Ksger Handle for a T12 Soldering Station, or Tips for Soldering Irons

Not long ago, I posted a review of my new compact soldering station, and afterward someone recommended replacing the handle with something more comfortable. I found one of the better-known options, ordered it, gave it a try, and here are my thoughts :)


For context, this is about this review and the soldering station. I liked it, but at the time I fitted it with a handle from a cheaper Quicko station. I was happy enough with it, but people say it can be made even better.

This turned out to be a very short review, since there isn't really much to review here.

The packaging and included accessories are as minimalist as it gets. The only way to make it simpler would be to leave out the bag.


The handle body is aluminum, with a rubber sleeve over the grip area and the manufacturer's name on the body.
The handle is about 150 mm long, not including the tip, and has a short, fairly stiff tail.

Unlike the previous one, the tip here is held in place by friction against a silicone insert inside the front section. I don't know how well that will hold up over time; the tip might start to rotate, but for now it stays put quite well.


If you put the Quicko and Ksger side by side, at first glance they seem to be the same length. But because the tip sits farther inside the Ksger, the distance from the front of the handle to the tip is shorter.
Of course, it doesn't match my Aoyue 2738 with its 38 mm, but 49 mm is still pretty good, especially compared with the Quicko, which measures 78 mm.


Inside, the wires are simply soldered to the handle contacts. The thermistor and tilt sensor are also located here.
The cable is about a meter long, with a five-pin connector soldered on at the end. It's much like the Quicko cable, and in my opinion, a bit stiff.


Since I don't have a Ksger station and don't plan to get one, I had to rewire the connector to work with my station.
It turned out that the wiring is quite similar to what I'm using now.


Ksger is on the left, and the one used in my station is on the right. The Quicko has a third wiring arrangement, but most of the difference is in the connector pinout; the wire colors are the same.

In the end, I had to swap pins 4-5 and 1-2 in the connector, and move the thermistor from the common wire to ground.
It took a few minutes, most of which I spent resoldering the thermistor because the stiff wires were getting in the way.


At first, the station showed an error. I was stumped for a moment because I couldn't figure out what I might have messed up. It turned out the tip just needed to be inserted a little farther.
After that, everything worked perfectly. Then again, it's the same tip, so why wouldn't it? I also happened to notice that the station's display shows the tilt sensor status: a white dot appears to the right of the temperature. I'd just never looked at the display while working before.


Subjectively, the grip really is better here, but the handle is thinner, so it takes some getting used to.


When I tried soldering with it, I noticed that the handle felt noticeably warm. I don't remember the previous one doing that.
I got curious and decided to measure the temperature. It turned out to be about the same overall, but with the Ksger (photo 1), almost the entire front section heats up, while with the Quicko (photos 2 and 3), the heat is concentrated right at the front.
If you work for a long time, you barely notice the heat. But if you set it down for a few minutes and then pick it up again, it's much more noticeable.


To get a feel for both the heat and how comfortable it is to use, I partially desoldered around 70-80 circuit boards. That left a small pile of assorted components on the table.


Conclusions.
In this case, all my conclusions are subjective, since there's not much here that can be assessed objectively.
Compared with the Quicko shown in the review, the Ksger is more convenient to work with, but the Quicko feels more comfortable.
Why? The Ksger has a shorter distance to the tip, which is more convenient, but the handle gets warmer, making it less comfortable.
The handles have different grips, so personal preference plays a bigger role here: some people prefer a thin handle, others a thick one. For me, though, the Ksger is just right, and my hand doesn't get tired using it.

And of course there's the price, since the handle isn't cheap. In my opinion, it's somewhat overpriced: its design and materials aren't much more sophisticated than the Quicko's, but I paid $12 for the handle, controller, tip, and assorted bits and pieces, while this one costs over $30 for the handle alone. Among the alternatives, I can mention the 100MHz handle. It costs about $20, and I think I’ll try one for comparison.
And yes, for that price, the manufacturer could at least have included a more flexible cable.


The store that provided this for review gave me the coupon BG89cbbd, which brings the price down to $32.99 through August 31.

That’s all. I hope this was useful, and as always, I’d be glad to hear your comments: what do you think of this handle, and what better alternatives do you know of?

P.S. I know where the translation “Tips for welding irons” came from—I only added it because it looks funny :)