What the heck are all of these things on this page? Good Question! Some are essential to good soldering and others, not so much. I’ll tell you what each of them is used for and whether or not I use the particular item. In the first row you will find tip tinner, solder and a solder sucker. I use all three.
The tip tinner is not essential, you can achieve the same results with solder. Tip tinner is used to ensure that the iron is clean and produces excellent heat transfer. Solder, no question there, you need to have this. For electronic soldering be sure that you are using a rosin core (NOT ACID) core solder. While you could technically use acid core solder, the clean-up requirements and subsequent headaches are NOT worth it. Don’t tempt fate, DO NOT use ACID core solder with electronics. There are numerous choices and I’ll elaborate on that in another post. The solder sucker is essential if you will be doing prototyping or repairing of circuit boards. I use this exact one because it is ESD safe. I recommend that if you get one, you get an ESD safe one rather than buying a second one later. All you need to make sure of when buying one of these is the tip is easy to replace AND that it is easy to take apart to disgorge the solder that it pulls in.
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Solder wick is essential again if you are doing repair work or prototyping. I have at least three different sizes (widths) that I keep on hand. I switch between this and the solder sucker depending on what it is that I’m working on. Solder wick is a copper braid that is coated with flux. You place the wick over the joint you want to de-solder and heat it with your iron. As the solder is melted by the heat transferring through the wick material it is absorbed into the wick.
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Lighted magnifier. Nearly essential unless you have eagle-like vision. I don’t own these but have always used a lighted magnifying light. The reason is that the majority of the work I do is done in my workshop near where the light is mounted so that the headband isn’t necessary. Still, if you do your work in lots of different areas it might make sense to have these. The fume extractor is nice to have, I don’t use one but keep a fan going when working. I used to do nothing and only recently started using one. Another solder sucker.
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The tip cleaners are essential. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, cleanliness is next to Godliness but is a MUST have for good soldering. If the iron and workpiece aren’t clean, it will be a futile exercise any time you attempt to solder. There is nothing magic about these particular ones. For years, I used an old sponge the I kept near the work station. Recently I started using one of these that I made and it has the advantage of not cooling down the iron nearly as much as the wet sponge does.
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As I explained elsewhere, I was taught to use this when I took shop class back in 9th grade more than 30year ago. I never used it before that, but didn’t do that much soldering. I have never used it since then. HOWEVER, I do loosen the tip from the iron EVERY time I use it. The one or two times I’ve gotten lazy and skipped the loosen/tighten exercise, I’ve been greeted with a nearly impossible to remove tip. One time I destroyed the tip while removing it, fortunately it did not damage iron iteslf. If you can’t remember, I highly recommend using the anti-seize. Safety glasses go without saying, wear them always. I’ll relate a story of the ONE time I didn’t and how I nearly lost my site in one eye (elsewhere)… If it looks I’ve left something out or you have questions, please post a comment, I read them all.
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| Anti-Seize Compound |
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Incoming:
esd safe solder sucker, must have soldering accessories, solder fume extractor lamp magnifyer, what can you use as a tinner for soldering iron
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Wet sponges are still adequate but the sudden temperature drop can provide temperature shock to the iron alloy coating the tip. If it fractures the tip will wear down quickly. The brass sponge avoids this, and for added cleaning, a heat resistant rubber strip ships with the sponge in newer stations.