I enjoy soldering stuff, but one thing I've never been able to do is keep a tip clean on my iron. I'm using a Radio Shack 35W pencil-type iron, and I just put a brand new tip on it. I also got some of their tip cleaner/tinner as well. Before using it, I heated it up and dipped the tip in the cleaner to tin it. I started building a small circuit board for tonight's project, and I would periodically wipe the excess solder off the tip with a paper towel, and dip the tip back in the cleaner to clean it off. However, no matter what I did, about halfway through my project, the tip began to develop this black carbon crud all over it, and that pretty much shut down my soldering operation.
This has always happened to me in the past, I have never been able to keep a soldering iron tip clean and shiny like you're supposed to. I've used a wet sponge, paper towels, and now the special Radio Shack tip cleaner/tinner. I've had some success in the past using a file to periodically scrape all the carbon residue off the tip, but I've since learned that it's not good to remove the outer protective surface of the tip (which I surely did by filing it). I don't want to resort to that again, but if it comes down to it, I might have to.
I've also noticed that if I can melt a giant blob of solder and leave it on the tip before setting it down, it will sort of encase the tip and protect it. I have to wipe the blob off before using it again, though, which seems to waste a lot of solder.
What the heck am I doing wrong? Does it have something to do with leaving the iron on and sitting on the bench for a long time (10-15 minutes) while I'm prepping the next joint? Can somebody please help me?!!
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
This is a good site. If you do a Google on "iron tip solder" (without the quotation marks), you will find a large number of good reference items.
I was having lots of trouble with a new iron that has an iron tip instead of a copper tip. I got so frustrated with it that I went out and bought a piece of 1/8 inch copper wire and made a copper tip, which worked fine.
I've been soldering since 1950 and never had any trouble like this. I posted a thread asking about iron tips and received lots of help (Soldering Iron Tip (Copper or Plated)). But at that point I felt that I would stick with my home made copper tip.
After reading a lot of the information in the Google search mentioned above, I started over with the iron tip that came with the soldering iron. First I used a screwdriver to carefully scrape everything off the tip while it was cold. Then I started with a low temperature (this is a temperature-controlled iron) and "tinned" the tip with 60/40 rosin core solder. "Tinning" the tip means melting new solder on the tip until it coats the tip all the way around the working part of the tip and back to the straight part. During this process it's useful to clean the tip occasionally by wiping it on a damp sponge as described in the referenced site. I repeated the process as the iron heated up to operating temperature. From your post, it is not clear whether or not you did this tinning process.
You should tin the tip whether your tip is iron or copper.
I believe that the Tip Tinner and Cleaner is actually only a cleaner. After using it you have to tin the tip with solder.
One of my problems may have been that I originally started out trying to be environmentally conscientious by using lead-free solder. Reading informed me that lead-free solder works at a higher temperature and may be more difficult to use. So I went back to old reliable 60/40.
The referenced site says to wipe and tin the iron before each use and before putting it aside after each use. The tinning provides the best thermal contact with your work and protects the iron from corrosion, oxidation, and getting dirty.
I have tried the iron tip on two 14-pin integrated circuit sockets on a kit I'm building. It seems to work OK, but I plan to compare it carefully with my copper tip to find out whether it is better or worse.
Once you rub off the protective coating, the tricks to keep a protective coated tip clean won't work any more.
I won't say there's a way around this though, or if there is I have yet to find it. I just write off the protective coating from day one. When the tip cruds up, I lightly drag the tip across a sanding block till it's nice and clean, tin the tip, and get back to soldering.
Lightly, not to save the protective coating, I've never had any luck with that. Lightly, because I want to save the tip itself as long as possible. There may be better solutions out there, but this has been working for me for years, with the original tip, on an iron either similar to or identical to the one you're using.
Dan, I'm using the iron me dad gave me in the late fifties (4 or 5 tips on ) and its still good for the odd tag strip. I was told never use anything abrasive on the tip, just tin it & wipe it. I use a wiping spunge but any the consistency of say a sanding block will do (without the sand), jusy keep it wet side of damp and use it regularly particulaly when you finish.
OK mate.
pick
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
I have adopted Tim Warris' techniques as per his video on his Fast Tracks website. Every two minutes, even when the iron is resting on its support and I am fiddling with something, I reach over and rub the tip thoroughly in folded paper towel. That keeps it clean. When a tip finally gets deformed or gunked enough that it needs serious help, I file it clean while it is cold. I do this carefully, turning the tip while filing, and I don't make any serious marks. Then, the tip is dipped in flux, heated, dipped again, and then immediately tinned.
