CLEANING AND MAINTAINING YOUR SOLDERING IRON

Properly caring for your soldering iron will result in lower melt times, cleaner soldering jobs, and a significantly longer iron life. Cleaning and taking care of your soldering iron is rather easy and you’ll only need everyday household items.

Cleaning Supplies

The first thing you’ll need is a sponge, due to its ability to hold water. When you rub a hot soldering iron tip on a wet sponge the solder contracts at a different rate than the soldering iron, which helps to knock off any residual solder clinging to the iron’s tip. (This is why soldering stations include a sponge.) The sponge should be damp — not soaked.

The next thing you’ll need is six hundred-grit sandpaper, which you’ll use on the tip only if it’s been abused by the previous technician, student, co-worker, etc. Paper will catch fire at around four hundred fifty degrees, so be sure that the soldering iron has had time to cool and make sure the soldering iron or station is unplugged.

Tip tinner/cleaner isn't necessary if you have some extra solder, but it may be worth buying and using if you have a high-dollar soldering iron or station. Most of the time solder will work just as well, though.

Two Cleaning Scenarios

Let’s say someone has left you with a cold and dirty soldering iron, which is of course a common scenario in college electronics labs and a lot of workplaces. If and only if the iron is cool lightly scuff the iron’s tip with your six hundred-grit (or higher) sandpaper until the tip regains its luster — you’re just trying to remove the oxidation, not the metal.

If your soldering iron is dirty but still hot, you’ll need to set your iron aside and allow it to heat — a minute and a half is generally sufficient. Once the iron has heated you’ll notice brown deposits on the tip: this is rosin. Take your iron and flick the tip against the damp sponge. Don’t hold the sponge in your hand.

You’re almost finished.

Tip Tinning

Once you've cleaned the iron it’s a good idea to tin the soldering iron’s tip, which you’ll do in our case by lightly coating the entire iron’s tip with solder. The solder will act as a buffer zone that serves to protect the iron from oxidation.

Choose a low-temperature solder so that the iron cools fairly quickly — that way you won’t fry the solder to the tip, which would completely defeat the purpose of cleaning your soldering iron or soldering station. I won’t go into details regarding tinning here, but you’ll find a number of helpful tutorials elsewhere online.

Take care of your soldering iron or soldering station and it will work flawlessly for years to come.