I love my Hakko FX-888 soldering iron - it works great and literally changed my life. But it's a little cumbersome for packing on the road, or moving from game to game: cords get tangled or aren't always long enough. First world problem, I know.

Was browsing for cordless options (even almost fell for the Harbor Freight butane iron) then discovered Hakko makes a cordless iron, the FX-901!

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It's powered by 4 AA batteries and features removable / replaceable tips. Ni-MH rechargeable batteries give a flatter performance curve, but standard Alkalines can last up to 70 minutes before tapering off.

I ordered mine from Amazon and have used it a few times: it's perfect. The tip isn't perhaps as fine and precise as a good bench iron, but it's thin enough to reach and probe through the rat's nest under a playfield. I've resoldered contacts on flipper switches (upper ones, in the back of a pf) and lamp sockets way up front (high off the ground when the pf is raised). The tool has good balance and is comfortable to use.

Fits well in a standard toolbox so it's great for a field kit! Won't replace a bench iron and I'm not sure I would use it for extensive board work... but for anything in the cabinet on the road, it's so much better than fiddling with cords and bulkier iron power supplies. For about $30-35, it's a no brainer IMO.

No, I don't work for Hakko... I'm just genuinely excited by good tools and wish I'd known of this one sooner, it's been out for a while.

bump for morning / next day crowd, ICYMI

Before buying mine I read several reviews. Consensus is batteries make a difference, and NiMH is preferred. Hakko seems to acknowledge as much.

That said, when mine I arrived I attempted to recondition some old NiMH batts I'd forgotten for years... and my first impression was similar to yours. It got warm and then... quit. But I realized those old batteries died (no surprise, oops). So I slapped some fresh duracells in there and boom: I unsoldered and resoldered an upper flipper EOS switch without issue.

Folks say alkalines have different power curves and this iron is sensitive to overall quality, so I re-recharged those old NiMH ones to compare again on my next use. This time I was adding an addtional GI lamp socket to a pf, using the existing ground trace with a nearby big solder blob to the new socket's own mounting tab - note this would act like a giant heat sink. The iron had no issues melting that blob and adding fresh solder to the connection, even with that sink-tab. Connecting the new wire from the socket prong to an upstream power feed was easy.

So I'm pleased with it so far but admittedly I haven't had it long. I don't expect it to power through beefy ground planes and dozens of grungy coil tabs at a shot... but I'll surely give it a try as those opportunities arise. If it doesn't, then that's what the big iron is for. But it already spared some aggravation in the two cases I used it, not having to move the bench iron around and dig for the service outlet... so if it encourages me to "do spot repairs now" instead of "putting off til later", so much the better.

Plus there have been times I "should" have soldered things in the car instead of using crimps and pigtails, and this will definitely be handy there too!

I'd seen those in the past but didn't want to fiddle with a tethered charging / power cord. Worst case, AAs are widely available if they go bad, and cheap enough to keep a spare set in the box. I don't have many USB packs to guarantee/dedicate one to the box. But I do understand the basic appeal.

As boscokid said, maybe not... but you could do worse. Agree if you're a beginner, a nice Hakko or other temperature-controlled station is better. Once you've gotten used to how solder behaves in various situations, you'll have the acquired feel better understand and use a non-controlled iron. I think Aoyue is still pretty highly regarded for good stations at a budget price.