Temperature-controlled soldering station from a reputable brand. Look at Hakko FX-971 or Weller WT1010. I use the Weller WT1010 and it's awesome. These professional stations have tight temperature control, many special interchangeable tips, and high wattage to maintain that temperature even when soldering on ground planes and other high heat sinks. Optical 10X binocular microscope, I use an Amscope SE400-Z. I'm old enough that I can't solder any SMT without it. Optical binocular scopes give you clarity and depth-of-field that you cannot get from one of the digital scopes with a screen. The Amscope also has a built-in light. For holding PCBs I use a Stickvise under the microscope. I'm not a fan of the "helping hands" style holders that put the PCB in mid-air. That's difficult to get under the microscope and they're prone to wiggling when you're trying to solder. I use exclusively Kester lead-free solders (typically SAC305 alloy) with 3.3% of their #275 flux. With 0.8mm diameter, this is part # 2470687618. The quality control on the name-brand solders like Kester is superior, with many choices as far as wire diameter, flux type, flux percentage, and metal alloy. I have about 6 different wires at my station, but my go-tos are the 0.8mm SAC305 3.3% ROL0 (no-clean) which is the part number above, 0.8mm SAC305 3.3% ROL1 (type 48 flux, not a no-clean, useful for repair of older components that have more oxidation), and 0.8mm K100D 3.3% ROL0 which is less expensive because it's silver-free. Lead-free solder typically needs a little additional flux, my favorite is Amtech's HydraUHF-TF. This is a synthetic REL0 flux and makes lead-free flow like leaded. I have several different kinds of fluxes from Amtech and Chipquik, but almost all of them that I routinely use are either ROL0 or REL0 designation. The Amtech HydraUHF-TF and the NC-559-V3 (former name, now called STIRRI V3-TF) are my two go-tos. Chipquik's SMD4300 flux is water-washable like the Amtech HydraUHF. I use Hakko micro-diagonal cutters and strippers, and they're great, but there's probably other brands that are just as good. I would stay away from the cheapies. For other small tools like screwdrivers and tweezers, iFixit has decent stuff. There are professional sets out there that can get ridiculously expensive, I have not had a need for those myself. I have a Quik 861DW hot air station for rework. I only use it occasionally because I am most often building new PCBs, not reworking existing ones. But it's a very capable station, has many available interchangeable tips. For placing SMD components onto PCBs for soldering, I have a Zepher Air Pick ZT-3-MIL. It's superior to using tweezers, but still painstaking. I built a reflow oven out of a toaster oven using the Controleo3 kit from Whizoo. This was a complicated build, but honestly this is one of the best things I ever did. No more hand-soldering SMT, I use a stencil that I have made along with the blank PCBs, Kester NGX1 lead-free solder paste, place the parts with the Zepher, and then reflow in the oven. Of all of these items, the ones that turn tough jobs into easy ones, and what I cannot live without, are the soldering station, the microscope, the solder, the fluxes, and the reflow oven. If you want to see my build process with these tools in action, I built a text-mode only video board for the Arduino Nano here (6 min video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w48n_iEgdv4 Answer from Southern-Stay704 on reddit.com