Soldering iron tip

[churchjw]

I have a Hakko FX-888 soldering station and would like to make new tips for it. Has anyone made tips for something like this? I am wondering if brass would work? The original is copper with a iron plating. I can't do the plating so I am wondering what other material would work.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[countryguy]

Well I suppose it all depends on the Wattage and the dissipation?
Here is a site w/ the temps of different Solders: http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/solder.htm

The plating in the tip is to make "tinning" it easier I think? And I suppose you could do w/o but may find it hard to get a solder spot in which to flow the Solder? And I suppose the pencil Wattage would be a factor as well.

It's an interesting post. Good luck and let us know?

I have a Hakko FX-888 soldering station and would like to make new tips for it. Has anyone made tips for something like this? I am wondering if brass would work? The original is copper with a iron plating. I can't do the plating so I am wondering what other material would work.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[Tony Wells]

Make it from Copper or Brass and coat it in high content silver solder. Prevents oxidation longer.

 

[churchjw]

Thanks Tony. I have some hard silver solder and that would be an easy process. If I get to try it this weekend I will post some pictures. I am going to try it in brass. If it works then I could make tips in any configuration I need.

Jeff

 

[f350ca]

Not sure brass will work Jeff. From what I understand the tip sits in a magnetic field and the heat generated is due to induction. The conductivity of brass is about 1/4 of copper, so you may not induce enough current to heat.
Just guessing.
We used them at work for high and low melting point electrical solder. The particular tip set the temp, they looked about the same but some would get hot enough to melt the high temp solder, never figured or researched that one out.
Greg

 

[churchjw]

That is interesting. I will make one in copper and one in brass and silver coat both and see if there is a difference. Thanks for pointing this out it may save me some frustration.

Jeff

 

[churchjw]

So I got a chance to try this. I didn't have any copper the right size so I just had to do it in brass. I tried coating it with hard silver but didn't really work well. But the new tip worked any way. The solder wets to the tip easy even without the silver coating. The temperature between this tip and the original is only a few degrees.



Now that I know it works I will make a few more. This one got a little mucked up when I was trying to silver solder it. I also want to try one with a much finer tip. To practice soldering with it I removing a bunch of chips from an old cellphone board that was in my junk box. I used my heat gun that I just got recently and the chips came right off. I had never tried that before but it works great. I then started putting the chips back (randomly to any pads they would fit). The joints wouldn't win any contest but they look solid under 40X magnification. I am still using my .030" solder which looks huge next to the chips but it will due till I can get some .015" solder. I figured I would do a few scrap board to get some practice in before I try it on real projects. I will post if the tip doesn't hold up under usage.

Jeff

 

[f350ca]

Glad it worked. Didn't know if the material would mater, now inquiring minds know. Thanks for posting.
Greg