Hakko Soldering Tips

[sunspots]

Hi all,

I'm not exactly a beginner but I felt this should be posted here. I've be soldering since I was 14 years old with a ratshack iron, got a Hakko about 10 years ago, love it. Took a long break from electronics and am now just getting back into it. Picked up a Hakko 472B with an 807, and a Hakko 852 with a ton of aftermarket pieces.

For the 472B I have the 1.0MM and the 1.3MM that came with it. I'm going to buy the:

0.6MM
0.8MM
1.6MM
2.3MM

To complete the set. I'm also buying the cleaning "tools" (they're just expensive wires) to keep them tidy. I could probably get away with stuff laying around in the shop but I figure if I'm spending $15 on the tip what's another $5 to keep it clean the right way.

In addition to that, I'm also buying these tips for my Hakko 936/907 iron:

Hakko 900M-T-3CM
Hakko T18-D08
Hakko T18-D12
Hakko T18-D16
Hakko T18-D24
Hakko T18-D32
Hakko T18-DL12
Hakko T18-DL2
Hakko T18-DL32
Hakko T18-B
Hakko T18-BR02
Hakko T18-BL
Hakko T18-I
Hakko T18-CF1
Hakko T18-CF15
Hakko T18-CF2
Hakko T18-CF3
Hakko T18-K
Hakko T18-S3
Hakko T18-S4
Hakko T18-C05
Hakko T18-C08
Hakko T18-C1
Hakko T18-C2
Hakko T18-C3

I'm going to need to build a holder for all of these guys. Should be easy enough with a wood block and the right drill bit. Am I going overboard here? I know I could get away with less but I want to be sure I always have the right tool for the job. The CFs are for drag soldering, the Ds are for general work, The 3CM is to test out and play with since they don't make them anymore but I thought I'd try it out, the K is for drag/heavy work. B's are for SMD work. C's are for playing with as I'm used to D's but want to try out bevels.

I'm planning on getting some MG liquid flux, as well as their braid, never tried them but I figured I'd give it a shot.

People recommend Solder paste for the Hot air rework station but I just presolder the pads and then heat it up and let it settle. Can someone explain why use solder paste?

I'm also getting some vacuum pipe pads for my 852 so I can move stuff around with the vacuum. No more tweezers! Anyone have any experience with these and their longevity? I'm buying 5 of each size available, 3mm/5mm/7mm and was wondering if I'll go through them quickly or not.

Do you guys think I'm going over board on the tips here? I really like the idea of having almost every one at my disposal. But maybe I'm just being stupid, it's like $160 in tips. I might get rid of the 900M-T-3CM since it looks like the CFs will do the same thing, they aren't concave but I think I would prefer that honestly.

Thanks!

[sunspots]

Okay enough people in other threads have convinced me to cut back on the tips. Now to decide which I want... why do I want them all. I could be putting that money towards a digital oscope!

[KL27x]

Personally, I think you have selected quite a few redundant bits which are overwhelmingly "sharp and skinny and pointy." Out of C05, C08, I, BL, B, BR02, I'd just get maybe BR02, only. (And CF1 is going to outdo most of these other tips in most situations, for me, personally).

For some subtle shaping reasons I don't find the regular bevel tips all that great in T18 series. I might leave C3 off the list. Maybe C1, too. C2 is most generally useful, to me. 

I would add CSF25 to the list of the tinned face only bevel tips. That's a gem.

Knife is a must and there's only one.

I have both the 900 series spoon tips made by plato. I would drop them both in the trash before I would give up any of my T18 CF tips.

No comment on the D tips. I have given away all my D tips.

[cdev]

I recently got a bunch of Hakko compatible tips from an Australian vendor for $4 (for the entire batch) and they are quite good so far. No problems with wetting of flaking/ falling apart.

They came packed into a small flexible plastic case.. will try to find the vendors user name and post it here in a bit.

[sunspots]

Personally, I think you have selected quite a few redundant bits which are overwhelmingly "sharp and skinny and pointy." Out of C05, C08, I, BL, B, BR02, I'd just get maybe BR02, only. (And CF1 is going to outdo most of these other tips in most situations, for me, personally).

For some subtle shaping reasons I don't find the regular bevel tips all that great in T18 series. I might leave C3 off the list. Maybe C1, too. C2 is most generally useful, to me. 

I would add CSF25 to the list of the tinned face only bevel tips. That's a gem.

Knife is a must and there's only one.

I have both the 900 series spoon tips made by plato. I would drop them both in the trash before I would give up any of my T18 CF tips.

No comment on the D tips. I have given away all my D tips.

