now and it has been working great. The super quick warmup is a real time saver and I find myself working on projects more often because of it. The D16 chisel is my all around favorite tip. I designed and 3D-printed a bracket to mount the station to the side of my work area to free up bench space - you can find it on Thingiverse: search for 'KSGER'.

Got this partly out of curiosity, and because I needed a second solder station so I could leave my Weller WES51 on the main workbench. I started out with an unregulated iron from Radio Shack back in the 70's, and have used more brands and types over the years then you can shake a stick at. I used to earn a living with a soldering iron, and still use them pretty regularly.I got the KSGER T12 station on sale, and it was quite inexpensive. So I didn't really expect much from this unit, but it's way better then I expected. It heats up quickly, seems to hold temperature pretty well. The handle isn't highest quality, but I don't use this one all day, and it's been just fine to work with. It would be nice if the cord to the iron were longer, but I have the same complaint with my Weller. The tip selection that comes with it is sort of lame, but you can find compatible tips pretty inexpensively.I'm calling this one a win.

When I received my station the screen faded on and off while the iron was plugged in and when the iron was unplugged it showed temps that were all over the place. Refunded and I will be buying from a different manufacturer.EDIT:Turns out one of the tips was bad. Spoke to the seller and they are replacing the bad tip. The other tip works great, best station I've had other than that one problem. Have a few extra stars.

I purchased two of the Cheaper models that failed straight out of the box. But this little Jewel Plugged up Set up and Ran fantastically straight out of the box. This model is about $10.oo more than the all plastic models but the quality of the unit and the performance is stellar. The rated 75 watts of power actually out performs the old weller 150 / 200 watt gun I have used for years. It goes from room temp to flowing solder like a river in less than 10 seconds. In making up heavy battery leads for Lipo Batteries in the RC hobby realm this thing really rocks. Heave 10 ga. wire to battery ends flood with solder and look factory in a matter of seconds without overheating and melting the battery terminals, Get on flood with solder and get off Bam, done....I would recommend this unit to anyone needing to do soldering with tips available from heavy pad flooding on circuit boards, to fine point through hole circuit board soldering, and even but joining solder splice heavy ga. wire in seconds. I wish I could have a chance to add more stars than the five I gave it.

Fantastic in every way so far, cannot beat the features and price, better to buy here in Amazon for a few more dollars than in China. Great for the money, as good as some costing $400, don't let the 2.10 version fool you into paying more, the 2.09 is just as good and cheaper. Pull the trigger, you will not regret it. Watch youtube and learn the menu and learn how to calibrate it, it does come way off calibration but it is very very easy! All in all FANTASTIC!!

Great little unit. I bought it after countless hours of watching YouTube reviews. I've only used ut on 3 projects so far, but it was immensely better than the old single temp unit it replaced. The adjustable temperature and lightening fast warm up are fanrastic.

Everything looked great, plugged it in, it turned on and then made some weak beeping noise and turned off, never to function again. Piece of sh#t. Sometimes those things happen though so i ordered a replacement, (thank god for Amazon's return and replace policies) and we will see how the next one goes. To be continued......

Bought this one on the recommendation of one of my favorite electronics repair Youtubers. Lots of really nice features not usually found on a soldering station at this price point. So far, works great. Highly recommend it!!!