/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>1900842
As someone who owns a T12 station, the main complaint I've heard is that occasionally it arrives with soldering defects on its power supply board. If you're fine with that, then go ahead.
>hacked firmware for some KSGER models
Oh neat, might try that out. I'm on hardware 2.1S and software 2.10. Though I do wonder what advantages the open firmware will offer.
>Buy the version with the blue 9501 handle
I have the 9501 handle, and I like it.

>how the fuck else is a soldering iron supposed to know when to apply heat or not
The alternative is to have a hollow piece of metal as a tip that slides over the element and thermocouple, usually fixed in place with some sort of locking sleeve that's screwed over some flange on the tip. This means higher thermal resistance, but it's still good enough for a lot of irons. It also makes the tip bulkier. But more importantly, the tips for these are damn cheap.