Discount Aoyue 937+ Digital Soldering Station - ESD Safe includes Spare

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List Price: $99.99
Sale Price: $54.99
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I normally don't do reviews unless I really like a product.

I was looking around at the Wellers and Hakkos soldering stations and there reviews when I found the Aoyue 937+ Digital Soldering Station. I looked at all the reviews and was thinking that the Aoyue 937+ soldering station sounded good. I did some research and found out that all the soldering tips that fit the Hakko 936 fit the Aoyue and that it was easy to get replacement parts such as a replacement pen and heating elements. That made me feel real good because I wanted to get a soldering station that would last me a long time. This setup seemed to be a good match.

When I first got the Aoyue 937+ in the mail I opened it up and was pleasantly surprised. Up to this time I have been using Radio Shack irons for all my projects such as small ham radio kits and RC helicopters and airplanes. The build quality of the Aoyue was very nice and didn't seem cheep at all. The cord for the soldering iron seemed to be of very good quality. The rest of the unit seemed to be very tough and didn't feel like it was cheep at all. Everything worked as expected.

I have not owned any other soldering stations but I have been shopping for a while and looked at some in some hobby shops and stores and this Aoyue 937+ soldering station looked and felt about the same but the other soldering stations I have looked at were much more expensive than this one. I feel I got a real good deal. I have use it to build one CW Ham radio kit so far and I loved it. Heats up very quick and holds the temp nicely. I don't see how you can go wrong with the Aoyue 937+ soldering station. Get it! I think you are going to like it.

There was some stuff that I didn't like about the station but they were nothing big to me.

1 The temp is digitally displayed in celsius and there is no way to switch to fahrenheit.

2 The sponge is to thin. I wouldn't use it anyway. I only use water free tip cleaners like the Hakko brass wire ball. Works awesome for me.

3 The rod that holds the "solder roll" on the soldering iron holder stand is nice but the two caps at the ends of it came out so I used super glue to hold them in. Now that I did that I found that I never use the rod anyway.

4 The power cord is a bit short for my liking. At some point in time I'll order another one that is longer. It looks like the same cord that plugs in to computer power supplies.

Other than those 4 small things the Aoyue 937+ soldering station is a keeper and the quality is as good as the other I have looked at and coast much less than the others :-)

Update 06-20-10 = I just got done doing another small kit and I like this soldering station a lot.

I have been using both the Hakko and Aoyue tips and yes the Hakko tips do work like I stated but I found that there is a flanged metal tube inside the iron that is used as a spacer. It is spaced perfect for the Aoyue tips but it is just a bit short for the Hakko tips. When you put in the Hakko tip there is slightly more than a 1mm space between the tip and spacer. That makes the barrel of the iron kind of move a bit. I also didn't want to tighten the retaining nut to much because I thought it may damage the ceramic element. I also did try to file part of the ceramic elements end to make the tip fit but under the ceramic part of the element is metal so I didn't want to go any farther. I am now going to purchase some more Aoyue tips and keep the Hakko tips for backup. When I used the Aoyue tip the shaft of the iron was nice and tight and did not shift or move at all. I did use the Aoyue tip that came with the unit (I think it is a "S4" tip) and it has worked very good but I prefer the "TI"or the "TB" tips for every day use. Only time will tell but so far so good. The tip is holding up nicely. All in all I am very impressed :-)

Update 08-13-10 I have been soldering up a storm and I think I have done at least five or six different kits sense the last review. This soldering station is awesome and I really didn't know what I was missing till I got it. Why spend more money when you can have this gem of a soldering station.

Update 09-09-11 The soldering station is still working like new! Man I got my moneys worth out of it. No problems with it at all.

Update 09-09-12 Still going strong! I just got done doing two different projects with no problems. Still heats up fast. I am interested in the new iron stand that they have out. I may get the new station just for the stand. My nephew is in to electronics now and I think I may give him this unit for his projects. I'll keep the new one for myself :-)

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I just bought this item, so this isn't a long-term review. However, I have to say that I am VERY impressed with this soldering station thus far.

The iron heats up quickly, and the led displays the actual temp of the iron. I had no trouble soldering some heavy gauge speaker wire with this, and no trouble soldering very fine gauge battery leads. This is a very powerful and versatile tool that should definitely be on the list for electronics people who are on a budget.

The only drawback I've experienced is that the barrel of the iron gets warm (but not uncomfortably so). I think an extra bit of hi-temp foam should handle that problem.

PS I'm am in NO WAY related to or associated with SRA, we just happen to have the same last name!

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This iron heats up very quickly and works beautifully. Comes with an extra ceramic element just in case the one you have somehow goes bad.

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I purchased this soldering station 6 months ago as an upgrade for a Weller WLC-100, planning to use it once or twice a week for hobby tasks. I like the adjustable digital temperature control, and it worked well a few times, but not long after I got it the unit started to flash "=8=" on the display all the time and would not work anymore. I'm very dissapointed in this tool after spending good money on what I thought was a better product. I also felt the cord running from the station to the iron was really too short, I would have liked it to be at least another 2-3 feet longer.

Update Before sending the device back I decided to follow the testing procedure in the manual with my multimeter and found that the sensor on the heating element was faulty. The device comes with a replacement heating element in the box, so I disassembled the handle and replaced the heating element. Note this requires a soldering iron to do ironic. Took about an hour, reassembled the handle and tested it again back in business. I've improved my rating from one star to three, but I really think the heating element should last longer than 10 hours of light use before needing to be replaced, and the other shortcomings are still problems. Buyer beware.

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this is a great iron. i had trouble out of the box. the temperature selection buttons did not function at all. a quick note to the seller and it was RMA'd and taken care of no problem. iron heats up in a matter of seconds and it holds temperature well through many consecutive solders. i've used more expensive stations but i'm not missing a thing with the aoyue.

