Electronics > Beginners
Trying to solder correctly
KL27x:
^The 888 stand comes with a sponge and brass wool. I took out the sponge and replaced it with a piece of FR-4, covered in rosin. Honestly, I don't use it too much for cleaning/freshing the tip. It's handy when I need to get only a very tiny bit of solder on the tip of the iron. Flick the bigger blob of solder off the iron onto this board, and it will break up into tiny solder balls that can be picked up. This completely removes my infrequent need of fine solderwire. I mostly use 0.064" for just about anything, and 99% what I solder is fine pitch SMD parts. The smallest I have is 0.032", and I haven't used any of it in years.
I don't need either sponge or wool for oxidation. I run low enough temp that my tips just don't oxidize very often; I address that problem maybe twice a year. The wool is for scraping off burnt rosin and for removing excess SMD parts from the tip.
If you run your iron hot and dry enough to actually oxidize while you're soldering, it's possible that a damp sponge might work better for you. The theory I have heard, anyhow, is that the thermal shock is supposed to help remove the oxide layer.
Audioguru again:
Hee, hee. You need to learn about how high to drip the solder from down to a solder joint.
I have always used 63/37 flux core solder and never 60/40 and have always user a Weller fixed temperature controlled soldering iron and never a cheap one with no temperature control and never one that uses a Mickey Mouse light dimmer circuit for a variable uncontrolled temperature.
macboy:
--- Quote from: KL27x on September 12, 2019, 01:57:02 am ---...
I don't need either sponge or wool for oxidation. I run low enough temp that my tips just don't oxidize very often; I address that problem maybe twice a year. The wool is for scraping off burnt rosin and for removing excess SMD parts from the tip.
If you run your iron hot and dry enough to actually oxidize while you're soldering, it's possible that a damp sponge might work better for you. The theory I have heard, anyhow, is that the thermal shock is supposed to help remove the oxide layer.
--- End quote ---
I don't control the temperature of my iron, Metcal does. I normally use the common 1xx series tips which are nominally 700 F (370 C). Personally I feel that they are too hot, but I am an amateur and they are the pros, so I defer to them. My tips very rarely have issues, but when reworking Pb-free and/or using solder wire with non-rosin-based flux (no clean), they occasionally get a weird film that's difficult to wet or to wipe away. A quick plunge into rosin followed by a good tinning with Pb solder (Kester 44 60/40) always cures that. It's far less harsh than those little tins of "tip tinner" which usually have ammonium chloride flux to chemically strip badly oxidized tips.
FreddieChopin:
--- Quote from: Audioguru again on September 12, 2019, 03:13:35 am ---Mickey Mouse light dimmer circuit for a variable uncontrolled temperature.
--- End quote ---
What is mickey mouse light dimmer? :wtf: Is it from lamp shaped like mickey mouse?
MarkR42:
@macboy thanks for the tip about cellulose sponges, I often used cellulose sponges (like washing up etc) for soldering, but I didn't realise they ship them with some stuff (glycerin) etc, built-in, but it's obvious now you mention it.
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