Soldering 101: Lesson 1: Tin the Tip

I found those "lead free " tips for the weller sp25 irons are a pain to tin and use & for me there the only type I can get ,but I find that polishing them with 1500 grit sand paper helps a lot & and tinning it with lead free solder also help keep the the oxide down ,as well it is better pay more & get a good iron then ending up frustrated with my set up I built my own temp controller ,the most useful thing I have ever made it may not have a lcd read out but it works for me. As for weller plated tips can be reshaped or DYI out of copper wire which I have done for years a bit of good quality "high temp anti seize" mine is good for + 2000 F it is made by locite will help extend the life of a unplaited tip ,I wonder if there is a way to replate or plate bare copper tips using electrolysis at home ?

what I really don't get is why the guys who make soldering irons can't take the long and short out of it, and create the possibility of reel feeding a soldering iron, the same way a wire welder is fed. don't worry, if I get my hands on a solder-sucker type of solder remover, i'll be sure to try my hand at making one...

RadioShack used to sell a solder feeder that worked similar to the reel feeders from wire welders. I ran into problems with the one I purchased where it would constantly solder itself shut, or would work its way down the iron and the solder had to constantly be adjusted onto target with my freehand.

Needless to say it lasted about a month before I wound up fed up with it and tossed it.

thats the whole thing, you don't use the same method of melting as you normally would, you have to go the path of the coldheat, and apply a large voltage between two very close points to melt the solder, not use a heating element. pass the voltage THROUGH the solder to melt. try hooking up a solder line inbetween the prongs of two nine volt batteries...

Yeah, that would be spiffy!

On the topic of tips, I use a Weller gun type iron for most of my soldering. Instead of using Weller tips, I just make my own out of copper wire. Reasons:

Straight copper heats up faster than those with coating.

The end can be bent and ground down to any shape you need.

They're super cheap, which outweighs the fact that the solder can eat away at the copper.

You don't have to worry about chunks coming off the tip if you flick the solder off.

Sure, you shouldn't leave a uncoated tip tinned, because the solder could eat away at the copper. Instead of leaving the tip tinned, I just take two or three swipes at it with a wire brush before I start.

Also, My thoughts on wire feed soldering guns.
A big part of soldering is controlling your solder feed.... (duh?) So applying it through a feeder would be impractical unless it had a reverse switch to pull the solder away. Also, you will need to apply the solder from many different angles in different applications.

So basically, a wire fed iron would only be practical if it had a reverse function to pull the solder back, and if you are always soldering from the same angle.

OK so I will come clean, I am a 41 year old who is crap at soldering. There I said it. I bought one of these ready made kits to solder components together and completely failed. The tip of my iron had a great chunk eaten out of it and I had to replace it after one circuit board. What did I do wrong?

This happens when you flick the solder off of the tip when soldering. When I first started soldering, I was too lazy to wipe the solder off the tip of my $8 radioshack iron, so i'd tap my iron on the side of a cup, kind of like flicking ash into an ashtray... this quickly took chunks of the tip along with the excess solder.

The tips of soldering irons are mostly copper with a thin protective coating of iron over that. The protective coating is there to keep solder from touching the copper, because the tin in the solder will quickly dissolve the copper. What happened to your tip? On just about any soldering iron, if you leave it on for a while with no solder covering the tip, the tip will oxidize (rust). All it takes is leaving an one night for the the protective coating to oxidize away, and once there's a hole in that, solder will quickly eat away the insides. This is why it's important to always keep a glob of solder on the end of the tip.

I add solder back onto the tip every time I set down the iron. If you're using an $8 iron in the first place, maybe it doesn't matter. But for the more expensive ones, the first time you turn them on, it's recommended to hold solder against the tip so that the instant the tip gets hot enough, solder will melt onto it and protect it.

All and all, it sounds like you got a bad kit. One other possibility is that you were using too much pressure with the iron. Very little force is needed--clean parts and sufficient wattage is all that's required.

Thanks, I think you have banged the nail well and truely on the head. I bought a really cheap and cheerful iron and I had it banging around by tool box. I personally think that as it was cheap thing the tip was probably very cheap too and had flaws in it. I certainly didn't know about the protection with solder but that is a very good idea.