Thanks!! Someone who actually understands the uses for them and doesn't just tell me I only need 2

As SMD work is something I'm just getting into I may have gone overboard on the "sharp pointy" guys. The BR02 is a guarantee. And I agree, not from personal experience, but from what feels like common sense, that the CF tips would blow the spoon tips out of the water.

I'll grab a CSF25, what do you like about it so much?

The knife is an obvious grab for sure.

You have given away all of your chisel tips? What do you use in their place? Just C2? Or some other brand of chisel tips?

Thanks!

[sunspots]

I recently got a bunch of Hakko compatible tips from an Australian vendor for $4 (for the entire batch) and they are quite good so far. No problems with wetting of flaking/ falling apart.

They came packed into a small flexible plastic case.. will try to find the vendors user name and post it here in a bit.

I appreciate that. I'm pretty set on getting authentic Hakko tips as I've used third party tips in the past and they only lasted a few months. Whereas I've never had a Hakko tip go bad on me, even with extensive use. I just clean and tin them after every use and they never have any issues. But I might buy the set just for the hell of it to give it a shot!

[KL27x]

C2 is great for going around a qfn after reflow.  And other misc stuff. CF tips are probably my most used. CSF25 is great because cf3 is amazing. But it is sometimes a little too big. Hence c(s)f25.

In my smd soldering i dont have much use for chisel. CF or knife will just do it better. Without having 2 tinnable faces and tinnable shaft making it more difficult to keep the solder where i want it. YMMV. I like the angle on the knife and the chrome plated sides which dont take solder, compared to chisels.

Personally i tend towards larger tip to do a job, and csf25 is sometimes fine enough to do everytbing on my plate but still drag solder almost as sweet as cf3. But i use all my cf tips. I can honestly say i have never in last 5 years had need for a pointy tip, but br02 is there just in case cf1 is too big. I prefer CF1 for doing something like this, for instance:            

    For putting on SOIC/SSOP/SOT parts, CF3 will weld them on almost as fast as looking at them.

The way i use d tip for smd, the other face and the shaft are extraneous. There for no reason. If i am doing something where i am feeding sokderwire, c2 or knife can fill the bill if cf is awkward. When i want just what the doctor ordered, i find better tip than D. When i want a more versatile tip for smd, i find better tip than D. I just don't find D to be a good compromise or particularly great at anything I do (mostly SMD). Particularly the smaller chisels might as well be blunt conicals or small bevel tips. When the side interferes with the tip, it is just a blob, and they are all the same thing. (Except for CF1 or CF15, which ARE different, because of the chrome plating on the sides).  Larger chisel, I would greatly prefer knife for almost any task.

In my current T18 tip collection, I have no clone tips. Even though I had a generic set for free, at least twice in life, I found 95% of them are tips I actually don't use, lol. Strangely enough, seeing as they are probably selected as being the most common ones. If anything I could have perhaps gotten a C1 or C2 or a knife out of a clone set, but I already had those in genuine tips.

[nanofrog]

Thanks!! Someone who actually understands the uses for them and doesn't just tell me I only need 2

As SMD work is something I'm just getting into I may have gone overboard on the "sharp pointy" guys. The BR02 is a guarantee. And I agree, not from personal experience, but from what feels like common sense, that the CF tips would blow the spoon tips out of the water.

I'll grab a CSF25, what do you like about it so much?

You'll definitely need more than 2. But you'd be amazed what a basic set of 5 can actually tackle. Then add outlier sizes & specialty profiles as needed.

If you like chisels, figure 3 to start (thru-hole & larger SMD):

• T18-16D (1.6mm)
• T18-24D (2.4mm)
• T18-32D (3.2mm)

There are other sizes too of course; the T18-08D (0.8mm), T18-12D (1.2mm), and T18-52D (5.2mm).

Given what the T18-BR02 bent conical can do however, I'd suggest using this before buying either of the smaller chisels (becomes more of a preference). Personally, I prefer the ergonomics of a bent conical. It also works for single point SMD work, such as pulling bridges and tacking IC corners. 

Regarding the bevels (CF/tinned face only versions in particular), they can be used in place of chisels in many, if not all applications you'd use a chisel for, and are excellent for drag soldering. The larger 4mm CF version can also handle transistor tabs IME.

So you can literally pick either the 3 recommended chisels above or 3 of the CF bevels (I'd skip the 1mm & 1.5mm to start), the BR02, and the knife; and still be at 5 tips.

Hakko's Tip Selection Page might be of some help.

But I might buy the set just for the hell of it to give it a shot!

