How To Clean Off A Soldering Iron
Keeping the tip of your soldering iron coated in a thin layer of solder and applying solder to a clean tip before shutting off your iron will help prevent oxidation from occurring since the solder itself is resistant to oxidative and corrosive effects.
How to clean off a soldering iron. This process can be repeated to remove any remaining amount of solder. If you clean off the rust and spot a hole in the iron coating recognizable by the copper color showing through from the inside or if any part of the tip appears hollowed out its done. Flux is corrosive and causes damage to the tip.
If tip looks oxidized wipe and tin tip. Wipe OFF the solder on the Cleaning Sponge or Copper Wool. Maintaining the right operating temperature ie 320 C.
This should lead to a clean shiny tip ready for use for more info see this video. Wipe the tip clean and re-tin it between every joint. How to clean and re tin your soldering iron - YouTube.
If not I heat it and whip it fastwith a peace of cotton old socks etc. The flux in tip cleaner removes the oxidation and build up from the soldering iron tip and then the solder re-tins the tip ready for use. These cleaning agents do not have the cooling effect that the wet sponge creates.
It took a lot of effort with tip tinnercleaning compound to make the solder wet the tip again. Wipe the soldering iron with a damp cellulosic and sulfur-free sponge. It is hazardous so please read all safety tips included in or on the packaging.
Wipe off bad solder. If all else fails Soldering Iron tips do not last forever. They also avoid the thermal shock.