Reddit Reddit reviews Hakko T15-JL02 - Hakko T15-JL02 Soldering Tip for FM2027 Iron, Bent 30°, 0.2 x 7.5mm, Replaces Old P/N T7-JL02

We found 1 Reddit comments about Hakko T15-JL02 - Hakko T15-JL02 Soldering Tip for FM2027 Iron, Bent 30°, 0.2 x 7.5mm, Replaces Old P/N T7-JL02. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Hakko T15-JL02 - Hakko T15-JL02 Soldering Tip for FM2027 Iron, Bent 30°, 0.2 x 7.5mm, Replaces Old P/N T7-JL02
Shape: Bent TipR0.2mm / 30 x 7.5mm x 9.3mmFor use with the FM-2027 Iron
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1 Reddit comment about Hakko T15-JL02 - Hakko T15-JL02 Soldering Tip for FM2027 Iron, Bent 30°, 0.2 x 7.5mm, Replaces Old P/N T7-JL02:

u/CMDR_Muffy · 3 pointsr/soldering

951 is substantially better than the 888D. I personally used an 888D for close to a year and recently upgraded to an FM-202. It's similar to the 951.

So, the 888D definitely is not a bad station. It's actually pretty good. For general purpose soldering (wires, large electronics like perfboards, protoboards, etc) it works wonderfully. It uses the standard thread-lock tips, and my personal favorite tip for the 888D was the T18-BR02. It's a bent conical tip, and being bent like that turns it into a very useful multipurpose tip. I used it exclusively for just about all the work I did. This included working on SMD components on smartphone motherboards under a microscope.

HOWEVER, as time went on and I read more and more about the 951 I just wished I got one of those. The 951 contains very many features that the 888D lacks. I'll break those down for you now.

Firstly, the 951 has a built-in auto-sleep. When you put the iron back in the stand, the unit automatically puts the tip to sleep until you take it off the stand again. This dramatically improves tip life. If you find yourself leaving your current iron on for minutes at a time before you actually start using it, then this sleep function will save you a lot of tip replacements. This sleep function is not a replacement for turning the station off. You should always turn it off when you are done, but the sleep will preserve tip life for those few minutes between soldering where you don't want to turn the station off.

Secondly, the 951 uses a very different tip system compared to what you might be familiar with. Most cheaper stations and irons use the standard thread-lock tips. The ones that screw down onto the heating element in the iron. The 951 uses a cartridge-based system. The tips you buy are a lot more expensive (around $20 to $30), but the tips themselves contain the heating element. Since the tips themselves actually have the heating element in them, you never have to worry about buying a new heating element for your soldering station. Just get a new tip if you notice something is off with how it's heating.

This cartridge system is leaps and bounds better than the thread-lock tips. You can very quickly and easily swap tips while the iron is hot with no danger to harming yourself. You'll need to get some Hakko tip sleeves and a tip holder to do this. The sleeves themselves slip over the tips, and lock at a certain depth. The sleeve functions as the locking mechanism that secures the tip into the handpiece. When you swap tips you never have to touch any hot metal. You just clip the sleeve out of the handpiece and stick it into the tip holder, then grab another tip and slide it into the handpiece and lock it. If you want a more accurate description of this system in action let me know, I can record a video. The 202 is different from the 951 but it uses the same handpiece and tip system.

Honestly, you can probably skip this step of the additional sleeves and tip holder if you don't find much of a use currently for switching tips. The J-tip (like the T18-BR02) is my favorite all-around tip because it's very versatile in what it can do. The 951 has a similar tip, the T15-J02. They also have the JL02 and JS02, both are similar to the J02 and T18-BR02 in shape but have different size profiles.

The 951 also has a very unique heating system. The tips themselves contain a feedback sensor that is able to very reliably detect when you are touching the tip to a larger thermal mass (like a ground plane). When tip temperature drops from doing this, the station is able to push out more power to maintain the tip temperature. It has a very state-of-the-art regulation system for keeping tip temperature consistent. The 951 is basically your entry-level "professional" soldering station.

The 951 also allows you to use a micropencil with it. It's basically a soldering iron handpiece that allows you to use very, very fine tips with it that are much smaller than standard tips. These are useful for working with SMD components under a microscope. The 888D does not have support for this.

If you want to futureproof yourself and get a really really nice station, I'd go for the 951. The 888D is not bad, not in the slightest. The 888D is geared more towards hobbyists at this point, but you really can't beat having a professional station like the 951.