Regarding the inexpensive 900M clone tips, they're good for testing out a particular profile or size included you're not familiar with.

[cdev]

I've only had these a few weeks, I have no idea how long they will last. But so far so good.

This is not the same vendor.. but the price and number of tips and styles included are the same.

The knife blade I got looks better than the one here, maybe its the angle.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/12pcs-Soldering-Iron-Tips-900M-T-for-Hakko-936-937-928-Soldering-Station-Tool-/192138728272


Quote from: sunspots on Today at 17:58:08

I appreciate that. I'm pretty set on getting authentic Hakko tips as I've used third party tips in the past and they only lasted a few months. Whereas I've never had a Hakko tip go bad on me, even with extensive use. I just clean and tin them after every use and they never have any issues. But I might buy the set just for the hell of it to give it a shot!

[sunspots]

Thanks!! Someone who actually understands the uses for them and doesn't just tell me I only need 2

As SMD work is something I'm just getting into I may have gone overboard on the "sharp pointy" guys. The BR02 is a guarantee. And I agree, not from personal experience, but from what feels like common sense, that the CF tips would blow the spoon tips out of the water.

I'll grab a CSF25, what do you like about it so much?

You'll definitely need more than 2. But you'd be amazed what a basic set of 5 can actually tackle. Then add outlier sizes & specialty profiles as needed.

If you like chisels, figure 3 to start (thru-hole & larger SMD):

• T18-16D (1.6mm)
• T18-24D (2.4mm)
• T18-32D (3.2mm)

There are other sizes too of course; the T18-08D (0.8mm), T18-12D (1.2mm), and T18-52D (5.2mm).

Given what the T18-BR02 bent conical can do however, I'd suggest using this before buying either of the smaller chisels (becomes more of a preference). Personally, I prefer the ergonomics of a bent conical. It also works for single point SMD work, such as pulling bridges and tacking IC corners. 

Regarding the bevels (CF/tinned face only versions in particular), they can be used in place of chisels in many, if not all applications you'd use a chisel for, and are excellent for drag soldering. The larger 4mm CF version can also handle transistor tabs IME.

So you can literally pick either the 3 recommended chisels above or 3 of the CF bevels (I'd skip the 1mm & 1.5mm to start), the BR02, and the knife; and still be at 5 tips.

Hakko's Tip Selection Page might be of some help.

But I might buy the set just for the hell of it to give it a shot!

Regarding the inexpensive 900M clone tips, they're good for testing out a particular profile or size included you're not familiar with.

I know that a handful can do quite a lot. I've used my 1.6mm chizel tip for literally everything since I first got my soldering iron, never used another tip, got every job done, but I wish I had this selection for sure. I know that having the right size tip for the part is very beneficial. You can view on Hakko's website how having an overside/undersized tip affects heat flow to the component.  See here https://www.hakko.com/english/tip_selection/selection_1.html

Having considered all past and potential future scenarios my large tip selection will afford me the perfect tip for every project. I mean I can use a vise grip for 90% of the cases where I would need the perfect sized wrench and get away with it but it doesn't mean it's the right way to go about it, start stripping nuts, etc. I've done it the cheap way for years because back then a $100 Hakko soldering iron itself was breaking the bank. Now I can afford to put some money into my hobby and it's like Xmas. My fiance thinks it's hilarious how excited I am talking about my new hot air rework station and soldering iron tips lol.

[sunspots]

C2 is great for going around a qfn after reflow.  And other misc stuff. CF tips are probably my most used. CSF25 is great because cf3 is amazing. But it is sometimes a little too big. Hence c(s)f25.

In my smd soldering i dont have much use for chisel. CF or knife will just do it better. Without having 2 tinnable faces and tinnable shaft making it more difficult to keep the solder where i want it. YMMV. I like the angle on the knife and the chrome plated sides which dont take solder, compared to chisels.

Personally i tend towards larger tip to do a job, and csf25 is sometimes fine enough to do everytbing on my plate but still drag solder almost as sweet as cf3. But i use all my cf tips. I can honestly say i have never in last 5 years had need for a pointy tip, but br02 is there just in case cf1 is too big. I prefer CF1 for doing something like this, for instance:            

    For putting on SOIC/SSOP/SOT parts, CF3 will weld them on almost as fast as looking at them.

