goal for 2023: use a conical solder tip and enjoy it

I work different with bevel and chisel, because the angle is different. For through-hole, I prefer bevel. For SMD chisel.
Because the bevel helps heating both path and wire/lead with its 90° action. While SMD attack activity is mainly horizontal.

All to be replaced by a conical tip by 01-JAN-2024 :).

I haven't used a chisel tip since I used one for wood working before engineering school. Not quite true - I did use a chisel tip when I had nothing else. It has been almost all conical, although I think I have a small bevel tip in the drawer. Conicals have an advantage in that if one side doesn't wet, there are more sides that do. And when you want to melt a joint, you can rotate the tip on the joint to get better contact. Also if you have a pointy tip, you can push through hole pins back out, at least partly.

The only time I use conical is when I'm trying to fix something on a very fine pitched part or I am trying to get into a very tight spot.

My non-soldering use is for when I insert knurled nuts into 3d prints.

The other reason I avoid conical is their sharp tips oxides WAY too easily.

I find the heat transfer issue is a tricky one - this is probably where my technique differs slightly to using chisel tips.

I tend to find myself leaving a bit more of a "film" of solder on the conical as I go to solder the next joint. The tiny amount of solder forms a great bridge to transfer heat into the components. Others who "clean" the tip until it's completely bare will only be transferring heat at the contact points which could go slowly if a tiny bit of oxide film gets in the way.

I guess this is something I've come to automatically adjust to - it doesn't pose me any problems anymore ... it's just remembering not to clean the tip too cleanly ... or maybe even providing a tiny bit of solder to the tip as the joint is being formed to accelerate the heat transfer.

- Gough

That makes sense.. I suppose it's similar to why I use squared tweezers with SMD; more contact surface.

Actually, now I come to think about it, the only soldering iron tip I've bust on a JBC iron was a conical one! I accidentally whacked the pointy bit end-on against a desk when it was hot, and that was curtains for it, it oxidized significantly after that. It was probably only the second time I'd used that tip! 

I have a couple of very fine conical (0.2mm, and I think 0.3mm) for the tight-spot use-case, and look after them a lot more now! They've not been used for 6 months though, it's so rare for me compared to the bevel option.

shabaz said:

I reckon part of it is whatever we grew up with, ends up being the one we are most comfortable with. In the UK, most of the soldering irons available to consumers were manufactured by Antex, and they always came with the bevel (sloped) tip,

Customer action photo:

I used this one from my high school days until I switched to leadfree.

To me has actually been the other way around: I've started with a 1mm conical tip (because it was the one supplied with my soldering iron) and happily soldered with it for years. I bought a tip kit not too long ago with a chisel and bevel tip. I'm quite happy with the chisel one but I've not used the bevel tip yet.

The only issue I personally find with very fine conical tip (0.5mm and below) is "tip quality": if the tip (and soldering iron too) is not top notch solder tend to stick higher into the tip instead on the very end making soldering a little bit more difficult. Except this, they works just fine for general soldering.

Happy journey!

Ok, but what made you think that this change of habit is necessary?

bidrohini said:

what made you think that this change of habit is necessary?

1: You can't improve unless you try out new things

2: curiousity

3: watching the NASA soldering course videos

4: for self-entertainment