My 15 years old 90 Watt Quick303B has died, I was fund of it but it have made me a bit spoiled, therefor I'm looking fore its successor, for hobby use ...
I have set my eyes on the JBC CD-2BQF, definitely at the top of my budget with it's 360 Euro incl VAT ($428 US).
I have set some criteria for the new station:
- Heating element in the tip
- Easily accessible range of tips
- Hibernation mode
- Auto stand-by
The last to criteria was present in my old station.
You are forgetting one criterium: long lasting tips. According to my experience Weller and JBC suck at that. Heating in the tip is great but if that tip doesn't take on solder it is way worse compared to an iron from Ersa.
I agree. I tried JBC and didn't like it. Tip might heat fast and strong, but with few tips I tried they had a bad wetting, and would oxidize too fast. I also had Weller WD1. Original tips that came with it were wetting much better, and in years, only by using sponge newer had problems with wetting. Newer tips are much worse and about the same as JBC. I believe it is the coating that changed, the newer coatings are different formulation for use with higher temp and lead free solders. They might have some chrome in it or something that makes them corrode less and be less absorbed by different formulation of lead free solder, but they also wet much worse. Pace tips are also a bit like that but much better then JBC.
One more thing. I'm known to take very good care of my equipment and never use force and use it very gently. But JBC looks and feels like a plastic toy. While PACE is built like a tank. PACE handle is tiny, but doesn't look or feel cheap or like it is going to break any moment now like JBC. Yes, I know they don't really break like that, but it feels like that.
And aluminum handle is awesome!! After decades of soldering, having a soldering iron that after 8 hours of being used is still cold to the touch is just amazing.
If I didn't buy PACE to replace my Weller, I would have bought Ersa I-Con station. Don't buy the sales pitch, even if it isn't integrated heater in tips, heater is still mounted deep in tip and has good heat transfer. And 120W is enough to cope with tip thermal inertia. Which is also two sided coin: JBC has so low tip mass, that when you even touch something tiny it looses temperature immediately. It makes up for that with fast regulation. Larger mass tips have more inertia, but also have more stored heat: on same solder joint they will loose less °C when you touch it. So les droop and less °C to correct.
In fact ERSA is so fast, that you have an option in a menu to enable slower regulation, so component heating is not so abrupt to decrease thermal shock.
There is same option of temperature profiling on more expensive pro grade JBC stations. When used with those stations and less aggressive heating profiles, JBC tips last longer...
PACE on the other hand seems to have been dialed in just right from the get go. And I also have few hi-capacity tips (larger thermal mass) so you can choose. I actually prefer those for general work, where space is not a problem.