T12-959 Soldering Iron Station Kit, LCD Screen with T12 Soldering Iron Tips, Heating up Fast, Automatic Standby-Automatically Wake up, for Electronic Repairing, With K tip (SET1)

It is amazing what the can pack into tiny things these days. The "box" is the power supply, otherwise everything is contained within the screen! Not that it matters or changes how it operates, just interesting.T-12 is so much better than the cheapo irons where the retaining barrel always flares out and gets sloppy and becomes useless.ProsEasy tip change without unscrewing anything (I do alot of plastic repairing with the knife tip so I love the quick change).It heats up fast like all of the soldering stations within this form factor.I love the shorter metal wand.Internals are grounded correctly.Pretty easy to figure out the menu without instructions.ConsPrevious makes and models have had the iron holder grounded to the chasis so as soon as you set the wand in the holder the system knows it and can start that countdown.The "grip" the wand has (or doesn't have) on the t-12 tips is lacking, every so often you just have to remove the tip and re-seat it. Could probably open up the wand and bend the contacts a little tighter together.The dial has a bit of a lag on it with lower temp resolutions, which means spin it a good bit and then look in 10-15 seconds and see where the temp has stopped at.Nothing a hobby user would notice, but it does seem to wander a bit with temp.It would be nice to see one of these units come out with:-a wand cord that is 6'-8' instead of having to drag the box everywhere.-a mains cord that is 8' (why are they still making these garbage gauge alum/steel conductor 3 ' cords?)-a few adjustable recall buttons to jump to frequently used temps, this is more pronounced with the finer temp resolution mentioned above.

Did way better than a cheap iron. Who knew. It changes the whole game.

The display is not 2.6", it's 37mm or about 1.5" measured diagonally.This is a clone of STM32 chip, XM1008K6T6 hidden under 14 pin ribbon cable. The chip is visible after removing the ribbon cable.The iron heats up real fast, adjustments are easy. It's easy to operate.The iron handle is really nice, the tip is not sticking out too long like chop sticks. Tips are easy to change with the M8 handle.As for temperature accuracy, I need to perform further tests.Soldering tip is grounded properly. The case is not grounded, but it's anodized/painted and measuring resistance on the case shows no conductivity. If the paint gets scratched then it will become conductive. Case can be grounded easily. So, that's not an issue for me.I will update if I find problems with temperature accuracy and stability.

Aside from the lack of case grounding (mentioned in other reviews) I have zero complaints. I've had this iron for a couple of months now, run it for ~250 hours without a single hiccup. Temp is consistent, tip heats up quickly. The short-term "boost" setting is surprisingly useful when soldering to connectors/electromechanical parts/thick ground planes. Auto-sleep feature hasn't been an annoyance. Screen is sharp and clear- I much prefer it to the old school segmented displays. Personal preference, of course. Overall a much more advanced soldering iron than the old Yihua station that it replaced. I wish I had upgraded from the Yihua sooner. Not to mention, quicker to heat than any Hakko I've used. The Quecoo T12-959 is a phenomenal value at it's current price point.

The station seems really good, pretty surprised at how fast it heats up and then cools back down. Settings are relatively easy to change, display is fine, though I prefer the other version with dark bg. The handle is total garbage. It doesn't grip the tips, they slide out really easily. The wiring at the connection of the cord and the handle is really delicate and totally exposed. I kludged it a bit with electrical tape to hold it in place, but after two or three sessions, each about 10 minutes in length, the wires all decided to just break apart at once. Now I'm having trouble finding a replacement handle, the first one I ordered didn't work. Wish I had gone with a better set, personally. If you have other handles that will work with this then it's a decent purchase.

Works great. More features than listed. Should last me (a hobbyist) for several years.

Gets hot very quickly and maintains heat when soldering.Very small and portable, but there is an even smaller model.Can be powered from a wall plug or laptop-style power supply.If they had included a chisel (d24) tip instead of the large knife edge tip, it would be 5 stars across the board.

I like the compact package and the user interface, the lightweight soldering handle, and all the menu options. However my test with (a) a K-type thermocouple probe and (b) a tip thermometer both showed an actual temperature 30 degrees C below the set temperature. The Quecoo T12 does have a calibration mode, so you can adjust it, and a tip thermometer on Amazon costs only about $15. Annoying, though.Note: The included instructions are all in Chinese, but you can get English-language documentation if you search for quicko T12, which appears to be the same thing.

Seems good quality handle is nice and low profile, tips don't screw in to secure so tip switches are easy while it's still hot.