Haven't had any reason to do soldering recently but this whole thread and ideas from everyone has been brilliant. Thank you.

i suk too but im only 12 lots of time to improve but practice and a parent with money helps a lot

Being 12 with lots of time and a parent with money helps a lot with any venture . . . wish I'd had that when I started learning computer graphics . . .

I think this happens when you leave a cheap soldering iron on for too long.. the same thing happened to a cheapo one I got at radioshack a while ago. It think the metal sort of rusts away. If it wasn't tinned, that wouldn't have helped much either. That said, its easy to reshape your soldering iron tip with a file. Just make sure you tin it after doing that.

hmm my soldering iron is showing some coppper after so many wipes of a nail file to remove old lumps of plastic as it fell onto my couch whilst i went to the toilet lol, one massive hole, smoke everywhere! but is there a way of protecting the tip of my soldering iron?
thanks- andy

Hey guys, one thing that I notice is lacking from this instructable is the use of flux. Flux helps to carry the heat and spread the solder evenly and quickly. Flux was originally animal fat or lard and many hardcore types prefer that to some of the newer pastes. The problem that flux helps with is getting solder to stick to slick surfaces like jacks and IC pins. If you don't have any flux using some steel wool to roughen up the surface will help immensely. If you have flux you just have to rub a little on and when you touch the properly tinned soldering iron to it (and some solder at the same time) it will very quickly attach and cover evenly.
BTW, you can pick up Hakko soldering irons on ebay for >$50 that have digital readouts. I have a Hakko 927 that is awesome.

That's interesting about the animal fat. I'll add my two cents of flux trivia: rosin used in typical flux is actually from pine tree resin.

The advice is good--steel wool can help if components are heavily corroded--but soldering without any flux is almost impossible. Luckily most solder comes with flux built into its core, but this flux will burn off quickly if you put solder on the iron tip and let it sit there (fumes are actually from boiling flux, not lead). The main job of flux is to remove oxidation from the metal and keep air away until solder displaces it. The key is having an un-corroded surface, not necessarily a rough one.

The video at the top of this page has some shots showing soldering with and without flux: http://www.curiousinventor.com/guides/How_To_Solder

Wow! Nice solder station! I only have a Weller model WTCPN :( I'm jealous. On the upside I have a much better way of tinning a soldering iron. I use my solder pot, just dip the cleaned tip of the iron in.

Now a solder pot would be nice! But, this isn't really my soldering iron--it's the job place's. I do all my soldering there because of my cheapo iron at home.

don't leave us in the dark. what's a soldering pot?

solder pot: http://www.curiousinventor.com/images/how_to_solder/tinning_wire_with_pot.jpg

Oh, that's a pot of molten lead--I've never seen one, but my soldering guru says they're really great for tinning the leads on anything. Just dip it in!

Always heat the work, not the solder.

If you particularly hardcore about the quality of your solder connection, rub the end of the solder strand on a pink pencil eraser before you tin your tip or before you do any work. This will remove the thin layer of corrosion that builds up on the solder during storage.

This is by no means a required step; this is something to consider if you're doing precision work and the quality of the connection will make or break what you're trying to accomplish.

Now all I need is a soldering iron... ;) Thanks heaps!

Quite welcome! Glad to be of service!

You could also use a wire brush to clean the tip off.

I have the same soldering station and I think I just learned the hard way not to use metal wool-type stuff with these Weller tips. Apparently it's easy to wear off the iron electroplating (I can now see the copper core, and solder won't wet to the tip). For this same reason these Weller tips can't be reshapped with a file.

Great tutorial!

great article. thanks. i haven't soldered anything since i was a kid and i've been wanting to get into it again.

great instructable i just got an iron for xmas Iwas looking for a how to article

thanks for the Dihydrogen Oxide link :)

But of course. Safety First, you know!

After finishing this, I read the How to Solder instructable, and I think it covers everything I mentioned here. However, this is a bit more simplistic, coming from my experience. Let me know if this is useful. Otherwise I'll unpublish it in a few days.

no, no, no! Don't unpublish! This is exactly what I was hoping people would share! It's learn to solder month!

Okay! In that case I'll keep on in this vein and publish "Solder a jumper".

Good beginner's guide.