hello,

1) I noticed my soldering iron (not the tip, but the barrel above the tip) is turning gold and oxidizing…what would you recommend for that? I know the tip should be cleaned regularly and tinned before placing it back after completing soldering. the iron currently is in its holder on a regular desk at room temp.

2) Also, I was reading up on tinning and also on applying solder to smd directly from the iron and wanted your opinion on the following:

“To tin your tip, use a tinning compound, available at RadioShack. If a tinning compound is unavailable, you can substitute this with regular electronics solder.* I recomend a low temperature solder for this because you want the iron to cool fairly quickly, so you dont fry the solder onto your tip which would defeat the purpose of cleaning*.”

In my previous attempts to apply solder directly from the tip…it actually kept “frying on to the tip” even though my temp was about 320C and I was using lead-free. So could you help me explain what the bold wording means and give any tips.

Would really appreciate it, thanks.

1) I wouldn’t worry about anything beyond the tip, it won’t affect performance.

2) We’ve read a good number of soldering guides and industry specifications, and have never come across any concerns of “frying” the solder onto the tip. As the flux burns, it will char and stick to your tip, but this is easily removed with a wet sponge. In addition to charred flux residues, the tip will also oxidize over time. The flux in normal solder (typically mild (RMA) or activated (RA)) should be sufficient to clean off most oxides. If solder balls up on and appears to be repelled by your tip, that’s a good sign it’s oxidized. Try repeatedly applying solder and then wiping the tip on the sponge. The flux in the solder will work on the oxidation along with the friction against the sponge.

For severe oxidation, you might want to try a more aggressive flux, like a RA or water soluble flux. I believe most tip tinners are based on more aggressive fluxes, and since more aggressive fluxes eat away at tips faster, I wouldn’t recommend using a tip tinner all the time. I can’t say for sure how much worse this would be, perhaps not even noticeably.

I can’t see any reason to use a low temperature solder for this purpose.

In the worst case of oxidation, use some fine grit sand paper or a polishing stone… this is risky, though, since there’s usually a thin iron plating on the end of tips that prevents the tin in solder from quickly dissolving the copper in the body of the tip.

Maybe try a new tip and use lead-based solder—it’s slightly easier to solder with. Let me know how it works for you… I’m not a believer in “frying” but that can always change…