My favorite soldering station is the Hakko 936. I've also seen Chinese copies of it that were cheaper, however I don't know whether they are functionally comparable. You have to be careful with cheap temp controlled soldering stations. Some are fine but others are just a soldering iron on a light dimmer with no feedback. The benefit of a temperature *controlled* iron is that you can have a big element with a lot of heat capacity but you can set it at a lower temperature and it will not get roasting hot. The capacity is there though when you try to solder something big and heavy that sinks a lot of heat.