I would say a contributing factor to the heaters death Is the fact that when I come in to the shop I turn on my equipment on and leave it on, docked. so I'm ready to rock 'n roll . One thing I will say about the S993A that one millimeter tip that I bought makes the gun so much more useful when working on any board that has multiple layers . So pick yourself up one of those 1 mm tips along with maybe a couple extra heaters . But overall I think the S993 a is a very worthy contender. Otherwise the 2 mm tip that it comes with works just great for analog boards. Or you know basic single layer through hole stuff.