Buy Venstar Add-A-Wire 5 Wire to 4 Wire Adapter

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If you read this review and decide this product is not for you... that's reasonable. If you blindly order this product, never even try to install it, and then leave a negative review... that's profoundly unreasonable. I was almost dissuaded from this item based on a prior review even though that review was beyond useless, the product is exactly what I needed, and I have never seen anything else like it. This product offers an ingenious solution for my problem (not enough wires from thermostat to HVAC system), it was easy to install (with some basic knowledge I have no HVAC training beyond what I found on "The Google") and it works. 5 stars.

As some background, let me say I'm not even a particularly good handyman... I have a drill and not much else for power tools. But to make up for any lack of knowledge/skill, I have an over abundance of confidence and access to the internet. You can decide if that makes me wise or a fool, and whether you trust this review. I am sure this installation carries risks I am not even aware of. You assume all risks and are responsible for any damage/injury/death/electrocution/fire/etc.

To start, I was short on wires after I installed programmable thermostats. The original house wiring had 4 wires to the HVAC, which was sufficient for the original heating/ac thermostats since they were battery powered and didn't need HVAC power (they used: red wire for hot voltage, white wire for heater, yellow wire for cooling, and green wire for fan control). Unfortunately, programmable thermostats generally require external power (usually from the HVAC), meaning they need a 5th wire for ground. I tried switching the wiring at each season change (kept one wire for hot voltage, one wire for GROUND or common, one wire for fan, and then I would need to connect the last wire to either cooling or heating but not both). This turned out to be a real PITA here in New England, where one day it's 90+ and I would have to rewire for AC and the next day its 50 or below and back I go to disconnect the AC and connect the furnace...

This product is designed perfectly for the above scenario. It could also be used to bypass a broken wire or for certain other situations where you need one more wire. What you get is some passive element to combine two wires into one at the level of the thermostat, and then an adapter that installs at the air handler to separate the combined signal back onto two wires. My guess is that it is using voltage to multiplex the signals. For example 0 volts means both wires are off, 12 V means the fan wire should be on only, and the full 24V means both fan and AC wires should be on. Then the signals are demultiplexed at the air handler. That's a guess, but it makes sense to me. This assumption also explains the stated limitations... you can't use either the hot (red) or common lines for any combo since they must always be fixed at 24 and 0 volts. Also, I suspect one of the combined wires will become unable to activate alone (not a problem if it's the AC wire, which you would always want running with the fan... but don't wire backwards so the fan can only run with the AC on...)

As noted, there are some other limitations with this scenario, but fortunately for the 4 to 5 wire conversion you wouldn't notice (described below). If you are going from 2 to 3 wires the limits become more significant, see the documentation on the Venstar website for details. In my scenario, I combined the yellow (AC) and green (fan control) on one wire, thus allowing the thermostat to control everything with just 4 wires instead of 5. It works flawlessly. I can turn the fan on alone. I can turn the heat on alone (or with the fan). I can turn the AC+fac on. As noted, I don't think I can turn the AC on without the fan, but why would I want to? And the best part... NO REWIRING for heating or cooling!! So far, no bugs to report but it takes maybe 15 seconds for the furnace or AC to kick in when the thermostat triggers. I'm not sure if that was always the case, or if the add-a-wire somehow introduces some minor lag time.

Now for installation. Be SURE that your system is 24VAC. I'm not sure if there are other voltages out there, but if this product works the way I suspect, it would probably fail spectacularly at any non-standard voltage. Tools required are screwdrivers (possibly including a jewelers screwdriver). You need to be able to open you air handler (in my case it's just two thumbscrews on a back panel of the furnace though that did require fighting through some cobwebs and dust). You ALSO need to get behind the thermostat to the wiring (usually the thermostat face plate just comes off). Like I said, you have to install parts at both ends of the wire (duh...). The package comes with 2 wire nuts, which should be enough. Also, be sure you've turned off the furnace power when doing this... again, I'm not sure if 24VAC is really that dangerous but you certainly don't want to find out... The wiring is pretty straightforward from the instructions in the box (see the Venstar website for PDF). If you can't figure it out from the pictures, you probably shouldn't be messing with this. Installation took me an hour, but as I said above I'm really not much of a handyman. It took me 10 minutes to get the thermostat panel off the wall and another 10 minutes just to find the air handler... If I did this again I think I could do the whole thing in 10 minutes total. Make sure you know the wiring color codes, which are readily available on The Google... you don't want someone else to come along and accidentally find out you used yellow for 24VAC power.

So in summary... it worked, it saved me a lot of pain and cost (of running more wire), and it was very easy to install with knowledge gained from The Internets. I suppose you could ding it for being expensive (the actual parts probably cost the company only a few bucks at most) but it was well worth the price to me and there are no alternate products that do this, as far as I know.

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This product looks like a really great device it does what it says but requires access to your air exchanger and some technical knowledge that may not be something everyone has or can understand.

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this thing works exactly as advertised. The reason I gave it 4 stars I stead of 5 is because I feel the instructions for installation could be better. But a quick google search gave me the info I needed to complete the installation. I would strongly suggest googling for an installation video. There are a couple out there that makes the installation of this a snap. This is a great product that makes conversion to a 5 wire thermostat a snap.

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Radi kako je receno kome treba nek sebi kupi nece biti od viska kad bude pravio termostat u kuci i

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I'm not a wiring guy, and installing the Venstar T5800 thermostat was not in my DIY skills. Wiring is never what the basic instructions say it is. Bought this on the chance that I'd need this, and didn't want to have the contractor come out twice. In this case, I didn't need it, but I'm not sorry. Gave it to the contractor.