If you need assistance, please send an email to forum at 4hv dot org. To ensure your email is not marked as spam, please include the phrase "4hv help" in the subject line. You can also find assistance via IRC, at irc.shadowworld.net, room #hvcomm.
Support 4hv.org!
Donate:
4hv.org is hosted on a dedicated server. Unfortunately, this server costs and we rely on the help of site members to keep 4hv.org running. Please consider donating. We will place your name on the thanks list and you'll be helping to keep 4hv.org alive and free for everyone. Members whose names appear in red bold have donated recently. Green bold denotes those who have recently donated to keep the server carbon neutral.
Special Thanks To:
Aaron Holmes
Aaron Wheeler
Adam Horden
Alan Scrimgeour
Andre
Andrew Haynes
Anonymous000
asabase
Austin Weil
barney
Barry
Bert Hickman
Bill Kukowski
Blitzorn
Brandon Paradelas
Bruce Bowling
BubeeMike
Byong Park
Cesiumsponge
Chris F.
Chris Hooper
Corey Worthington
Derek Woodroffe
Dalus
Dan Strother
Daniel Davis
Daniel Uhrenholt
datasheetarchive
Dave Billington
Dave Marshall
David F.
Dennis Rogers
drelectrix
Dr. John Gudenas
Dr. Spark
E.TexasTesla
eastvoltresearch
Eirik Taylor
Erik Dyakov
Erlend^SE
Finn Hammer
Firebug24k
GalliumMan
Gary Peterson
George Slade
GhostNull
Gordon Mcknight
Graham Armitage
Grant
GreySoul
Henry H
IamSmooth
In memory of Leo Powning
Jacob Cash
James Howells
James Pawson
Jeff Greenfield
Jeff Thomas
Jesse Frost
Jim Mitchell
jlr134
Joe Mastroianni
John Forcina
John Oberg
John Willcutt
Jon Newcomb
klugesmith
Leslie Wright
Lutz Hoffman
Mads Barnkob
Martin King
Mats Karlsson
Matt Gibson
Matthew Guidry
mbd
Michael D'Angelo
Mikkel
mileswaldron
mister_rf
Neil Foster
Nick de Smith
Nick Soroka
nicklenorp
Nik
Norman Stanley
Patrick Coleman
Paul Brodie
Paul Jordan
Paul Montgomery
Ped
Peter Krogen
Peter Terren
PhilGood
Richard Feldman
Robert Bush
Royce Bailey
Scott Fusare
Scott Newman
smiffy
Stella
Steven Busic
Steve Conner
Steve Jones
Steve Ward
Sulaiman
Thomas Coyle
Thomas A. Wallace
Thomas W
Timo
Torch
Ulf Jonsson
vasil
Vaxian
vladi mazzilli
wastehl
Weston
William Kim
William N.
William Stehl
Wesley Venis
The aforementioned have contributed financially to the continuing triumph of 4hv.org. They are deserving of my most heartfelt thanks.
Registered Member #2008
Joined: Tue Mar 03 2009, 05:11AM
Location: USA, Frederick, MD
Posts: 118
well when it comes to building an electronics project on some protoipe board or the PCB it is usually a disaster for me
One nig reason is that the radioshack soldeirng iron tips get eroded by the solder very quickly. I am not getting it. Seems like the rosincore solder does it.
I heared about ceramic tips for soldering irons but never found one on the internet
Plus i don't want to buy into anything expensive.
After i dropped a lot of money on another screwup, I realized i need an improvement for my soldering technology.
Registered Member #2099
Joined: Wed Apr 29 2009, 12:22AM
Location: Los Altos, California
Posts: 1716
Any soldering iron tip with exposed copper will rapidly be eroded by molten solder, with or without flux. Most commercial tips are thickly plated with iron or similar metal, so can fairly be called irons. To clean or modify such a tip using a file is asking for trouble.
What's your budget? Temperature-regulated soldering irons are nice, but you can do OK with (say) a basic Weller WP25 or WP30 or (for about $45 new) a variable-temperature station like WLC-100.
Registered Member #1062
Joined: Tue Oct 16 2007, 02:01AM
Location:
Posts: 1529
Did you file it to clean it? I did that once, but it will not work past a couple of joints. Get a soldering station, and normal use with a sponge will make it much easier, I was surprised at the difference it made. This is a great station: My only complaint is the rather thin sponge supplied.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061
i use a temperature controlled station from CPC. The bits on these last virtually forever, only thing is the elements are delicate.. last about a year though.
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
Is this a ceramic tip?
That looks quite like the tips for my soldering station. I think it is the heating element that is ceramic.
All tips will slowly be eaten away so don't leave the iron turned on when you are not using it. It is also a function of temperature so don't use higher temperature than you need.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
cavemen wrote ...
I am still not sure how many copper tips i would need to buy to build one circuit. Is there a way to make them last longer?
A good quality tip should last months, if not years of daily use: tens of thousands of solder joints.
But once the iron plating wears through, the solder attacks the copper inside and the tip just disintegrates. There is no such thing as a ceramic tip, they're all made of iron-plated copper.
A temperature-controlled iron will have its tip last longer than an ordinary one. It doesn't get any hotter than it needs to, and most of them also turn the temperature right down if you leave them in the stand for 10 minutes.
Registered Member #3108
Joined: Thu Aug 12 2010, 05:37PM
Location: Worthing, England
Posts: 72
Klugesmith wrote ...
To clean or modify such a tip using a file is asking for trouble.
I have learned that the hard way by using sand paper to sand off the burnt-on plastic from my tip Is there any good tips for cleaning off plastic from irons? At the moment i am using my x-acto blade to scrape off the plastic.
This site is powered by e107, which is released under the GNU GPL License. All work on this site, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License. By submitting any information to this site, you agree that anything submitted will be so licensed. Please read our Disclaimer and Policies page for information on your rights and responsibilities regarding this site.
assembling circuit boards
