Any decent soldering stations cheaper than Hakko 936?

That Aoyue is supposed to be good! I haven't yet bought one myself but I should.

The Hakko clones aren't bad for the price. I have a CSI Station 1 (Digital) and love it. Definitely better than anything else you can buy for less than $50. Arguments can be made for spending the extra money for a real 936, but if you want to keep the budget down it's great.

The Weller WLC100 has an ungrounded iron, mind. It'll take a standard Weller iron as well (grounded plug, grounded receptacle), but you'll have to pay for that too, and the cost would be about the same as a 936.

You can get a 936 on eBay (canada) for $80.

What other clones are there?

You'll love it. I visited a Fry's recently and they had the 936 for $79.99... I spent $100 on mines last year.

Do you really need a station?  I can solder most anything with my Weller SP23 or SP40.  Both are available at Home Depot for $16 and $18, respectively.  I use the 23 for most things, but I get out the 40 for big stuff like large binding posts, big star grounds and desoldering point to point tube amps.  I have used a few other cheap irons (Parts Express, Radio Shack, Sears) and have absolutely despised them (hot handles, bad balance, lack of thermal stability, burned out elements, etc).  I suspect that many folks get sick of one of those pieces of junk and move up to the Hakko.  If you are on a budget, I can't recommend the Weller irons strongly enough.  I just wish HD (or digikey) sold replacement tips.  Granted, I don't do a ton of SMT (I've never ruined a part though), but there is a great deal of test gear on my list ahead of a Hakko (and I've already got an iso transformer, variac, 'scope, signal generator, tube tester, etc).  Whatever you do, it is far better to buy a quality simple tool rather than a cheap fancy one.

Paul