The way i use d tip for smd, the other face and the shaft are extraneous. There for no reason. If i am doing something where i am feeding sokderwire, c2 or knife can fill the bill if cf is awkward. When i want just what the doctor ordered, i find better tip than D. When i want a more versatile tip for smd, i find better tip than D. I just don't find D to be a good compromise or particularly great at anything I do (mostly SMD). Particularly the smaller chisels might as well be blunt conicals or small bevel tips. When the side interferes with the tip, it is just a blob, and they are all the same thing. (Except for CF1 or CF15, which ARE different, because of the chrome plating on the sides).  Larger chisel, I would greatly prefer knife for almost any task.

In my current T18 tip collection, I have no clone tips. Even though I had a generic set for free, at least twice in life, I found 95% of them are tips I actually don't use, lol. Strangely enough, seeing as they are probably selected as being the most common ones. If anything I could have perhaps gotten a C1 or C2 or a knife out of a clone set, but I already had those in genuine tips.

Thanks for the 'tips' (pun intended). I do some through-hole work as well on the occasion which I love chisels for, that's why I want the whole lot. I'll tone back some of the redundant smaller guys.

[sunspots]

So you can literally pick either the 3 recommended chisels above or 3 of the CF bevels (I'd skip the 1mm & 1.5mm to start), the BR02, and the knife; and still be at 5 tips.

I solder points that require magnification pretty regularly and I've been doing it with a massive chisel. I do all sorts of soldering, not one type over and over. Hence the desire for variety. Some of the smaller ones, ie 1mm, 1.5mm are the ones I'm most excited for. I'm tired of soldering 0.2mm solder points with a 1.6mm chisel! Imagine scraping traces that small or smaller to reach the copper to fix a torn pad and having to use a massive tip to do it. Eh, perhaps I'm in the minority here.

[nanofrog]

I solder points that require magnification pretty regularly and I've been doing it with a massive chisel. I do all sorts of soldering, not one type over and over. Hence the desire for variety. Some of the smaller ones, ie 1mm, 1.5mm are the ones I'm most excited for. I'm tired of soldering 0.2mm solder points with a 1.6mm chisel! Imagine scraping traces that small or smaller to reach the copper to fix a torn pad and having to use a massive tip to do it. Eh, perhaps I'm in the minority here.

The way I read your initial post led me to believe you're still using PTH the vast majority of the time. My apologies. 

SMD is definitely here to stay, and really isn't that hard to deal with. Magnification is the biggest add, as is the new skill of working under it.

I also presumed you were aware of needing to size the tip to the pad/hole, and taking the shotgun approach to be sure you could cover the sizes you may encounter. And it's in this arena that I've discovered you really don't need so many specialty tips or every size possible to do most things (i.e. general purpose kit suited for the tasks you typically encounter), and still size the tips to the pad properly.

Of course, this means prototyping with say 0805 to keep things consistent for example, while simultaneously reducing your tip selection requirements. For smaller stuff, you'll better off using your hot air station for rework IME. A reflow oven can prove more useful for prototyping more than a handful of parts, as are stencils for applying the paste.

It's the same with hot air regarding sizing; I use the 3 different round nozzles it came with. Fashioning shields out of some thin malleable sheet metal can do more than a specialty nozzle IME. And in the case of needing to restrict where the heat goes, a nozzle can't do that well.

Regardless, if you need to perform a specific task, it's easier to make tip recommendations vs. what you should already have on hand for your most common tasks.

As per trace/pad repair, try the drag technique to both tin & solder where the PCB trace + repair material overlay on some scrap and see if you like it better than pin-point soldering.  BR02, C, CF, or D shapes will do well here depending on track width for sizing, so you don't have to keep so many on hand (i.e. BR02 is suited for small track widths, and you'll be able to do either technique with it).

[electrolust]

People recommend Solder paste for the Hot air rework station but I just presolder the pads and then heat it up and let it settle. Can someone explain why use solder paste?

I have never used hot air, so keep that in mind.

If you use paste, you'll have a relatively flat, malleable and sticky surface for the components to rest on.  If you just tin the pads, you'll have hard bumps of solder which won't afford the components a stable place to rest, even if you put sticky flux on top.  Even if you do get a part to rest on your solder bumps, the force of the air will blow it off.

[KL27x]

^The air flow isn't the main problem. When the flux starts to boil, well before the solder melts, the part will dance any which way, right off the pads, like a hover craft. What I do is just pin the part down with the tip of my tweezers while reflowing it to maintain gross alignment. Once the solder reflows, you can feel the part squish down and you can see the flash of the melted solder. Now, when you lift the tweezers, the part will not move. If it connects to the wrong pads (goes crooked) just give it a nudge. The main trick is to use enough flux so you won't get bridges while doing this. And once it has melted, immediately back off with the nozzle an inch or so while messing around with it. Afterwards, I will go back around the part with a regular iron to redistribute and even out the solder and to get the little "suckling piglets" on the sidepads of a QFN. The little "suckling piglets" are an important QC step to me. They help to identify parts that are too high, due to too much solder on the center pad. The bridges won't form if the gap is too big. And if the part is crooked enough to have an issue, you will easily notice the piglets to be leaning/crooked.

