So I've been digging around out of curiosity and I'm curious what other people think and since I have no idea where this really fits, I'll drop it here.
There seem to be a rather interesting divergence of tip tinner composition between manufacturers. (typically sold in 10-15g cylindrical tins)
I've noticed the following 6 primary categories [major ingredients only] (by weight %s) in modern tip tinners:
The first 3 have compositions similar to solder paste
a) a weak organic acid (<=15%, as a salt) + tin either on its own or paired with 1+ of Cu, Ag, Au
b) rosin (5-25%) + tin either on its own or paired with 1+ of Cu, Ag, Au
c) a strong inorganic acid (<=15%, as a salt) + tin either on its own or paired with 1+ of Cu, Ag, Au
The next two seem more like heavy duty cleaning for oxidized to hell tips
d) some kind of acid (rosin/organic/inorganic) (30-50%, as a salt) + tin (>=50%) either on its own or paired with 1+ of Cu, Ag, Au
e) some kind of acid (rosin/organic/inorganic) (>50%, as a salt) + tin (<50%) either on its own or paired with 1+ of Cu, Ag, Au
The last one looks like solder but in very small independent crystals instead of joined together
f) >=95% Sn/Cu/Ag/Au, rest = acid in salt form (of any kind) or flux
And of course, you can find a couple (which seem to be rare for english sites) with lead as well. Oddly, I haven't seen any activators for rosin used, probably to save the tip as the flux concentration is pretty high?
Of course, I obviously haven't looked at every tip tinner on the market and that has ever existed, so feel free to enlighten me.
I've just been wondering:
1) if anyone else noticed this
2) what people are using (if people even know/care?)
3) any major functional (real-world) differences between the compositions? (ie leaded vs leadfree process, long term storage, etc)
4) people's preferences due to functional differences or people's preferences just cause?