Soldering Tips

[Steviewevie]

I did my first bit of soldering for a looooong time today, and just thought I'd share a couple of tips which helped me a lot.

Firstly, my newly-purchased soldering iron (an Antex one from Maplin) developed a blackened (i.e. oxidised) coating on the tip soon after starting to use it, which meant that it stopped working - i.e. it was impossible to "tin" the tip and it didn't heat things up properly. What solved that was a tin of tip tinner/cleaner from Maplin. Wiping the tip across that sorted it immediately.

Secondly, to give myself a "third hand", when holding the soldering iron in one hand, the solder in another, and wanting to also hold the wire still, I put an elastic band around the handles of a pair of pliers, and used this as a clamp to keep the wire still. Which worked well.

[kev dood]

heres another tip.

Once you have finished using the iron, "tin" the tip with a blob of solder before letting it cool. This stops the tips from oxidising and then corroding or having to use tip cleaner to get it to hold new solder etc.

[Steviewevie]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I wasn't suggesting the tip cleaner as a general method for tinning the iron all the time, but as a solution to a tip that's become oxidised.

[kev dood]

oh yeah, absolutely. Thats what they are there for!!

Just saying that if you tinned the tip after you last use it and leave a nice blob of solder on it when its off, it protects the tip! :-)