Comments on: Soldering Hint

By: Florin

Florin — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 12:09:38 +0000

Greetings Roberto, i still think the brass sponge is the most efficient cleaning method for solder tip. The thermal shock coming from the wet sponge adds maybe 2-3 seconds of waiting time, until your solder tip becomes hot enough again.

By: Roberto

Roberto — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 11:35:25 +0000

Since the soldering tips were coated to avoid erosion on the tip, any abrasive method must not be used. The decent (and pretty expensive) solders, come with a hard celulose sponge pad that gets very soft when moistened, and the temperature shock is the only responsible for cracking the dirt out of the tip without any damage to the coating. Just as an example: http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=4078 or http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/browse.jsp?N=500005+1003121&Ntk=gensearch_001&Ntt=sponge&Ntx=
There they are as unexpensive as the kitchen type and your solder will be really thankful.
Greetings

By: Florin

Florin — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:31:42 +0000

Thanks Eurico

By: Eurico Leite

Eurico Leite — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:33:13 +0000

Awesome tip! Thanks for sharing with us electronic newbies

By: Dica rápida para limpar o bico do ferro de soldar no TugaTronica

Dica rápida para limpar o bico do ferro de soldar no TugaTronica — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:28:16 +0000

[...] várias maneiras de limpar o bico mas esta é que nunca tinha ouvido [...]

By: Gerard

Gerard — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:54:33 +0000

I’m using the same method for cleaning my soldering iron tip, it cleans well even if it’s just steel and it doesn’t affect the tip as you might think

By: Florin

Florin — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 07:40:34 +0000

Socrat you’re right solder doesn’t stick to solder it’s more of a force that’s keeping the solder between the threads. I haven’t seen any bad effect so far..

By: Socrat

Socrat — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 04:21:07 +0000

Yeah…the “pro” version is made of brass and is extremely soft to touch (and solder loves to stick to brass). This is made of steel, is much more abrasive and if you have a half-decent iron, you’ll scrape off the plating on your tip. And it won’t be as effective because solder doesn’t stick to steel as well.