Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Soldering Iron Tips

Status
Not open for further replies.

rasterburn

Member
hello, I am not sure if anyone has spent any time testing this or not, but anyways, I have 2x 35w soldering Irons, 1 is a pen style and the other is a gun style, neither of them have a power trigger on them so they are constantly on, anyways, I was examining them last night after i freshly tinned them both (they were in need of it) but I noticed both tips need to be replaced, both have damage to them and they don't seem to conduct heat to well (for lack of better words I have to choke up half way on the tip with the component to get it hot enough for soldering). The pen style iron uses a set screw on the tip while the gun style uses a threaded tip, the local electronics shop supplies threaded tips which will fit in the pen style and the gun but only 30w tips, I am wondering, would there be any pros or cons to using a tip rated for a 30w iron on a 35w iron?
 
You're talking 5 watts, not 25, don't even worry about it, I would be slightly more wary of allowing them to be on while the iron isn't use, but this is generally something you should be aware of anyways. A 35 watt soldering iron allowed to heat in ambient air will get to EXTREMELY high temperatures, way more than used for soldering and more than enough to cause premature aging of the tip from oxidation, which is why it's always best to use a temperature controlled model, and even those should be turned off when not being actively used. A tip that is only kept at operating temperature when it's actually operating will last many years, especially if it's properly cleaned and tinned. Simply forgetting to turn the iron off for a half hour could kill a tip within days of use.
 
well I guess my choices are really still to buy a new soldering Iron / Gun or buy new tips not sure what brand of Iron / Gun I would get... the only brand that really comes to mind is Weller which is what i dont have... the tips would be cost less then the Iron / Gun but I am sure a new Iron / Gun would pay off in the long run
 
No matter which brand you use you should observe to obtain durable tips.

Those are tips with a special coating. The coating prevents corrosion wear and tear caused by flux or acids.

I have a 50W ERSA soldering iron with six tips and didn't have to replace one of them within a period of 25 years.

Tip change is very easy with ERSA soldering irons. They are hooked to a spring and slide over the heater body easily.

Boncuk
 
Hi there,

You can also make your own tips. Some irons have threads and you can use brass screws or even steel nails threaded with a die. Even copper wire can be used if it is threaded.
Other irons just have a screw that holds the tip in the end of the iron. For these you can even use a plain steel nail with the head cut off.
Just one thing though, the brass and steel dont conduct heat as well as copper so the tip has to be shorter for a given power, but sometimes they work pretty well when you need a very tiny tip for something anyway. A little experimentation reveals what works best for you and your applications.
For heavy duty stuff copper is the best way to go for max heating power. Copper rod material would be ideal.
Oh BTW, the bare copper tips dont last as long as steel or brass, which seem to last forever.
 
Last edited:
@MrAl, that sounds alot like something i have heard at one time when I was younger just starting out with soldering. Would you by any chance be able to reference what gauge of wire would be the proper size to use?
 
Just use the heaviest gauge electrical wire you can find raster. I'm thinking 12 gauge wire could make an okay tip for a soldering Iron, your local Home Depot or equivalent should carry thicker wire, but after 12 gauge things tend to go to stranded wire. Just use a pair of wire cutters to clip it to an appropriate length and mount it in a power drill or a dremel tool to turn it into a decent shape, doesn't take much to form copper. I'd use an acid flux like what's used for plumbing to do the initial tinning.
 
Last edited:
@MrAl, that sounds alot like something i have heard at one time when I was younger just starting out with soldering. Would you by any chance be able to reference what gauge of wire would be the proper size to use?

Hi there,

Well, it would really depend on your particular soldering iron. I could check mine, but im not sure if it would apply to yours.
Many are either 6-32 thread or 8-32 or 10-24 so you could look those up on the web and measure your existing tip with a micrometer, or else go to the hardware store and buy a couple different size short screws and see what one fits into your iron (without requiring excess force). You could then look up the diameter on the web doing a 'thread sizes' search. You'll see a ton of difference sizes listed.
Let me know if you have any trouble finding out what it really is.

Oh yeah i also have used brass rod stock in the past, but again it has to be shorter than a copper tip because the heat conduction is not as good.

