What is the best way to clean excess solder from a wire tip?
At school we do electronics, and i soldered some wires together and now there is a large blob of solder on the end, and nothing to attach wires to because the wire fell off. There is now no wire left. Help!
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Get yourself some sort of a catch tray. Preferably something metal. While your soldering the wire simply let it flick downward and the excess solder should fly away onto the catch tray. If it's a relatively sensitive connection just make sure you have enough flux/rosin on it and dab the soldering iron to the bottom of the connection. The excess solder should flow off onto the iron leaving it clean. Note that if it's not shiny anymore, it needs more rosin to clean the metal's surface. Oxidization is the biggest cause of the blobs of excess solder.
This should work fine (wear eye protection!) - otherwise use something called solder wick (or solder braid). It is designed to wick up solder (thus the name).
Use your iron to melt the solder, than scrape/blob away with a popsicle stick
Apr 3, 2009. 3:53 AMDELETED_DELETED_DarthVader
says:
My sister is really smart, she knows all of this!
Jan 28, 2009. 7:07 PMalex-sharetskiy
says:
just hit it on the table, the solder should roll off
Apr 3, 2009. 3:51 AMDELETED_DELETED_DarthVader
says:
no, my sister told me that, that's what she said to me.
Jan 28, 2009. 2:11 PMthompind
says:
Heat the solder on the end of your wire until it is fluid then wipe it on a wet sponge!
Jan 28, 2009. 11:22 AMjunits15
says:
I am a little confused by your question. do you mean that there is no copper showing? or do you mean that there is a blob of solder in the way of what you are doing?
Jan 29, 2009. 8:39 AMThe Jamalam (author)
says:
well, after the massive blob appeared, it a coats the entire stripped end of my wire and on top of that, the wire i soldered to it fell off.
Jan 29, 2009. 2:20 PMjunits15
says:
so one good thing is that it is coating the wire that usually is good news because it makes the wire more acceptant to solder. Although it sounds like you heated the solder to long and boiled all the flux away, does the solder have a rough finish to it? The flux is what cleans the oxidation from the metal being soldered, oxidation prevents the solder from sticking. You can tell if the flux is gone if there is no more smoke coming from the joint.
Feb 4, 2009. 9:42 AMThe Jamalam (author)
says:
ok, you do that. I'll do things that mental assylum people dont do
Apr 2, 2009. 5:03 PMDELETED_DELETED_DarthVader
says:
First, you need find yourself some kind of a catching platform. Probably something metalic. While your soldering, you need to make the wire simply let it *flick* down and the extra solder should shoot off into the catching platform. It's sort of a sensitive connection, so you should confirm you have enough flux/rosin on the platform and lightly *dab* the soldering iron to the bottom of the connecting point. The extra solder should sort of form a river off into the iron leaving it clean. If it's not so shiny anymore, it just might need some more rosin to cleanse the metal. Oxidization is the largest source of the glops of extra solder.
Jan 28, 2009. 4:24 PMdeathpanda
says:
i use a vacuum de-soldering tool i got it from radio shack for 10 bucks.(witch means you can get it on ebay for 3). there great they are reusable, they don't fling solder around or burn your hand. and they are great for getting solder off small parts like ic's because they don't spread out like de-soldering braids
Jan 28, 2009. 4:32 PMdeathpanda
says:
as koil said you might want to make sure you are using the right technique to solder. you need to use the right amount of rosin and also you should be heating the wire and applying the solder to the opposite side of the wire that the iron is on not the same side or to the iron it self. if your having trouble there's a bunch of good soldering ables.
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