I bought the iron about 15 years ago at the Tektronics surplus store
in Beaverton, OR. Since then it has been my primary circuitboard
iron. It heats in 40 seconds and has handled everything from 1208 smt
chips to .025 square pins to circuitboards. I bought a new 1/16 inch
tip for the iron so I could better handle SOIC chips when this problem
arose.
--- In Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "soffee83" <soffee83@y...> wrote:
>
> Bob,
>
> I'm no iron expert, but that does sound like a pretty low wattage. I
> think my general duty "weak" one is a 23W. Could it be anything in the
> melting point of the solder you're using?
>
> FWIW, I had the same problem with most of my reground copper tips
> recently, and had been talking to people here and in another forum. It
> turns out, I was waiting too long between preparing a nice, clean tip
> and coating it. I started cleaning it well with steel wool and even
> some ferric chloride on a paper towel, and then smearing a glob of
> flux on it and immediately reinstalling it and heating it. I'd start
> applying solder before it was hot enough to melt, and then as soon as
> it did, I could wipe it all around the tip and clean it off with a
> sponge periodically, leaving a nice shiny coating. I think the metal
> was oxidizing or something while it sat before.
>
> -Good Luck!
>
> George
>