BTW, if you have the first problem of too much solder on the center pad, you don't necessarily have to remove it to fix it. If you have a connection between the center pad and say ground pads, you can just push down on the chip while reheating it. This will squish the solder out to the "escape" pads. If you don't have any escape pads, you can still squish the part down, just be sure you have enough flux to prevent bridges. If you get the second problem of the chip being visibly crooked, this should definitely be fixed; it might not be a problem, but it is a sign of too little flux which COULD have caused a problem. Add some more around the edges and reflow it.

Solvent boiling off is a problem with solder paste, too. This is why the oven profile ramps up gradually. The problem with using solder paste with a hot air gun is that little bits of paste can randomly fling away from the pads when the solvent starts to boil, and then it will solidify into little solder balls that won't attach to anything. Or worse, it can get into little nooks where it doesn't reach melting temp and you cannot see it. When you tin the pads with solid solder, you do not have these issues. I strongly feel like solder paste is not particularly effective/efficient unless you use a stencil and a reflow oven. If you use it by hand dispenser and hot air gun, the pros are limited and the cons are real.

[KL27x]

BTW, I've showed this before. This is what I call a "rosin board." In fact, this is the first one I ever made, and it's still my main one. This is fairly essential for me in my use of CF tips. This has been recently cleaned and resurfaced with fresh rosin. It will get crusted over with dark, burnt rosin and I'll just chisel it off and start over once a year or two. It has also been freshly loaded with solderwire.

For CF2, 2.5, 3, there are many operations where I just want to pick up a big blob of solder from this board, and then make several joints. (Also, you can see it's a convenient place to stick loose components. Just pin them down and hit with hot air for a couple seconds).

For the CF1 or 1.5, it is less common to have that ability. These tips are so small that they don't "steal" solder from the pads, as effectively. If you load them with a big blob, they will generally dump too much of the solder onto the pad/joint (this is perhaps also because you are usually using this tiny tip for very close pitched "weird" stuff like jumper wiring, or whatnot, which will balloon up with too much solder if you allow it). Most of the time, I'm loading these tips with just enough solder to make only 1 intentionally starved joint, at a time. In this case, I find the easiest way to do that is to load up a rosin board with tiny solder balls. Using CF 2-3 tip, melt solder and fling it against the board to break it up into tiny solder balls. Then u can pick up tiny solder ball onto the CF1 tip for each joint. Even the tiniest, almost microscopic solder ball will be useful. The CF tip is a "what goes in, comes out" thing. Whereas, if you picked up a tiny solder ball on a tiny tip that is not a CF, it will just disappear up the shaft and be gone; you will have to apply fine solderwire while soldering the joint (which requires an extra hand!). Prior to discovering/learning how to use CF tips, I recall mastering a method of "freezing" a little odd stringy bit of solder onto the end of a 30AWG bodge wire, then using fine conical tip to reflow this at the fluxed joint (say closely packed scraped vias/joints where you have to avoid reflowing previous joints). It might sound like a lot of work using rosin board and solder balls, but needless to say it is much more efficient in cases such as this.

When doing drag soldering of fine pitch IC, you will also have to load very small, controlled amount of solder to the large CF tips. In this case, I often find a way to just steal some solder from surrounding cap pads to do the work. But if you don't have that available, you can also use the solder ball technique. But I find just loading a 2.5 or 3 CF and then flinging off the bead very thoroughly will often work out without having TOO much solder on there.

BTW, rosin is a great engineering adhesive. The strip of copper clad on the side of the board, for instance, it is held in place only by rosin. I can heat it with hot air station and remove it.

Here's an even better example of rosin as structural glue:

The plate of FR-4 is adhered to the wood underneath, only with rosin. Then the strip of copper clad on the right side, stuck with rosin. The wood tip cleaner is adhered to the FR-4 plate only with rosin. It is very strong, this tree sap. Yet easy to remove and/or reapply using heat, chisel, solvents.

A couple more rosin boards:

[cdev]

A very great many kinds of rosin are powerful antioxidants. Over millions of years plants have evolved all sorts of substances to protect themselves from poisonous things in the environment.

Its possible that the reason rosin may help solder adhere to metals may be because it reverses the oxidation of the surface or prevents them from oxidizing.