Hakko FX-901 Cordless Soldering Iron

The Hakko FX-901 is a cordless soldering iron that is both portable and practical and provides you with a means to easily solder on the go. Powered by four AA sized batteries, this soldering iron is capable of 60-120mins of use (depending on battery type) before replacing its power cells. The max temperature for this iron is also determined by the type of battery you use. For instance if you were to use a alkaline battery you would have a higher temperature output of about 600°C (peak) with a much shorter battery life but if you use a nickel-metal hydride type you could only get about 400°C but with a much longer battery life.

For over 50 years, Hakko has been producing superior quality soldering and desoldering tools. They're dependable, a good value and they work really well! We use Hakko irons in production and we think they're great.

Note: This iron does NOT include batteries. Check the Recommended Products section below for different options.

  • Temperature Range: ~400°-600°C
  • Cartridge type for selectable batteries
  • Approximately 60 minutes with alkaline batteries and 120 minutes with nickel-metal hydride
  • Quick-release soldering tip replacement
  • Ceramic heating element
  • Slender, lightweight ergonomic iron handles
  • Compact design
  • Great for soldering SMD and through-hole applications
  • T11-B cone tip included

Hakko FX-901 Cordless Soldering Iron Product Help and Resources

How to Solder: Through-Hole Soldering

September 19, 2013

This tutorial covers everything you need to know about through-hole soldering.

Replacement tips

While we don't currently carry them, you can find replacement tips for this soldering iron here http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fx901_tips.html#productNav from Hakko.


Core Skill: Soldering

This skill defines how difficult the soldering is on a particular product. It might be a couple simple solder joints, or require special reflow tools.

1 Soldering

Skill Level: Noob - Some basic soldering is required, but it is limited to a just a few pins, basic through-hole soldering, and couple (if any) polarized components. A basic soldering iron is all you should need.
See all skill levels


Comments

Looking for answers to technical questions?

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  • Member #134773 / about 4 years ago / 2

    FWIW, Digi-Key is showing that they carry both the spare tips for the FX-901, but at $21.57 each. (As of 21-Apr-2020, they only have the "chisel" T11-D4 in stock.)

    I'm toying with the idea of getting one of these for my amateur radio "go kit". Might actually get two, so as to have a spare tip and a battery pack to "modify"... ;-)

    • santaimpersonator / about 4 years ago / 1

      Thanks for the heads up, I'll see if we can get this added as a drop ship product.

  • Submariner pro / about 7 years ago / 1

    Hi, can someone here at Sparkfun reverse engineer one of these? (I'm considering if I should buy one) Thanks!

  • GB / about 7 years ago / 1

    Has anyone compared this to the USB soldering irons? For tip size, heat etc? I use a USB one for doing QFP-48 (surface mount) soldering with old-school lead solder and it works great, but this might be even better.

  • PointyOintment / about 10 years ago / 4

    The Hakko FX-901 is a cordless soldering iron that is both portable and practical and provides you with a means to easily solder on the go.

    That's a perfectly constructed compound list sentence. Those are very easy to get wrong. Bravo!

    • oosnoopy / about 10 years ago / 2

      Thank you Mr. Dickonary.

      • PointyOintment / about 10 years ago / 2

        That was a sincere compliment. I was not being sarcastic.

      • Member #266352 / about 10 years ago * / 2

        No, no; that doesn't work. One must use a "t," then an "ion" to produce the /ʃən/ sound, like in "motion," or even... "dictionary." ;)

  • jmedved / about 10 years ago / 4

    According to description this is "North American 120VAC" device. Are you sure about that? It seems fully battery powered to me and there is no reason why European 240VAC users would be prevented from getting one. ;)

  • CSmith / about 10 years ago / 3

    Why must Hakko continue to make their products in Fisher-Price toy colors?

  • CodeMaven / about 10 years ago / 3

    "Powered by four AA sized batteries, this soldering iron is capable of 60-120hrs of use (depending on battery type) ..."

    That is incredible battery life... Are you sure it's not more like 60-120 minutes as it says in the Features?

  • foibler / about 10 years ago / 2

    If only this took 14500 batteries instead, or a pair of 18650s.

    • Member #618943 / about 8 years ago / 1

      Provided the circuit can handle it. One should be able to do bracing and jewelry work with it, seems almost too good to be true.

  • Member #117624 / about 10 years ago / 1

    I have not used this brand but own other very similar brand. For all of you out there who may not be aware, I would like to comment on the two temperatures available by using different batteries. The guy wanting to solder on his outdoor train set could probably use the 1100 degrees F. But for all the rest of us doing circuit board soldering in particular, this is way, WAY too hot. 750 F is just about perfect for most electronic soldering, possibly even a little on the hot side for some. Most of my soldering is right around 700 using 63/37 solder. So even though more expensive initially for the NiMH batteries, the consolation is they are rechargeable and more perfectly suited to the kind of soldering most anyone on this site would be doing. That's my opinion anyway, with 55+ years of soldering experience.

