I'd get a decent soldering iron and spend the money you save on components and other test equipment. When you do production soldering one or two (long and boring) days a week, you might spend a bit just to change things up! Can be used in combination with the HAKKO 490 smoke cleaner or the HAKKO 494 smoke absorbing system for line-production.

variations of HAKKO Tips accommodate various types of soldering from IC modifications to soldering to power sections. The FX-951 is, and if you don't want to spend that much on it, you can get one of the Chinese T12 soldering stations (which work reasonably well - much better than the FX-888).You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Before you seriously consider the Hakko FX-951 check what I wrote about the Pace station a few posts back. Not until you get into 100+watt range and/or production soldering (one joint after the other, nonstop) of huge thermal mass stuff. Like when you switch it on, change the temp, select a preset, swap tips, the mysterious absence of the control card that blocks the user interface, what do you think about entering temp offsets? A production solderer solders in a day what a repair guy does in a month; not that I have to solder multilayer mobos with a micro pencil-dick tip; different needs, for sure.the T12 clones had to be set to a higher set temp to solder the same things, noticeable after months of use and confirmed with scientific testing with temperature tester. But if you solder more than 3 or 4 hours a day definitively I go for the option of a 951 or a new Metcal without any doubt. The household fan works decently well, but does not precisely direct the airflow into a receptacle like a proper exhaust fume would.

I doubt you are going to get people argue against the benefits of a desoldering iron, if you are doing a large amount of desoldering it's a huge time saver.

I not use the control card, 888d not have one and in the 951 I put a tape inside, but when I did receive the station use it without problem. I watched a video of guy with some 1" blade tip doing BGA videocard stuff, and I couldn't understand how it looked so easy. Same recovering and perhaps in Pace worst tip to PCB transfer but nothing to blame to Pace itself, I have in my hakko biggest tip that I did have in the Pace demo and then notice better response in my Hakko than in the PCB but not using the same tip.