@ChrisGammell
Have you had a chance to use that new iron? If so, how has it been treating you?
It has been great! Heats up quick, delivers as much heat as I need. I have a bunch of soldering and rework ahead of me today, and I’m not dreading it 
I feel like I should maintain expectations, however. I had a really bad iron previously. I don’t think peeople need to go as far as I did to have a better soldering experience, but I’m happy with my purchase and think I will be as long as I can get tips/cartridges for this thing.
Having a consistent, reliable, easy to use iron is SO important in our job. I have been a Metcal/Oki/Thermatronic fanboy since I was in college (FYI, talking 1990 here - man am I old). Worked at an automotive electronic company and we had a few to try/choose from but Metcal was always what I went to. Quick to heat up - fast thermal response - lower temp at tip needed due to that quick response so less likely to damage parts or PCB.
Keith
Oh well that’s nice to hear! Clicking your link shows they are outta stock. I’ll have to find somewhere else to get them.
Do you know what the difference is in the tip types? K/P/S? P seems to be the most similar to Metcal’s, but that’s the most I could see outside of the visual difference of course.
If you look in the thread “looking to invest in soldering…”, there is a post which is the response I got from Thermaltronics about the different types
I had a look, but couldn’t find it. Is it in the consulting side of the forum?
I don’t have access to that link unfortunately. 
Try to use the search in the top for “looking”, if you don’t find it I can send you an email
I’ve had multiple looks now just to make sure, I can’t find that topic at all. Messaging me or putting the post below works for me!
So I wrote them. Just got a long email explaining all the details, in great detail. Really great service.
Here’s the content of the mail: (I got an ok to post it at this forum)
Please see below for an explanation on the system configurations.
DIFFERENCE
The TMT-9000S operates at 13.56 Mhz (13560 Khz) whereas the TMT-2000S operates at 470 Khz. The TMT-9000S because of the higher frequency will heat up faster and respond faster when the temperature dips.
In real world applications, this would be noticeable at start-up where the tip will heat up faster on the TMT-9000S vs the TMT-2000S. Once it heats to temperature, the only other time this would be noticeable is:
- when soldering boards with large copper heat sinks and multi-layer boards where the extra power would be needed.
- very small soldering joints where you need more precision and good heat transfer
Note: as PCBA/components are getting smaller you will be seeing a lot of boards that require you to solder a very small component on to a small board that has a large heat sink attached to it. For these types of jobs where point 1 and 2 are both applicable at the same time you are better off with the TMT-9000S
TMT-9000S
The TMT-9000S uses the SHP-1 hand piece and M Series tips (one hand piece, allows use of all M Series tip types below):
M Series standard tips - these are in the regular line up and cover a wide range of applications from production to rework
M Series Power Plus - these tips are larger in size then the regular tips and are suitable for heavy duty applications with heat sinks or where extra power is needed
M Series Micro Fine - these tips are used for finer applications (<0.4mm) and are meant to deliver power and precision.
TMT-2000S
All TMT-2000S configurations come with the same exact base power supply (TMT-2000PS). The difference is the hand piece being paired with the power supply.
The most widely used configurations would be (http://www.thermaltronics.com/tmt-2000s.php):
TMT-2000S-K (K Series, SHP-K handpiece used on the left port of the system)
TMT-2000S-PM (P Series, SHP-PM handpiece used on the right port of the system)
TMT-2000S-SM (S Series, SHP-SM handpiece used on the right port of the system)
There are three different tip series usable on the TMT-2000S:
- K Series (http://www.thermaltronics.com/k_series.php) - most users of this use it for production line work as it’s very cost effective, the tips have a large copper mass for stored energy.
PRO - lowest priced tips, good heat transfer due to large copper mass
CON - larger shaft body, if soldering in hard to reach places this may not be suitable - P Series (http://www.thermaltronics.com/p_series.php ) - can be used for production and rework, the tips are slimmer then the K Series tips. If you have soldering jobs that require finer precision tips or have access issues (small opening) this is more suitable then the K Series.
PRO - thin shaft body, good for rework & production
CON - higher price compared to K Series - S Series (http://www.thermaltronics.com/s_series.php) - exactly the same as the K Series, the only difference is the connector end of the tip. It uses a two pin connector allowing backwards compatibility with old SP200 units on the market.
PRO - tips are compatible with older SP200 systems on the market (good for shops with older SP200 that want to order only 1 tip series)
CON - higher price compared to K Series / P Series, the two-pin connector design is not as reliable as the single pin design in the K and P Series.
So after the long explanation, how do you choose which system/series to use?
- Go with the TMT-9000S if you are looking for a high performance system that can do all soldering jobs, and has largest selection of tips. The con would be the price of the system and the price of the tips.