  • DuckmanLV / about 10 years ago / 1

    Anyone else find that it takes awhile to melt solder and create a joint. I tried to solder some headers on the WAV Trigger and I ended up switching to my cheap Radio Shack iron to finish the job. It gets great reviews so I am thinking there might be something I am doing/not doing to make it work as I expect? I am using fresh Kirkland Alkaline batteries with 0.032" Diameter solder as found here http://www.frys.com/product/4455306?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG .

  • HappyMutant / about 10 years ago / 1

    I love this. it works for most light soldering and the batteries are good for about a solid 60 minutes of work.nice and portable. and i dig the cordless bit :D

  • sb4 / about 10 years ago / 1

    Somebody tell Hakko to redesign for an optional fifth battery, so the NiMHs could deliver 600 C as well. Then it would be truly useful in a shop environment.

    • Member #549694 / about 10 years ago / 1

      That is actually a fantastic idea! Probably could hack the case by 3D printing a battery holder that does just that... And have the contacts so the extra weight would not unbalance the iron at all. Especially because the cartridge setup, this would not be too difficult...

  • Arbiag / about 10 years ago / 1

    Question -- where do we get other tips? Couldn't find anything in SparkFun that seemed like it would do...

  • Red Angel / about 10 years ago / 1

    Do you plan on storing a 220VAC version anytime soon?

    • Kamiquasi / about 10 years ago / 1

      240VAC batteries? ;)

      I suppose you might be referring to the Hakko FX-888D - although most comments on it are old (you'll have to check the 'Previous Versions' comments), I suspect that Hakko is still not distributing 220/240V models to U.S. subdistributors/sellers.

      Your best bet is to find a reseller local to you or check out the brands popular in those markets - e.g. Weller, aoyue, Metcal, often where one brand is strong in a market, the others don't even appear to be trying very hard to conquer it.

  • madashell / about 10 years ago / 1

    For instance if you were to use a alkaline battery you would have a higher temperature output of about 600°C (peak) with a much shorter battery life but if you use a nickel-metal hydride type you could only get about 400°C but with a much longer battery life.

    Or you could use Energizer L91 Lithium/Iron Disulfide cells and get BOTH performance and high capacity.

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5

Based on 27 ratings:

Currently viewing all customer reviews.

2 of 2 found this helpful:

Hakko FX-901 Cordless Soldering Iron

This soldering iron works very well. It's easy to use.

3 of 3 found this helpful:

You need one of these

It seems if you spend much time making stuff there is always a point where it is inconvenient to drag stuff back to the bench to solder something. The Hakko is an excellent utility tool for making a few solder connections. It heats quickly and holds its heat well. Battery life meets specifications and the price is very reasonable.

4 of 4 found this helpful:

A traveler's dream!

I grabbed one of these when the first batch appeared, right before leaving town for an extended business trip. So glad I did. It heats up quickly, offers two temp settings (determined by battery type used), and is not nearly as awkward to handle as I had feared it would be due to the weight of the batteries. And I just finished soldering up a board whilst sitting on the beach. Re-read that last sentence, and then pick up one of these.

3 of 3 found this helpful:

Best soldering iron I've owned!

This iron is awesome... very easy to handle, not too much weight or too little. The tip is the perfect size.

2 of 2 found this helpful:

Wonderful Tool

The Hakko FX-901 Cordless Soldering Iron is a great tool. It sits beside my Hakko FX-951 Soldering Station so if I only need to solder one joint I use it instead. It is well balanced and the included T11-B cone tip is just the right size. I can't say enough good about it.

1 of 1 found this helpful:

OTAY!

I dig this wire free lil animal. perfect for the price you can't go wrong. my only bitch would be the fact it only has two tip options. thoughts and prayers!

2 of 2 found this helpful:

Nice iron

I purchased this as a better alternative that butane portables. So far, so good - very nice iron in a neat little package. Have not used it long enough to drain a battery set or anywhere other than the benchtop. But, it's looks like it's going to be a pretty good portable.

Very nice and fine tip - I wonder if it will provide ample heat for joining fatter gages perhaps with a little breeze. It is an on-off scenario - heat-up is fairly quick, but not "instantaneous".

Given a charging port and batteries, it actually probably could be a nice light-duty bench solution.

1 of 1 found this helpful:

Such a great soldering iron!

I've only used this a few times so far so I may run into difficulties down the line, but so far I've been able to solder with both leaded and lead-free solder without issue. The run time on one set of batteries is better than I expected, and the temperature is much better too (both as advertised :P).

I'm very happy with this soldering iron so far, and hope that it lasts for some time. I love that it has replaceable tips because my last soldering iron's tip broke and it wasn't replaceable, but it was a cheap iron anyway. I would definitely recommend this to a friend if I had one that needed a small portable soldering iron in the future.

2 of 2 found this helpful:

Excelente

Una de las mejores herramientas que he usado.

3 of 3 found this helpful:

Replacement tips?

I'm pleased with this purchase, but item description says: "Wide selection of tips available" I can't find any on this site... Tried to google it and found two types each for $20+shipping, At this price i would prefer to just buy second one :)

2 of 2 found this helpful:

Great piece of portable kit

Pros: Heats up quickly and can power tip for a fair while. Easy to use and get in akward angles Con: I find the tip too pointy for electronic boards pads - a bit wider would be great.

