Homemade Soldering Iron Tip Cleaner
Secondly heat the solder and pour on the tip of the soldering iron and clean it again.
Homemade soldering iron tip cleaner. Before soldering clean your tip with a clean cloth and some alcohol. More About Jason Bedard. Roll the hot tip in the compound until the bright tinning surrounds the end of the tip.
A simple way to clean soldering iron is to use a sponge or brass strip to remove deposits of metals. Im sure they can be found at most. Place your soldering iron on the stand and wait from 30 seconds to a few minutes depending on your iron for it to reach 400C.
So the best bets here are. Your soldering iron is hot enough when some solder quickly melts on the tip which you should do anyway before starting. Tip cleaning sponges are made from cellulose.
The variability of the solder will clean the tip easily. Wipe the iron on a damp sponge to remove the excess. Make your own solder tip cleaning pad quickly and cheap.
If using lemon juice or another liquid flux alternative dab the liquid onto the area using a Qtip or small brush. Steel 2 times shorter and 2 times the diameter or. Never use sandpaper or abrasives to clean the tip.
This should lead to a clean shiny tip ready for use for more info see this video. Finally apply solder to the tip again to protect it from oxidation. Take a steel wool pad and dampen it slightly then scrub it over the irons tip to remove rust and any other heavy staining.