How do you keep your tip clean?

That looks like excessive temperature damage to me. Maybe your station/iron is whack and the temp is outta control since we can exclude user error.
 
I leave mine on for hours at a time at 470c and it looks bright and shiny and it's over three years old. I don't use any additional flux or tip tinner or anything, just solder.

I'm not sure what you could do to that thing to make it look like it's spent a couple of years a the bottom of the ocean. Are you sure it's from a reliable company, that the tip was actually finished?
 
I consider that too high a temp. I know others run theirs like that, but I run a bit lower. My iron is never on for more than 10 minutes at a time tops.

Edit: if something works for you, run it. But in this case, it's not working for you
 
I’m gonna try lowering the temperature and re-tinning the tip. I swear when I first put the new tip on it was beautifully shiny and worked like a charm and then it started doing that! 😤
 
peccary said:
I leave mine on for hours at a time at 470c and it looks bright and shiny and it's over three years old. I don't use any additional flux or tip tinner or anything, just solder.

I'm not sure what you could do to that thing to make it look like it's spent a couple of years a the bottom of the ocean. Are you sure it's from a reliable company, that the tip was actually finished?
Click to expand...
Got the tips from all-parts, which I think I used in the past for audio components. It didn’t say if they were finished, I’ll take a pic of the other 3 and you guys can give me your opinion.
 
When I used my first iron with a simple analog pot I set it close to 400C but who knows what the actual temp was. It always oxidized, even with a dollop of solder on the tip, because when I build I take 10+ minute breaks to prep the next batch of components and I always double and triple check them.

Now I use a Pinecil at 350C. I set it to cool down to 150 after one minute to conserve the tip during the breaks. It heats back up in 5 seconds. It turns itself off after 10 minutes IIRC. I don't intend to buy replacements for this iron because I don't like the company's policy to sell tips in 4-packs when I only need one. Plus they don't have some tips I need, like a large chisel tip for guitar electronics. Buying individual TS100 tips is equally inconvenient for me. So I'm trying to milk the tips I have for as long as possible.
 
The times where I've had problems were where I wasn't getting the right temperature for the solder I was using. I had a lot of problems with lead-free in the beginning, just being too hot in general. Now I'm running 350C with 60/40 and it's smooth as butter.
 
I think I’m making progress! I lowered the temperature to about 350-370 (hard to say without a digital gauge) and tinned the tip once again and it now looks much better. There is a spot on it that may have been damaged by the excess heat from the last couple days (second pic). The pictures don’t do it justice, it’s definitely way more shiny than it was.

IMG_2333.jpeg
IMG_2334.jpeg
IMG_2335.jpeg
For comparison, here is one of the other brand new tips:
IMG_2336.jpeg
 
Lesson learned: start with a low temperature with a brand new tip and just increase to as much as needed. I think my old tip must have been getting worse over the years and conducing less heat which caused me to increase the temperature. And I think it got damaged because of that (at the end there was a little hole on it).
 
Last edited:
Harry Klippton said:
I turn my iron on right before soldering and turn it off again when I put it in the holder. I don't leave it idle for more than about 5 minutes.
Click to expand...
Mine goes to sleep after about five minutes. I have to shake it to wake it up. It sits at 350F in sleep mode, but it'll jump back to 680F in about 15 seconds.
 
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