All in all, great product

2 of 2 found this helpful:

Better than I expected!

I bought this soldering iron so I could carry it in my backpack to the middle school where I teach engineering and robotics. I was expecting it to be a poor substitute for a "real" soldering station, useful just for quick fixes to student projects. Instead, it turned out to be awesome! My students and I were able to easily solder all of the headers onto a set of Arduino shields, and still had plenty of battery life left. It heats up extremely quickly, much faster than my soldering station. If it didn't use batteries, I would switch to using it for all of my soldering needs. But it works fantastic as a portable, cordless soldering solution.

2 of 2 found this helpful:

Amazing!

I was skeptical - a soldering iron powered by AA batteries - right. But this thing is impressive. I assembled a small sound-activated kit over the weekend - about a two hour job powering off and on as needed. Checked the batteries afterwards and still showed 5.9 volts. The heat-up time was very good, just a few seconds. This beats the heck out of my portable butane soldering iron.

3 of 3 found this helpful:

Decent for small projects

I recently used this to solder some breakaway headers to protoboard, which it handles fine. I also tried soldering a 22awg solid ground wire to several other wires, all sinked against the protoboard and it bogged down, which is understandable for ~5W. The real value of this iron is that it takes up very little space, can be set on top of other things on a crowded workspace (!!), and uses common batteries. The cap is some sort of ceramic, so the iron can be capped while still hot. This also forces the switch off.

Note: I used Eneloop AA NiMH from Amazon, ~$20 including a charger, and the iron was plenty hot enough for small gauge wire using lead free solder. Heat up time = 30-40 secs

1 of 1 found this helpful:

Seems like it does a good job

I have not had a chance to use it in any practical manner yet besides putting batteries and tinning the iron but overall it performed well and the tip looks like its pretty good quality. I just really like the fact that the batteries are replaceable. I paid over 3 times this much for a cordless rechargeable and when the batteries went up (because the charger was simply a transformer with a diode) I was out of luck. It was quite involved to remove the batteries and replace them. So far I think this is a really good value for the price.

1 of 1 found this helpful:

Works great

Heats faster than I expected. Not too heavy.

2 of 3 found this helpful:

Not great with lead-free solder

I should have taken the advice that beginners should start with the cheapest solder iron available and leaded not lead-free solder. It appears that this iron does not get hot enough to work with lead-free in a reasonable time frame. And you can just about forget about re-working anything, unless perhaps you can get a flux pen. I have been unable to find out where to get one locally. I am a complete beginner, so I don't really know how it is supposed to go, but it seems to take 10 times longer for each joint than the tutorials say. I have tried alkaline as well as rechargeable batteries. I have done one small project and am half through another, but it is painfully slow with any kind of battery, and they don't last very long. Seems the red light stays on even if the batteries are not giving the iron not enough power to solder any more. Description should have warned about unsuitability for lead-free, imho. Might be more acceptable for leaded.

1 of 2 found this helpful:

essential tool.

works very well and is very useful when you want to solder only one or two thing.

1 of 2 found this helpful:

Great for hobby Soldering

No cords so you don't have to worry about that. Though you will need to buy specific batteries for it. It also struggles with RoHS soldering with high heat-sinking items if using rechargeable Ni-MH. But all around with leaded solder handles well. Did a little SMD soldering with it and it worked well. Took it to work and did soldering there with it for a bit worked decently under stress even with using RoHS solder. In the end I do want maybe a custom bat-pack for it that gives it the juice to handle for longer periods and handle RoHS better.

Buy 2 or more they’re awesome

I’ve been using mine for quite some time now and it is awesome, can’t praise this piece of kit enough!

Sweet little soldering iron

Very handy

Very good tool for quick solderings or out-door small repair

Not a high professional tool but it does it's job perfectly. No wires around and warms up in just a few seconds from switch-on. My preferred solder when I need the soldering work done without wait time. Not adapt for long soldering sessions because the batteries are drained quickly. Very useful if one need to do the work out-door and not in the lab.

Perfect

Just what I needed!

Great portable iron

I use expensive irons at work and this is no match for them. But it does work well for a battery powered unit. My only complaint is it gets bogged down when soldering to a large ground plane or other thermally large part. Overall an excellent addition to the toolkit!

0 of 13 found this helpful:

I'll find out soon

I've discovered in my 67 years that a devise often works best if it is removed from the marketing package first. Having not been at home since the soldering iron's delivery, I have failed in executing the first step in using the devise. However, within a few days, I intend to remove the soldering iron from the packaging. Then use it when soldering some connections on my outdoor G-scale model train layout. That was the purpose for which I purchased the "cordless" soldering iron. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.

I should have bought one a long time ago

I put off this purchase for a long time, since I already have soldering irons. Now that I have this one, I spend more time tinkering with electronics projects, just because I don't have to clear space, get out the temperature controlled iron, and pack it all up when I'm done (after waiting a long time for it to cool down). Now I just flip the switch, do a little soldering, and turn it off.

It heats up quickly, melts solder quickly, cools off quickly, and is just a really handy addition to my tool set.