well, all that sounds like there is so much to choose from out there. the station i got from jeff is a weller WSD80. it is digital, variable temp[i think that's what jeff told me] and best of all it works better than my rechargeable. i soldered down the date command tab on the chip and now all is working well
. only thing left to do with this module is button it up and test it out. the main problem i had with this one is that after a spell in bright sunlight it seemed that the extra charge would stop it dead in its tracks. jeff and i checked everything and we agreed that it was probably a bad chip. so in the box of gooey parts from barry we lifted another chip and replaced the bad one. at first it seemed like we went backwards because it didn't work at all, but by the time i got home and hooked the power to it, it lit right up. the only thing missing was the date. with a tweezers i pushed down on the date tab of the chip and bingo, there it was. special thanks to jeff, both for the soldering station and the use of his awesome knowledge of electronics. also several hours of his saturday afternoon.
regards, peter