One idea i never got around to trying was to buy an over sized brass (or copper) rod stock, and turn down the end to allow proper threading diameter. This way the tip would be thicker than normal so it would conduct more heat, yet it would still fit in the iron properly.
I like the kind of irons were you use a set screw to hold the tip in, because with that you can stick just about anything in there and it works to some degree as a tip. The tip slides in these kinds, then you tighten the screw. You can grind a fat piece of metal stock down at the tip to make a nice tip with fat body if you feel up to it :)
 
Last edited:
ok so I took the measurement of my soldering iron tips and found they are approx. 7awg, getting solid core wire of that gauge and cutting it even to match the length of the current tips shouldn't be an issue, the only issue that I think would come into play would be actually grinding and threading the tips only due to a lack of tools (the only power tools I own is a couple 18v cordless drills and the soldering irons) but I am sure i could get my dad to grind out a few tips for me in his spare time that is if i go out that route.
 
i recently picked up some new tips.
but when i went to tin them, i found that it was near impossible to get any acceptable results. turns out, the only solder i had around the place was lead-free... in fact it was this batch of solder which prompted me to seek out some new tips.... i just couldn't figure out what was going wrong with my solder work. i guess i'd just need more than 25W (220volts) to get away with using leadfree solder.
 
I cant say anything about lead free solder but I have found a quick run of sandpaper over the new tip helps pretty good for tining the tip
 
It's not that it's lead free solder, it's that you're not using a the right flux.

Typical tinning compounds use an aggressive acid flux for cleaning. The Sand paper helps with cleaning but tinning is more about cleaning than anything else.
 
not only is it about cleaning, but also protecting or preventative maintenance though I cant say I have had the best of luck with tinning (I never get the nice silky silver finish, always end up with the dull gray finish).
 
What are you using for tinning raster? It should shine like it was a mirror after you're done. I'm still using an (overpriced) puck of tinning compound I got from RadioShack like two years ago, shows how much soldering I do =) It's pretty basic stuff, just a solid acid/resin flux with 60/40 leaded solder mixed in.
 
I just have the old school method of coating the tip with a thin coat of soldier for tinning, at the moment its all i have available to me
 
Acid fluxes are only really needed if you have a heavily oxidized tip, most temperature controlled units don't have a problem with that, though simple wattage guns might, I've lost quiet a few tips from overheating.
 
Copper is soluble in hot solder. That is why pure copper tips erode rapidly. MULTICORE used to sell a rosin flux-core wire solder alloy with copper as a constituent of the alloy so that it had less erosive effect on copper tips. I do not know if it is still available.

This is the reason that sodering iron manufacturers have gone to tips with copper cores (for conductivity) that are plated with pre-tinned iron (to resist dissolution in hot solder). While iron nails or copper wire may work in a pinch, you are much better off with iron-clad copper tips and some form of temperature control to minimize oxidation of the tinning on the tip. You should never "dress" an iron-clad tip with sandpaper or a file because once you break through the thin iron cladding, the tip will erode rapidly.

Your best bet, if you can afford it, is to get a temperature controlled soldering iron. I love my HAKO, but WELLER and others have good temperature-controlled models, also.

A fairly satisfactory, but not ideal alternative is a soldering iron rest that has either a temperature sensor or a simple weight-operated microswitch that cuts down the power whenever the iron is in the rest. Decades ago I rigged up a lever out of coat-hanger wire with a "U" at the end into which I hung the bulbous heating element at the end of my GE 6 volt transformer powered iron. The weight of the iron actuated a switch that opened a shunt around a diode in series with the iron. Worked fine for years before I found a surplus HAKO. The gravity-operated lever/switch was mounted on a pegboard next to my work area. Such a device is fairly easy to rig up by anyone handy enough to be in the electronics hobby or business. A diode in series with the iron cuts the power in half. You have a small wait for the tip to heat up after lifting the iron, but it is brief.

You could do a similar thing with a thermal switch, but gravity is easier and cheaper.

awright
 
hhhmmm... the stand sounds like an idea, all I have here for a stand is of course just the basic wire coathanger bent into a spring to whole the iron and then mounted to my table, it shouldn't be too difficult to rig up a switch system to it to allow some basic temperature control.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top