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| Advice on Hakko FX888D tips? |
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| Hakhak:
I own a Hakko FX888D which comes with the default T18-D16 tip. Are there any other tips that people find worthwhile / worth having? In particular, is the I shape worthwhile for getting into narrow places / soldering small components? Or a C shape for SMD soldering? I am just trying to get a feel for which tips in particular people have found to actually be useful in practice versus which ones only look good on paper but have practical limitations that make them less worthwhile. For instance I heard the I tip is not great at distributing heat and is generally not worth it, but I don't know how true this is, so I am asking for what others experiences have been with various tips. |
| Cnoob:
The tip I'm currently using and like is the T18-CF2 (2mm) I also have T18-CF1(1mm) T18-CF15(1.5mm) and T18-C4 (4mm) |
| Moriambar:
If you plan to rework some chips and to desolder some smd parts I would recommend the K tip. |
| KL27x:
I mostly do SMD. I find the CF tips most useful. I have 'em all. The 2.5mm CF is probably what I consider my default tip. This is what I use for gullwing parts and SMD passives and LEDS and whatnot, and I find it is also fine for most thru hole and wire splicing, too, if you are the kind of person who rather apply flux to the joints than to feed solderwire. I find 2-3mm regular "nekked" C/bevel is the bees knees tip for hand soldering QFNs with side pads. This is a bit niche/specific, though. And my current 2.5mm CF* has worn the chrome on just the right spot where I don't have to hardly use a regular bevel, anymore. Knife tip has few good uses for SMD, particularly rework. It will lay out a ton of heat when you use it along a row of IC pins, so it can be useful for lifting chips with the solder blob chipquik methods. And for removing passives, it will be able to do that without adding any extra solder, in many cases, because it's able to get down to the edge of both pads at once. With the bevels, you often have to add a solder blob. If you're a solderwire feeder, then chisel tips and regular bevel tips are probably where it's at. *actually it's a CSF, S for short... cuz it's shorter/stubbier than the other tips giving it better thermal characteristics; the newer T12 tips have all gotten shorter and stubbier than the 888 tips, since SMD soldering doesn't usually need much reach. I could pretty well do just about anything with just a few tips. CSF25 for almost everything. CF1 or CF15 for tight point to point bodge wiring. Then a regular bevel or chisel or bevelled conical or... well, something hot but not too pointy for thru hole solder-feed jobs like lots of pin headers. So first off, you have to figure out what kind of solderer you are. A feeder or a fluxer. Lots of people are solder feeders. They invent things like hold downs to hold parts in place while they solder them. They use third hands and special vices and stuff like that. They have 15 different sizes of solderwire. Some of these folks think liquid/gel flux is a scam to part dummies from their money, and that the flux in the solder is all you ever need. Feeders tend to like nice concave filets. They find this to be very important for esthetics and functionality. The electrons flow better this way. They consider every joint a masterpiece of attention and detail. Drag soldering is the devil. Every feeder needs to have a bunch of chisels and an extensive collection of long pointy I and B tips plus the requisite pointy bent conical for "reach" and "precision." If you're a fluxer, you might want to try some bevels and CF bevels for SMD stuff. |
| Hakhak:
I'm somewhat new to the hobby so I'm interested in learning both approaches and becoming familiar with both sides of the coin. In my case I think my Hakko FX888D only works with the T18 series as opposed to the T12: http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fx888d_tips.html#productNav Shape BC/C, B, D, I, J, K I'm not sure yet what's considered "regular" so I'm just trying to get a sense for which of these would be the best picks. |
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