Hakko FX888D-23BY Digital Soldering Station FX-888D FX-888 (blue & yellow)

Not a soldering guy, but I wanted to try my hand at a semi advanced job attaching a ribbon cable to an smb to an n64. Used my 20$ soldering iron...BIG MISTAKE. completely botched the job, my iron wasnt able to keep a consistent temperature and my cheap solder immediately stuck many legs together. Tried to save it but ended up reading more about the appropriate tools. Well... a few practice rounds later with the dead n64 an it so crazy how different using this soldering iron is. Expensive, but holy moly does it do a good job and Temps are amazingly stable.

I see that you are in the review section, youre probably on the fence about this purchase. So was I.... I did the same thing that you are doing now, reading the reviews. I still wasnt sure it was worth the money, after all, you can get a simple soldering iron for less than 20 bucks at home depot right? Let me tell you.... I have never experienced a soldering iron heat up from room temperature to 750 degrees as fast as this one does. The temperature is stable, the iron itself is balanced and easy to manipulate. The temperature is easily set and will stay stable on this one. I have never had an issue with it. Best of all, you dont have to turn it on and wait for it to heat up. It heats up in about 8 seconds from room temp to operating temp. I use it on all kinds of projects from Ham radio stuff (antennas, electronics etc) to motor controllers and battery BMS. Pull the trigger you wont be sorry you did.