Best Practices for Tinning and Maintaining Your Soldering Iron

[Ryan_2724]

1. Use quality solder iron with adjustable temperature, making sure the tip is tight before use.

2. Adjust the temperature of the iron just above the melting temperature of the solder being used. Using excess heat can damage the circuit board, oxidize and damage the tip, and render flux useless in flux cored solder. Most likely is best to heat the surface of the contact being soldered to bring it up to temperature before being soldered.

3. Flux cored solder reduces tip oxidation and promotes quicker more solid solders, minimizing heat damage to parts on the board. Additional flux can also be used (pens, paste etc).

4. Turn solder iron off when not in use for extended periods of time.

5. After each solder, shake any excess solder off of the tip, plunge the tip into brass wool a few times, and tin the tip with solder before placing into the holder, to prevent tip oxidization.

6. After every few solders, or a couple times an hour, use actual tip tinner. Similar to step 5, shake any excess solder off of the tip, plunge the tip into brass wool a few times, dip soldering tip into tip tinner and then tin the tip with solder before placing into the holder.

7. For storage, turn solder iron off, repeat step 6, but be more liberal with the final solder tinning leaving almost a ball, rotating the tip can help flow the solder around the tip. Carefully place the iron into the solder stand leaving the solder ball on the tip to harden.

Tech Tip: Using lead-free solder on a standard (leaded) tip will eat the tip. Only use lead-free rated solder tips and lead-free rated flux while using lead-free solder.

Tech Tip: Brass wool is preferred for cleaning solder tips. The use of wet sponges may apply impurities to the tip, and the rapid cooling of the tip can also cause pitting. If you choose to use a wet sponge, apply only a conservative amount of water to reduce the cooling affect, and only use deionized water which prevents mineral deposition to the tip, avoids contamination, while prolonging the life of the sponge. If deionized water is not available, distilled water is another option.

Mentionable Products:
Solder Stations 243-1229-ND | 243-1228-ND | 2260-AO469-ND | 2260-AO469KIT-ND
Brass Wool 1691-1006-ND | 2260-TTKIT-ND
Tip Cleaner/Tinner
Tack Flux - No Clean SMD291ST8CC-ND
Flux Pen - Rosin Mildly Activated (RMA) KE1803-ND
60/40 Flux Cored No-Clean Leaded Solder SMD2SW.0318OZ-ND | 72-T0051403099-ND
63/37 Eutectic Solder
Dual Solder Dispenser 1691-1009-ND
Click Here for all DigiKey Solder Products

Related Topics

How To Ready a Solder Pot for Lead-Free Solder
Lead-Free Solder Complications

[qu1j0t3]

Hi,
I’m curious why you didn’t list 63/37 (eutectic) solder in the recommendations instead of 60/40.

Thanks!

[Ryan_2724]

Hello qu1j0t3,

Thank you for pointing this out, a couple 63/37 options have been added. Hopefully this helps, thanks!