On 1/25/2017 10:28 AM, Neil Cherry wrote:
On 01/25/2017 10:09 AM, Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On 1/25/2017 9:01 AM, Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On 01/24/2017 11:52 PM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On 01/24/2017 12:03 PM, Todd George via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Keep your soldering tip clean, I highly recommend the soldering tip cleaners and the brass "brillo pad" style cleaners. Don't use a wet sponge, too much thermal shock and then delay while your iron recovers. And the brass cleaners do a REALLY nice job.
Be careful here; this is highly iron-dependent advice. The brass cleaners destroy the plating on some types of tips after extended use, and a good iron will have zero recovery time with a wet sponge, or at least less time than it takes to move it back from the sponge to the board.
Thanks Dave, I'll stick to my sponge for most things. I usually do a quick inspection of the tip after each clean. The older Weller is still the tip from 30 years ago. :-)
30 years ago? ! That's impressive, a whole different league.
It came with a near perfect long pointy tip. Never liked that one so I purchased a new (30 years ago) small chisel tip. The pointy tip is in better condition as I never use it. :-)
And yes I'm very picky about my tools. I may not be perfectly neat but I do take care of my 'professional' tools. I've had fits (probably a bit dramatic) on programmers who have played with the tools. Especially if they use the soldering iron to burn holes in things. Grrrrr !
if (iron_holder==programmer) { take away soldering iron; } // nothing but trouble.