One good thing about filing the tip twice or three times a year is that you can get a so-so sharp one much sharper to reach into tought spots. Might take a year to get it there, but...
Thanks for all the responses, guys. Cordon, that's a good link you provided with lots of good information. I've got a lot of information to chew on now, so I'll try cleaning and re-using the plated tip as is. As a last resort, I'll just go back to my old method of filing and tinning - that seemed to work pretty well for me.
As an afterthought, I remembered seeing a soldering demonstration at a train show once. They had similar irons, and must have been left plugged in all day, but still seemed to have a good shiny tip on them. So I know that leaving it on for extended periods shouldn't be a problem.
Back in the day, when I was soldering pretty much all day (I was an electronics tech -- Air Force and Air Guard), I built a small box that plugged into the wall outlet, and had a receptacle that my soldering iron plugged into; in the box was a rectifier diode (rated 1 amp/400volt) that was in SERIES with one leg of the AC power, and a switch which shorted out the diode in one position. With the diode shorted, the iron ran at normal power; when the diode was switched in, that cut the iron down to 1/2 power. That was enough to keep it hot and ready to go, but was a WHOLE lot easier on the tip and the heating element.
I also found (at the drug store) what was called a "suede brush"; it was a small brush, 1-2 inches long, that had BRASS bristles. It was intended for brushing the "nap" on suede shoes, jackets, etc. I attached it, bristle side up, to my soldering iron stand. When I got ready to solder, I picked up the iron, ran it through the suede brush, and away I went. It cleaned the tip nicely, but was not abrasive.
If the iron was going back on the stand for more that a couple of minutes, I melted a glob of solder onto the tip, and switched to "low power".
Incidentally, the sal ammoniac block should be a no-no for ANY kind of electrical or electronic soldering. Sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) is corrosive, and should not be used on anything electrical.
Remember: In South Carolina, North is southeast of Due West... HIOAg /Bill
The hot part of a soldering rig, be it gun or iron, must be coated with solder (tinned in the language of the trade) . Over time the solder coating (tinning) can wear off or burn off, exposing the under lying copper or (worse) iron tip. Irons lacking temperature control (say Radio Shack irons) will get hot enough just sitting on the bench to burn the solder coat clean off the tip. Once this happens the tip turns black, solder will no longer wet the tip, and a dry tip won't transfer heat to the work nearly as well as a well tinned one. Holding the trigger down on a soldering gun while the tip is in air will also burn off the tinning.
Retinning a burnt tip is doable but difficult. Solder needs a clean shiny bright tip surface to stick, and a burnt tip is all black and cruddy. What's worse, even if you file the tip down to bright metal, the bright oxidizes while the iron heats and the solder still won't stick, 'cause by the time the tip is hot enough to melt solder, it has oxidized itself so badly that solder won't stick.
I have retinned burnt tips by filing them down to bright metal and then sticking the tip into rosin flux while the iron heats. The flux keeps the air away from the bright metal so it stays bright and the solder will stick when the tip gets up to soldering temp. They also sell "tip cleaners" little tins of something white and gritty, (Sal Ammoniac perhaps, not sure of the chemistry). Sometimes rubbing a hot tip on the white gritty stuff and then hitting the tip with solder does the trick. Copper tips are more likely to retin than iron tips. Sometimes the only fix is a new tip, which is why a good iron, (and all guns) have replacable tips.
The cheaper non-temp-controlled irons will overheat and burn their tips if the tip is running in air. The iron needs the cold work to suck out some heat to keep the tip cool enough to keep the tinning on. You can purchase little soldering iron holders into which the hot tip fits. Or you can make one by drilling a hole the size of your iron's tip in a block of metal. The holder serves to cool the tip and keep it from burning. Someone on this thread suggested making a simple power controller with a single silicon diode. With the diode in circuit one half of the AC current is blocked, which cools the tip by 1/2. The expensive Weller temperature controlled irons are wonderful because they won't burn the tinning off the tip.
I avoid the "lead free" solders that the anti lead crusaders have forced upon us. They are mostly silver, and need a bit more heat and cleaner surfaces than good old 60-40 tin-lead solder does.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
Soldering is easy. Keeping the tip clean is the hard part. I soldered for 14 years in the Army and with a big Goverment contractor for the army.
