Metcal inductive irons are so much better then resistive, use one once and you will understand.
I pugged my Metcal into a power meter the other day. The instant you the tip touches copper, the power jumps from ~4W to ~40W. The power goes back down as soon as the solder melts.
If you can not find good deal on a Metcal, JBC irons are ok. Probably 80% as good soldering experience and often have a better (shorter) handpiece.
The same responsiveness happens with a JBC iron in my experience. Temp hardly overshoots, and you can punch all 120W into a ground plane if you get good enough contact (and have a large enough tip). I've used both Metcal irons and JBC irons, and I would agree with the other poster that JBC is the better overall package.
Key benefits:
* JBC tips are cheaper, and clones are widely available that are just as performant and even cheaper ($10/tip)
* JBC tips have adjustable temp; you can argue this isn't useful, but if you typically solder leaded but need to desolder something unleaded then this is a problem since you need to bump temp to desolder properly.
* You mentioned this already, but handpieces are shorter generally. In my opinion this makes a huge difference to soldering experience, especially as I get shakier in my older age.
I’d never used Metcal or JBC until recently. I’ve managed 15 plus years of SMT work with Hakko style irons. I recently got a new job, and the guy who manages our lab and does our soldering previously did soldering for military satellites for 20 years. He said he has something like thirty satellites in orbit.
When I asked for a soldering station I could use in the lab, I saw a lot of JBC machines around. I said “could I get a JBC?”. He said “oh the JBC is a Ferrari. I don’t think you need a Ferrari. I’ll get you a Metcal. That’s the Toyota of soldering irons.”
I can’t comment on exactly what he means, but he seems very experienced and has good things to say about JBC.
The JBC has adjustable temperature, which lets you solder faster if you crank it up. The risk is that you will cook either the board or the component you are attaching to the board. This decreases the reliability of the finished assembly, and it is not always visually obvious when you have cooked something. So it is like the gas pedal on a Ferrari, dangerous if you overdo it.
The Metcal does not have adjustable temperature, the temperature is set by the tips you choose. So it only has one "speed" and this reduces the risk of cooking the board.
Both Metcal and JBC are good, ultimately it turns into a sort of Vim vs. Emacs sort of thing, aka personal preference.
I pugged my Metcal into a power meter the other day. The instant you the tip touches copper, the power jumps from ~4W to ~40W. The power goes back down as soon as the solder melts.
If you can not find good deal on a Metcal, JBC irons are ok. Probably 80% as good soldering experience and often have a better (shorter) handpiece.