So as these solder guns get older eventually you're going to start saying knock-offs like you do with Weller stuff. However this is the real deal from the real company. Again they're super high quality and the price here is pretty freaking awesome. Like any other soldering tip you want to try to keep it clean as possible that way it'll last you for a long time coming. When the imitation start to come out don't be fooled you want to get yourself a real Hakko tip. The 1.0 is usually good enough for medium to large applications. Like working on a VCR or Nintendo board. It's kind of the sweet spot for size. For something really new and really Small I suggest going with the 0.8 or 0.6 size.