Care and feeding of soldering stations

demogo

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Hi,

Just about to break out my new digital soldering station.

It said that I should tin the tip when I'm done each time to avoid oxidation of the tip -- makes sense.

And I guess when I first turn it on I should heat the tip to the point where the solder melts and wipe it off on the damp sponge?

Anything else that needs to be done to make these things last? Any hints or suggestions?
 
you pretty much got it!

iuse a dry sponge though, i dont like the idea of "heat shocking" my tip with the wet sponge...
 
I would add:

Don't wipe the tip before you turn the iron off. Leave the extra solder on there to help protect it.

*NEVER* use a file or sand paper to clean the tip. Once you do that you'll have to do it freuqently and the tip will be gone fast.

What's really happening with the damp sponge is steam cleaning. It's a good thing and will actually make your tip last *much* longer.
 
Actually, no it won't.

Thermal shocking the tip is a good way to crack the coating on the tip, exposing the copper and causing it to wear down much faster.

I use a soldering iorn cleaning "pod" which is simply a copper scrubber inside a little metal case. It takes off the crud from the iron and doesn't damage the tip at all.

Since moving to that from a damp sponge my tips last about 2x as long as they used to.

RJ
 
Actually, no it won't.

Thermal shocking the tip is a good way to crack the coating on the tip, exposing the copper and causing it to wear down much faster.

I use a soldering iorn cleaning "pod" which is simply a copper scrubber inside a little metal case. It takes off the crud from the iron and doesn't damage the tip at all.

Since moving to that from a damp sponge my tips last about 2x as long as they used to.

RJ

Copper is a much better conductor of heat than water is, as is solder and the usual materials that you are soldering. If you think quick contact of the iron tip to a room temperature damp sponge is a case of "thermal shock", what do you think happens when the tip gets a solder bath? That solder heats up almost instantly, which means all of that heat in the molten solder has just been pulled from the iron's tip, at a faster rate than water could pull it (due to the greater thermal conductivity of solder compared to water).

Now despite water's relatively low thermal conductivity, it makes a great coolant for car engines or CPUs (in liquid cooling setups) because it is constantly moving, carrying the heat it has pulled, away from the source (and into a radiator to dump it into the air). That's not the case with a damp sponge. It is just stationary moisture that doesn't even completely encase the iron's tip when you rub it across the sponge (it is not as if you are dipping the tip into a bucket of water).

Cleaning the tip with a damp sponge is standard procedure in PCB factories. I worked in one for 2 years and never cracked the iron plating on the Metcal tips.

Keep in mind that the iron is constantly trying to maintain a certain tip temperature, which reduces "thermal shock" from contact with thermal conductors even more (i.e., the temperature isn't being reduced as much when the tip has a constant source of heating energy being applied to it). Metcals have especially impressive recovery times.
 
A lot of my students started out with this bad technique: a sloppy-wet sponge and holding the iron in the pool of water, for 10 seconds or more. I suppose that's harder on a tip than proper setup and technique. But assuming the worst case, as soon as the tip goes into a pool of water, a steam barrier is created. And the effective thermal conductivity of the water plummets. An example of the same thing in reverse: Ever see someone stick their naked hand in a bucket of molten lead? Safely? I have. No thermal shock there. The hand comes out completely unmarked. A warm shower has more of an effect. Usually the person doing the lead trick will dip their hand in water immediately before the lead bath. As soon as their hand hits the lead, the water evaporates and creates a vapor barrier. Braver folks do it without the water bath, relying on their perpiration to do the same job.

Back on topic. I used the same tip for close to 10 years before it finally gave way. It was a quick death...took about 3 months from start to finish. But I never had any trouble in the previous 10 years and I used that tip heavily. Not everyday production, but there were often days when I'd do a couple thousand solder joints. Damp sponge is the only wa that would have been tolerable.
 
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