When I solder, I keep a damp sponge sitting next to my solder station. The damp sponge is used to clean the tip of excess solder. It cools the built up solder and the solder will come off of the tip and form balls. Easy to pick off of the sponge. Before and after I will use the tinning paste. This also helps the life of the tip. I also recommend to put a blob of solder on the tip of the iron to prevent the tip from corrosion. You dont really want to use sandpaper or a wire brush on your tips because they will damage the coating of the tip. It also helps if you have a vairiable heat iron. One that has many settings for the different types of work.
I also recommend getting a bottle of liquid flux. The liquid flux will help get the surface temp of your work area up quicker with less damage to the area.
If you plan to solder alot. I would recommend to get a better soldering iron from Weller with an assortment of different tips. I hope I helped. Kevin
OK, here's an update after taking into account all the advice from this thread (Great advice, by the way, guys! Thanks again!)
Earlier today, I went for round 2 of my circuit board project. (In case you're curious, the project is the simple hand-held throttle for the Digitrax Zephyr, as described on Tony's Train Exchange website. If it works as well as I hope it does, I'll post later about how it performs.)
I started by taking my black cruddy Radio Shack plated-tip from yesterday (still cold), and carefully scraping the black crud off the tip with the back edge of a box knife blade. Then, I plugged in the iron and coated the tip with rosin flux (the waxy kind - that's all I had handy) while it heated up. After it heated up and melted the flux, I started tinning the tip with my regular solder (60/40 rosin core). From then on, I kept tinning the tip and wiping on a damp sponge throughout the time I was working. Before I started using it, I'd wipe it off, then re-tin a little. Before setting it down, I'd do the same thing.
At some point, some black crud started to grow on it, probably because I didn't tin it enough before then. A little wiping on the sponge, scrubbing with a damp Scotch pad, re-fluxing, and re-tinning, and I was quickly back in business.
I'm happy to report that the soldering iron worked wonderfully for the next hour and a half. I had to stop at that point because my wife came home and I had to help her with the groceries , but I'm sure the iron would have kept going just fine.
Before putting it away for the day, I cleaned it off again and re-tinned, then immediately unplugged it. I'm sure it will work like a champ next time.
And the icing on the cake is that I never had to break out the file!
PS - yes, I know my $10 Radio Shack iron is cheap, but I really don't do all that much soldering, so it's good for what I need it for. If I ever get to where I'm using it more frequently on a regular basis, I'll definitely invest in something better
lonewoof wrote: Back in the day, when I was soldering pretty much all day (I was an electronics tech -- Air Force and Air Guard), I built a small box that plugged into the wall outlet, and had a receptacle that my soldering iron plugged into; in the box was a rectifier diode (rated 1 amp/400volt) that was in SERIES with one leg of the AC power, and a switch which shorted out the diode in one position. With the diode shorted, the iron ran at normal power; when the diode was switched in, that cut the iron down to 1/2 power. That was enough to keep it hot and ready to go, but was a WHOLE lot easier on the tip and the heating element.If the iron was going back on the stand for more that a couple of minutes, I melted a glob of solder onto the tip, and switched to "low power".
That's a good way to get a dual heat iron out of a regular iron. I have a 40 watt iron and I use the speed control from my Dremel tool (yes, it's an old Dremel but it works just fine) as a temperature control. For most soldering, I have the dial turned just past half way. Like Lonewoof, if I'm going to be leaving the iron for a long time, I turn the dial down to about 1/4. Another thing you could do, if, and only if you are familiar working with 120 volt stuff, you could build a temperature control into a 4" electrical box with a light dimmer and a duplex outlet.
Your Radio Shack iron will work fine and last a long time. Sounds like you got the hang of getting and keeping the tip tinned. Long as the tip is tinned and the solder melts, the iron is doing it's job. The fancy Weller temperature controlled soldering stations are nice, but they cost like $100 and all you really get is a thermostatically controlled temperature which keeps the tip from burning if you leave the iron plugged in but idle for a long time.
Let me recommend cleaning the flux off your circuit board after you get it all soldered together. The flux, even the rosin flux used for electrical work, is acid, and over time (years) it will attack the copper etch on your circuit board. We used to clean flux off circuit boards with freon, but that was taken off the market some years ago for destroying the ozone layer. This was a major pain in industry, we had to switch over to a water washable flux which didn't do as good a job fluxing, but it would clean up. Nowadays I'd try the strongest solvent I could find (acetone, MEK, lacquer thinner,or Diosol) and a toothbrush (or a cheapy stiff bristle brush if the MEK dissolves the plastic toothbrush).
Good luck