Cleaning Your Soldering Tips

It's not a plastic welder or cutter? Then I was lead astray. Was instructed to use one to burn the carpet through to the air holes on a air float table for flat glass. Worked pretty well for that melted the hole and seared the lose fibers up real well. Have to call that tech up and give him *****

Worst case you can file it cold and the n heat and re-tin.
Del
_{(I too use my soldering iron for welding plastic occasionally...I'm a baaaad kitty, maybe Mrs Cat should give me a good spanking?)}

Weller discourages filing or sanding their tips. I believe because they are plated. The cheaper irons can be filed to your hearts content.

I had problems with a technician constantly stealing borrowing my expensive Weller iron and using it to install inserts into molded plastic housings. The process invariably coated the tip in plastic. My solution was to get a cheap Radio Shack iron. I used some 8 awg copper wire to make tips for it. Cut a short length, tap threads on one end and file the other to a point. I still had to lock up the Weller tho'.

I've had some success using a variac to lower the temperature on the cheap irons as well. Makes it easier to work with plastics without burning.

_{(What you and Mrs. Cat do in the privacy of your home is none of our business.)}

Some makes of soldering irons can use solid copper wire just by sliding it in and tightening the set screws. I believe mine accepts 6 gauge.

Once you get your tip clean keep a bowl at your workstation with a small damp sponge in it. Wipe off the tip occasionally to keep it clean. _{Damp cats work too but they don't like it!}

A wire wheel is a little easier on the tip than filing

Copper wire( desolder wick), make a small ball of desoldering wick,hold this ball with a rag and rub it on the tip when it is hot. If it requires more cleaning add a little solder paste to the ball. Keep this ball,you may need it again.

There are small containers of flux and a grit combination available in which you can rub your tip till it is clean again ,also there are bronze and stainless steel scrubbing pads especially for soldering iron cleaning. Certainly do not use a file or similar to clean tips it will damage the steel coating. Solder pots can be of help to dip the tip into it, you first apply a liberal amount of flux to the tip and then dip and repeat until desired result. Use in combination with a small steel wire brush it will help.

if you have bought a half decent iron.. they put in the box or on the packing lots of writing... some of that writing is the instructions on how to use AND CARE for your iron.

have fun with your iron.. one word of warning, as you seem to want to use it for most things, DO NOT use it in open heart surgery for quarterizing wounds..

Ever laid your iron on the bench then leaned your forearm on the barrel?

That cauterizes quite nicely.

more times than I care to remember.. and it SOOOOOooooooo hurts too!

You'd think you'd learn from the first time! Na!!

They work well for searing finger tips also! - and not only the iron, the item you have just finished soldering ....

I use mine to remove warts.They don't come back if you go deep enough.(Trial and error method.)

Doesn't hurt the tip a bit,except for some charring, which will burn off eventually.

Ew!

Isn't that painful?

ARE YOU ME? I have a nice round scar on my right forearm from doing just what you describe. I only did it once though.

Bill

Get another tip. Keep one for plastics and use the other only for soldering. Or 2 extra tips and keep one only for silver soldering.

Good day Guest. I also use the iron for "other" functions that they didn't design it for. The best cleaning method for me is a small piece of corrugated cardboard with one side wetted with some dish-soap. To clean the solder tips I simply stick holes into the card board. regards

I do second the advice in #1 that never use for any other job including plastic-welding as soldering tips are more costly and very difficult to clean after such use.

I further add the use of Soldering Sponge for normal cleaning during work.

Wet-Sponge is used for the purpose of trouble free soldering. Other posters had already added it.

Filing of tips is now not / cannot be done now. The new technology of Tips is more advanced from copper tips.

I think the posters have lost track of the original question, it was how to remove plastic contamination from the tip not how to maintain the tip in normal use which is to use a damp sponge to wipe off oxidized solder not burnt plastic contamination.A damp sponge is relativity infective to remove burnt plastics it is to gentle and it does not re tin the tip as it cools down the tip to a point where contaminations freeze on the tip and stay there. It requires a mild abrasive which cleans fluxes and re tins the tip in one operation, or other methods as I previously mentioned.

Very good ideas above. When I reach a point where the sponge won't take the gunk off, I will scrape the tip with an Xacto blade. This is not the best fix, but I have the knife here on the bench, while I do not have sandpaper or a wire wheel available without doing alot of running around. My current PTR7 (Weller soldering tip) has about had it though after a couple of years, so it is time to get a new one.

Bill

I have cleaned some soldering iron tips with dry ice. Take the hot soldering iron tip & push it straight into a piece of dry ice & as the dry ice boils off with a high pitch sound it takes the crud off of the tip leaving it clean as new. I think the high pitch noise acts as a ultrasonic cleaner.