Caring for Your Soldering Iron

Soldering iron maintenance is extremely important if you want your tool to continue serving you in the long run. The proper use and care of your soldering tip will increase your productivity and help you create strong solder joints. Here's a look at how to care for your soldering iron.

The majority of soldering iron tips are made from iron plated copper. If you're going to get the best and longest service from this kind of tip for your soldering iron, maintenance of proper tinning on the working end is vital. Most industrial tips are pre-tinned when they're made. This keeps the iron working surface from becoming oxidized and keeps the tip ready for use. When this protective layer comes off, the tip fails as it oxidizes.

This is commonly called a detinned soldering iron tip. It won't accept solder or transfer heat efficiently. Detinning can happen when you fail to keep the working end covered in solder when idling, when you operate at temperatures higher than eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit (about four hundred degrees Celsius). If you use small solder wire, it might not carry enough flux to keep the tip tinned. If you use low residue fluxes, no-clean fluxes, or no flux at all, you could damage the tip, too.

When you use your soldering iron with a low tin content solder, with wick, or in repair and touch up, you also run the danger of detinning. If you wipe the tip on a dry, or artificial sponge, on a paper towel, a rag, or steel wool instead of a damp sponge made from cellulose, you could also cause problems. Avoid rubbing the tip on metals that are about to be joined and avoid adding solder directly to the tip. Instead, feed the solder to the joint.

If you want to keep your tip working perfectly, maintenance is simple. Just keep your operation temperatures as low as you can to avoid the formation of oxides, wipe the tip only on damp pure cellulose sponges, and add appropriate diameter rosin core solder to the working end of the tip on a regular basis. If your soldering tip still becomes detinned, restore it with an abrasive polishing bar, then re-tin the tip with rosin core solder.

Alternatively, use a tinner and cleaner combination that quickly provides retinning - just wipe the tip into the tinner for a few seconds until it sticks. You can also use regular solder wire at least .80 millimeters or larger to retin by flooding the working end regularly with solder.

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