Question about soldering iron tip

The tip does not have to be all the way in. If you file it you may have difficulty getting proper flow when you solder. The new tip is plated. I have had some luck tinning the filed tip with silver tinning paste. Those tips are readily available.

Thanks very much.

Testing with a magnet, I don't detect any sign of magnetism, so apparently the plating isn't iron. What would it be? Maybe nickel? Nickel could be replaced through electroplating. But that may be overkill.

I haven't found any on Ebay. Maybe the manufacturer of the iron has them.

Depends on the tip. Some were brass, zinc plated. I have made them from copper wire and tinning them with silver solder.

I doubt you could pull the tip out very much and it still work.

Try this for the new tips.

You may find something close enough to work though. I'm using one from Hexagon (a pricey production grade tool) in an el-cheapo 30 watt pencil iron with excellent results. (and it is advertised as being iron plated and is attracted to a magnet)

A thick piece of copper wire, and file will work too, but they don't last long. Turning the heat down with a light dimmer when not actually soldering is a good policy...

PS I just looked at my tip and it is 1/8" diameter ~2" long (total)

Found this on-line: Hexacon CT302X Specifications:

Tip Diameter: 1/8" Tip Width: 1/32" Tip Length: 9/16" Tip Style: Conical Chisel and it sells for $17 each (gasp)

If the tip is copper underneath the iron plating then I've never had too much problem with the solder flowing -- just with the fact that the solder will dissolve the copper.

The diameter is right, but the tip on my iron is 3 inches long, which is significantly longer than those tips. I guess I could sacrifice one of the new ones and cut a section off of it and stick that in first. But not sure how well that would work.

Yes, I have the lamp dimmer box for my iron. I don't know why more people don't use them. The pencil iron is just a resistive load, which I assume looks to the dimmer a lot like an incandescent filament does. And sometimes 30 watts is just too much. Plus, as you say, when idle, you can turn it down without turning it all the way off.

I hadn't thought about the copper wire, but that's an interesting idea. Maybe 8 or 10 gauge.

But I wonder if there's a way to plate copper with iron. I found videos on Youtube for plating copper with nickel with stuff any pool owner would have at home. But iron may be more difficult. It does appear that the best tips are iron plated.

It might be time to let that iron go and get another one. For not much more than the replacement tips Amazon has lots of irons for less than $

1. Ebay probably has lots of them too. Some of them are even adjustable for the temperature.

I think if it was easily done at home, the plating, it would be common. I remember soldering irons without plated tips, I had a few way at the beginning, and those tips wore down fast. But since I started using irons with plated tips, about 1974, I've broken tips but none have worn out. So the plating really works. But like a tooth, if the plating is damaged for some reason (someone thinks it needs filing or something), then the tip will have a limited life.

Michael

In most cases; filing the tip removes the iron plating - the copper core alloys with the solder, so you leave a tiny amount of copper in every joint you solder.

As the copper core erodes; you can end up with an empty shell of iron plating jutting out that is usually sharp and jagged.

If you're having this problem; its either a cheapo iron with no plating on the chisel face, or you're damaging it with heavy handed use.

Over the years I've had a few irons with insufficient contact between bit and element barrel - a smear of heatsink paste often helps.

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure this tip never had any iron plating at all. It may just be copper.

Well, I've had this iron for two years, but have done very little soldering with it. When it finally dies, I'll look for something a bit higher end, with iron. I was just wanting to get ready for my big upcoming project, which is a Jyetech oscillator kit. But it turns out it only has about 30 parts to install, so this iron should handle that well enough.

You can get a temperature controlled soldering station for like 30 bucks on aliexpress, that's my reason.

these guys seem to know how.

It may even pay to find a source of cheap readily available tips - then buy the iron that matches those tips.

It does work, but you'll soon find yourself wishing for a proper tip since pure copper goes into solution and erodes quickly and is relatively soft. But a lot depends on how you use the iron, and how desperate you are.

Antex are my favourite, the tips last a very long time if you don't mistreat them. I chose Antex irons because they're cheap enough to regard as consumables - especially as compared to anything from Cooper Tools.

Fairly sure they do both 110 & 220V, they probably do 12 and/or 24V versions too.

The weak point is susceptibilty to mains transients - I put an MOV in the socket strip and no more problems.