At 10:58 PM 5/25/2002 -0600, Adam Schabtach wrote:
>A question for those of you who have done lots of soldering with Weller
>irons: What sort of life expectancy do the tips have? I'm partway through my
>eighth MOTM kit and the small conical tip for my Weller seems to be wearing
>out. (I've use it somewhat longer than for these eight kits, but not much.)
>The first couple of millimeters refuse to wet with solder any longer, and it
>doesn't seem to heat up a junction effectively any longer. It looks a little
>brownish, and I can't seem to clean it with the usual damp sponge.
>
>Is there any way to revive these tips? I know that you're not supposed to
>file them. But it's Saturday night on a three-day weekend, which means I
>can't get to the electronics store for a replacement until Tuesday at the
>earliest, and here I am almost finished with a 380 Quad LFO...
I've soldered about 40 MOTM modules with the current tip on my Weller. I
keep use it from 650 to 700 depending on the connection. When it gets a
bit funky looking I heat it up and clean it with some 3M Scotchbrite, and
then re-tin. I use the "no clean" solder to tin. I could be wrong, but I
figure if the "organic" (Kester 331) can corrode connections, it could do
the same to the tip
-dave-
http://www.hylander.com