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44
Mastering the Art of Soldering
3.
Because wet sponge is much cooler than the tip, your tip may experience shock when
you clean it with a sponge. It could be the reason why the temperature of the tip changes
quickly once they touch. You can try to use
brass wire
to help to minimize the shock.
This is durable and can remove the contaminants and soft enough so that they will not
scratch the surface of the tip. The brass wire was mentioned in the chapter about do’s
and dont’s in soldering.
4.
A
tip cleaner or tinner
can also be used to clean your soldering tip. This is a chemical
paste that usually comes in metal tins. It helps remove oxides from the tip which normal
cleaning can’t remove. Just heat up your soldering iron and then wipe the tip in the
paste.
5.
A
tip polisher
can be used to maximize the cleaning of tip cleaners and tinners.
6.
To clean the tip, a
polishing bar
for soldering tips can also be used. It is also used to
remove oxidation and surface contamination from tips. It is important that the tip is
retinned instantly after use to prevent oxidation. When using this bar, make sure the
soldering tip is cool and carefully scrape the dark-colored oxidation off and you will see
the shiny iron plating.
7.2 Soldering Tip Maintenance
All people who are probably new to soldering irons and soldering procedure in overall may
not fully understand some of the basic soldering iron tip maintenance that ought to be
applied. The most common problems that come with soldering iron tips are rust and
corrosion. This eBook will guide you for a few simple soldering iron tip maintenance to make
your soldering experience enjoyable and prevent you from replacing your tips immediately.
1.
Tin your iron tip before and after you use it. A good thing for tinning is that the tip
recovers conductivity and makes soldering a lot easier.
