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Reviving an oxidized tip

neuromodulator

I recently forgot to turn off the soldering station and ended up leaving it on on at 380 °C for around 12 hours. The tip ended up very oxidized and unable to get tin to stick to it. I looked for information on how to "revive" the tip and found a video about it from Androkavo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JADI1N-K9Yc. I tried everything shown there except the sandpaper, the steel wool, the knife and the tip tinner. After a lot of effort, I managed to get a bit of the surface with a more silvery look, but It still could not get solder to stick to the tip. As a last resource I decided to try electrolysis, which I know is quite effective in removing rust, but I was not able to find any info on how good or bad of an idea is to do it with a soldering tip. I left the tip submerged into a beaker with tap water and electrolyzed it for around 5 minutes. After removing it from the bath its color barely changed, so I didn't expect much, but when I tried to put solder into it, tin began to stick into it.

It is unclear to me whether electrolysis caused any damage to the soldering tip, so I do not recommend using this method unless you are willing to take the risk or have more knowledge about chemistry than I do.

  • in reply to dougw

    Interesting! I have some "blue" polishing compound (which is like a final finish level of consistency), I will try that on the side of the surface (which can be abraded, since the side is not used).

  • in reply to baldengineer

    I'm not familiar with that, but it sounds like WD40. I will search for a can, I'm sure I have that somewhere!

    Incidently there's a rust article on https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/threads/how-to-remove-rust-from-machined-surfaces.382907/

    (I've used that site a few times, it is a great website for metal related tips). They mention using a razor blade as a possible viable option too.

  • in reply to shabaz

    The vintage-RV group I'm part of seems to often recommend Barkeeper's Friend, but I'm not sure if that is gentle enough.

    We use Earth-Brite on our kitchen sink and glass cooktop. It's a clay type block, seems very fine and gentle (not gritty).

    And I've seen clay-bar type things for cleaning cars, so that might be an option - those are definitely designed to not scratch up surfaces.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Hi Shabaz - in the link you provided one of the suggestions was Scotch-Brite pads and WD-40. I’ve used that combination successfully in the past on the lightly rusted machined cast iron surfaces of a table saw and jointer. There was no scratching  (and I wouldn’t expect it) but I’m not sure what it would do to a polished steel surface if that is what you have. 

  • I generally never let the tip get bad enough that it would lose enough of its tinned area that it couldn't function well enough as a soldering iron, although I did get close. In my early days, I would keep soldering and over time, the accumulation of flux and heat from the multi-core solder would eventually "grow" the tinned patch to surround the oxidised area and it would flake off (if it was small enough).

    I do have a tip tinner (Multicore TTC-LF) and I have used it all of twice since I purchased it for those really stubborn situations that don't self resolve. It basically has some packed granulated solder with a large proportion of acidic flux to eat through the oxidation and cover it with solder immediately. It does a nice job of cleaning up tips, but you absolutely must clean the tip right away with fresh solder and wet sponge to avoid leaving acid residue which may corrode the tip further or get transferred to circuit boards where it could eat up the traces over time. This is not a treatment that should be regularly done - I've seen some people leave this on their bench and use it every session, but in my opinion, that's a quick way to destroy a tip.

    Nevertheless, the tip in question is on a Tenma combination hot-air and soldering station I've had since 2014. It's still on its first tip, gone through a whole reel of 250g 60/40 and more, and even though the shape of the tip has subtly changed since I started (thinned and flattened at the tip from the original conical profile), it's still working well after all this time.

    - Gough

  • in reply to baldengineer

    Great knowledge share. I recall having a tip break down and it wicked away to nothing as I continued to use it. I kept filing it to a point but it was doomed to failure once the coating was violated.

    I confess I have bought Weller tips and Asian knockoff tips. The Weller life cycle is much longer before oxidation starts down the path to replacement.

  • I use polish bar and tip activator- both discussed here. Only when needed. I'm running 5 years on the same tip now and it's still going strong.

    image image

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    The stuff in the round can at the bottom was also called "tip tinner" and was sold by many brands. If the tip's melted solder stops flowing evenly on it or if there are places on the tip where molten solder just will no longer flow over, then this stuff works pretty well generally. I've never used the polish bar and I would agree that if you need to remove serious oxidation or other gunk on the tip, it's probably time for a new one. Replacement tips just aren't that expensive generally. I pay about US $3 to $5 per tip depending on the size and model. 

    There are exceptions such as a replacement tip for my American Beauty 250 watt and 350 watt irons where a new replacement tip is about $50 to $100. I mostly use these giant soldering irons for steel cans with lids for a hermetic seal, mostly for military products I manufacture. The steel first gets a copper flash (very light plating), followed by Nickel, then bright tin electroplating to make them solderable. 

    The lesson here is that you should plug your iron into a variac if it doesn't have a temperature adjust setting. By turning down the variac voltage when the iron is just standing by, you can keep the tip from getting unnecessary damage due to oxidation. Even when in normal use, I usually set the variac to about 100 VAC instead of 120 V unless I need maximum heat transfer. For standby or idle setting, I would use about 60 to 80 VAC. This way, the delta-T is short for bringing the tip back up to the desired soldering temp and tip damage is kept to a minimum despite the iron being plugged in for many hours at-a-time.