- Go with the TMT-2000S-K, K series tips if it’s used for production line work as it is the most cost effective. (lots of non-stop soldering)
- Go with the TMT-2000S-PM if you are doing a mix of production / rework - as it has a larger selection of fine geometry tips as well as rework tips such as blade tips
- Go with the TMT-2000S-SM if you have existing SP200 units installed and want all the soldering stations to use tips interchangeably.
Note: for the TMT-2000S-X systems you can change between the different tip series by simply switching the hand piece.
Lastly:
- both the TMT-9000S and TMT-2000S allows you to upgrade in the future with the tweezer kit, desoldering kit, or autofeeder kit.
- both systems have very good quality builds (they are both certified to the highest safety standards in the industry NRTL (UL/CSA), CE, GS). However the TMT-9000S comes with a 4 year warranty and the TMT-2000S comes with a 1 year warranty.
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Oh wow, that’s a lot of good information! Thank you for posting that here. I think I’d be good with the TMT-2000S with the P tips. Now I just need to find them 
The Aoyue 469 is one of the most affordable on my list of top soldering stations. Though it has a lower price, this product doesn’t lack specifications. It has a temperature range of 392 to 897 degrees Fahrenheit, just as in models with higher price points.
Not that this helps you personally, but I thought it’s an interesting fact:
In Sofia, Bulgaria, there is a company called KASI. They are Bulgaria’s only official distributor of Hakko, Balver Zinn, Bondline and other brands.
In their store they have a show room where they have pretty much everything set up and displayed so you can check it out. I am not sure what’s their policy about actually trying out the soldering stations (My guess is that it’s probably allowed) as I haven’t had the need to go there. Even though I live in the same city, I just order from them online.
When you are uncertain of which station to get, they even tell you about the showroom and invite you to check things out.
[quote=“coflynn, post:18, topic:3673, full:true”]
What JBC model do you have anyway? I’m curious to try the difference in person…
[/quote] @jpnorair
I’m way late to this discussion but I just recently took a JBC NASE-1C for a one month demo. It is a dual station, one very fine tip iron and one tweezers also with fine tip.
Simply put, I will not be returning the demo and will buy the unit.
I have typically used metcal but never had luck with the fine tips. The barrel part of the cartridge is still too big and it just doesn’t seem like the bery tip gets hot enough.
JBC is great for this, even though the tip is super tiny, it still gets hot.
With the tweezer, I had historically not been a fan of my metcal tweezers because of size and also the uneven temp between the two sides.
The cool thing about the JBC is that it comes with a foot pedal. So you can approach the part with a cold tweezers, got it on the component and the hit to foot pedal to remove. Super convenient for swapping out 0201 passive. For this reason alone it is worth the price. (If you need to do this kind of work)
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Foot pedal is a nice, low-tech, solid idea. My older Weller stations had magnetic switches in the handpieces which worked great, but my newer, fancier Weller station has motion switches that don’t work for sh*t.
I’ve used many over the years. The most basic unit works extremely well and is about $500 all in. Then there’s the nano soldering unit, which has dual pencils, which is more expensive, like $1700 all in. I’ve also used fully loaded rework systems that are very expensive.
The best value by far is the basic station. Tip changes are fast. The nano station is very nice, but for the extra money I’m not sure I’d buy it unless I expected to do a lot more soldering than I do anymore. The fully loaded rework system is only for thinking about if you’re spending other peoples money.
Most of the soldering I do is with hot air these days. At home I have a $300 Quick station that replaced a broken Hakko. Honestly, it suits my needs as well as I could expect. But the JBC basic station is awesome when I need it. As I consult and work a full time right now, at the office lab there’s the JBC nano station, and it’s great.
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Do you use hot air for simple stuff like 0805’s also, and smaller?
Yes. I have a thing called an iExtruder, which is extremely convenient for depositing solder paste. I forgot to mention that
That said, I don’t do much 0805. The vast majority of parts for me, these days, are 0402, 0201, and little chip scale packages with balls. Occasional QFNs. Once in awhile, an 0603 or 0805 part for a DC-DC converter.
I have Hakko and Weller at work and I don’t rate them. I was really disappointed I didn’t like the Hakko. They are OK for single component jobs, or making up plugs etc. The modern weller certainly wasn’t worth the extra over the Hakko. In fact the most popular soldering iron at work is a very basic weller from the 1980’s.
At home I have a Pace MBT250. It’s not fast to heat up, and takes up a lot of valuable bench space, but there is nothing I can’t do with it, and I love the desoldering tool for repair work. I picked it up brand new on eBay for a bargain price and have never looked back. I used to use a Xytronix (sp?) that was good but had limited tips.
The dremel seems to be the best of a bad bunch as far as gas soldering irons go. I used to like the weller gas irons but had a couple of poor ones.