Today I spent a large chunk of my first salary on tools, parts and materials and it was well worth it. I bought a lightweight soldering iron with sharp tip, the sponge for wiping it, new 1mm drills, solder wick and some more equipment, I also made a simple ECB with the engraving machine, the drill was blunt so the board with a precise project for SMT got massacred, but the simple standard DIP chip looked very professional... and finally soldering was a pleasure not a torture :)

As to thermally controlled soldering station, I plan to build one myself :) For financial reasons, Oscilloscope will have to wait some though, for now the "poor man's oscilloscope" through audio card of PC will have to suffice - I don't plan building anything extra-fast anytime soon anyway.

By the way, what kind of thermal sensors are used by soldering stations? I've checked thermal sensors at several manufacturers sites and they all were -40 to +120 ^oC at best..