How to clean your Soldering Iron! 8 Tips to improve your soldering skills

8 Helpful soldering Tips I wish I knew when I started soldering.
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Information provided in this video is for educational purposes only.
If you attempt to recreate/replicate anything you’ve seen in this Or any other video, you’re doing so at your own risk.
Schematix -

[@Viddiecent]

I honestly wish I saw this video 2 years ago. I would have saved myself so much time and headaches.

[@Schematix]

Thanks for your support! Younger me would have also benefited from this video. :)

[@nzoomed]

These are all good soldering tips in this video, Ive been soldering since the age of 5. There are some good tip cleaner products you can buy also, but sometimes not that easy to find. Ive also got a small pot of multicore tip cleaner that I bought from Dick Smith 20 years ago. Its amazing stuff, especially for real old tips that have a hard oxide layer built up over time. Ive hardly even touched it with my iron, it lasts forever!

[@Schematix]

RIP the old DickSmith electronic stores. They had some quality products :)

[@HazeAnderson]

Great tips, my only gripe is the wire tinning techniques. I find it easiest to rest the soldering iron on a safe holder and bring the solder and wire to it with my two hands --- but that's minor, when you solder two wires together you really should twist them together first and then solder. This will create a much better mechanical connection. Thanks for the video!

[@edgeeffect]

I came here for the angle grinder! "He can't seriously be suggesting that", I thought........ would be a cool way of doing it though. ;)

[@adithyavenkatanarayanan2259]

Me, too. I thought I wasn't doing with means abrasive enough XD

[@AntonioClaudioMichael]

Some great tips use these tips all the time when I solder not alot of people use these tips

[@vanessawhittaker6818]

Yep you got that right would you use cheap solder it doesn't flow or melt good if anything it beads

[@tubeDude48]

A link to what you think is a good solder would have been good.

[@flemming2jacobsen911]

I like your humor

[@vanessawhittaker6818]

Even though radio shack are close and the states that's where I used to get my jars off solder flux paste and one of the ingredients in the paste is formaldehyde

[@ChrisHalden007]

Never gets old 👍🤣

[@Believer34545]

Do more soldering videos

[@j5892000]

I .. did that once. Uses sandpaper on my iron before I knew better lol

[@lelandclayton5462]

You scared me for a second there in the beginning.

[@Schematix]

Was my alternate 'Click-Bait' personality coming out. ;)

[@MicBergsma]

😄👍🏼👍🏼 thanks for the tips!!

[@Krafty02]

Nice

[@MetalMasterdom]

If you don't have a sponge, you can fold up a wet paper towel and use it instead. Either way...it's what you want to use. Best tool for the job in my book. I don't mess with the brass wool anymore. Unless that's all there is. Which is never.

[@alanholt6535]

I don't have access to a handheld grinder, so I use the grinding wheel at work to clean my tips.

[@Schematix]

got to make do with what you've got! ;)

[@WereReallyRelayCamping]

started soldering at 12, 40 yrs ago, never had fume extraction. who wants to live forever.

[@njfulwider5]

You the Man!!!

[@derofromdown-under2832]

I disagree using brass wool to help clean your iron. It will eventually wear away the special coating on the tip of your iron. The best way of maintaining your iron tips is to coat them fully with fresh solder prior to turning off your iron. This will protect the special coating while the iron is not in use. I have tripled the life of my tips using this method. The rest of this vid is quite good... 9/10

[@Schematix]

I'm glad you enjoyed the vid :) Brass wool is safe to use as brass is soft enough not to damage the coating on iron tips. You might be thinking of Steel wool? Steel wool is much harder and will damage the tip over time. :)

[@MiniLuv-1984]

Very good.

[@Schematix]

:)

[@NavinBetamax]

Yesssss......and, Piping Hot too !!! Lol !

[@BogdanSerban]

EVERYONE who puts their hands on a soldering iron should see this

[@Schematix]

:)

[@TheFalconJetDriver]

Where can I find the soldering iron you use?

[@Schematix]

I bought my TS80 iron online from Banggood :)

[@raqueldavid-burnot8675]

Everyting i need to know

[@christopherleveck6835]

I build radio controlled drones best with cars I do electronics experiments lots of Arduino stuff I make my own pcbs I love to solder. With that said I'm also pretty much self-taught so this may sound like a real beginners question but it's driving me crazy. Recently my wife is a gift got me a Dremel multi tool that supposed to do soldering and at the same time I bought myself a Weller 40 watt soldering iron. I've been using a $400 hakko for the last 12 years but it pooped out on me and I haven't opened it yet to see how to repair it. In the meantime I have these two new irons. I'm using the same 60/40 solder I've been using for as long as I can remember. It works great. Up till now. With either of the new irons I find I can't tin them. They act kind of hydrophobic. The solder balls up in evaporates for lack of a better word or bounces off the tip. it's difficult to solder anything because I can't make a good connection with the wire without tinning the end of the iron. So the wires too cold but the tip is too hot at least that is what it seems like.

[@Schematix]

Hmm, that is a curly one. I can think of only 2 reasons why you can't tin your irons. 1. They need a good cleaning (as demonstrated in this video) They might not appear dirty, but it's possible they have some production coating/grease from the factory? 2. Flux core lead solder doesn't normally have a shelf life compared to flux core lead-free solder. But it might be worth buying a fresh roll to see if that solves the issue.

[@christopherleveck6835]

@@Schematix so I thought it's been so long since I bought a new iron much less a good quality one that maybe they did have a coating on them I tried wiping it off a thousand ways I used to flux on it I can't seem to I change that characteristic. And as far as the solder itself goes I've tried 3 different kinds I still have a boat load of the old RadioShack stuff which I like but I also got two other brand names they were highly recommended I'm having the same problem with all of them. What kind of behavior Can you expect from an iron that's too hot will it vaporize the solder?

[@Schematix]

@@christopherleveck6835 Hmm, I'm wondering if the tip has oxidized in storage. Perhaps before you bought it? If my assumption is right, then no amount of flux will remove it. Since the tip clearly isn't usable in its current state, I personally wouldn't be bothered about damaging it. Try 800+ grit sandpaper. Give it a couple strokes on the paper, then try flux'ing & tinning the tip. Failing that it's time for a new tip anyway?

[@MetalMasterdom]

Scrape the nickel, or whatever it is, plating off the tip. Down to bare copper. 100x easier to keep the copper tinned. But don't be surprised if you have to scrape(read file/sand/grind) the oxide layer off the copper occasionally too. It's also going to get "eaten up" by the flux a lot quicker(yes...even rosin flux will deteriorate copper...it's why tips are plated...and not bare copper). So the tip will need reshaped from time to time(until it's so far gone you can't do nothing with it). I don't know exactly what the problem is. But I have A TON of experience dealing with it with cheap irons(with cheap tips). Pretty sure it's a combination of too much heat and poor quality plating metal on the tips. Anyway good luck finding replacement tips. Because the one your using won't last very long once you go down this road. But do you want it to work at all? Or can you afford a better iron with better tips? Those are the questions.

[@gacherumburu9958]

👍👍👍👍

[@akajuniorm.a4501]

nawaz sharif love you too.

[@victoryfirst2878]

Best way to keep lead fumes from your lungs is not to use leaded solder to begin with. All my solders are lead free. That is something I decided to do ten years ago. This way their is no chance of using lead period. Peace

[@-EhsanMalik-]

You scared the sh*t out of me with that thumbnail