Drag soldering with a HQ-Solder/30 station

[spruce]

I have seen many video's on drag soldering with the hollow Weller gullwing solder tip.
Sadly I saved money in the past by getting myself a HQ-solder/30 station.
It does a great job, but you guess it, I can not find a hollow drag soldering tip for it.

I know Hakko has one, does anyone know if Hakko tips will fit?
Or are there other creative DIY solutions to this?

Much appreciated

[stj]

no, Hakko tips wont fit.
but your tips are dirt-cheap so just take a file to one.

[wraper]

It does a great job

Then your standards should be rather low as this is one of the worst type of soldering stations. Rebadged Zhongdi ZD 929C.

[wraper]

but your tips are dirt-cheap so just take a file to one.

And what the point? When you remove the iron coating and reach the bare copper, it will then dissolve in solder very fast.

[stj]

i'm answering the guy's question - instead of being a dick & attacking his choice of iron.

i'm sure he knows it's no JBC or T12 variant, but your not paying for it, and neither am i.

[wraper]

i'm answering the guy's question - instead of being a dick & attacking his choice of iron.

IMO that is not useful answer as won't solve the problem in any reasonable means. Cheap hakko knockoff (even for less money) would work much better than this and would have a reasonable choice of tips. Read my statement as he might think it works well because don't know any better.

[KL27x]

Until you need to use other tips, a 929 is a reasonable iron.

On the other hand, lots of people buy more expensive stations and never use anything other than a conical or chisel, lol.

OP, if you want to drag solder, get a different iron. Check out the tip selection in advance. And just to put in my 2 cents, a 2.5 to 3 mm CF (tin face only bevel tip) is better than spoon, in general. Solid gold. Hakko T18 tip CF3 is my gold standard to compare to other drag solder tips.

Plato makes spoon tips for 900M style which also fit on Hakko iron that take T18 tips.

Hakko 937 clone is the cheapest iron I know of for which you can get a good selection of drag solder tips (T18/900M).

Creative DIY solution? Hmm.. If you can machine copper/brass shims, you could convert your iron to take other tips, maybe.

I have tried to make a regular bevel tip into tin-face-only by coating the outside of it with powder coat. (same generic iron/tips you use, I think. They come in chisel, conical, and bevel, only, right?) That was a total fail. If you had the equipment to electroplate nickel and chrome, I suppose it might be possible to make a CF tip, yourself.

[Shock]

You don't necessarily need fancy tips to do drag soldering. But having a spotlessly clean tip and using plenty of flux helps. Just apply a small amount of solder to the face of the tip as it goes a long way. Temperature is important as well as if the tip is too cold solder tends to not cause a meniscus on each leg and clump up rather than dragging and spreading evenly.