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Making my own soldering iron tips
In this post, I’ve decided to write about fabricating my own soldering iron tips using basic tools and the experiment that I carried out and what I learned from it. If you are scientifically or electrically minded, you will probably be able to guess the end result before you get to the end of this article. As a Kinesthetic learner, I learn through failure or doing things myself, and quite frankly. I enjoyed the little experiment.
What is the purpose of this experiment?
I decided to perform a little experiment recently, finishing it off today. The initial stage of the experiment was succesful, the final stages of the experiment were unsuccessful. However I learn through failure, and this was a learning experimence, both scientifically, and also for safety reasons.
Unfortunately I don’t have a high end soldering iron like a Hakko or Pace, I’m currently saving for one. As my old faithful soldering station was broken (it actually still worked, it was the iron that failed but replacements were expensive). I disconnected the hot air part because this had a ground fault that would trip electric (shorts to earth)
My only choices are using my Butane powered soldering iron or my 40w Pen type Soldering Iron. They’re all poop to be fair, but they have their uses. The main problem I didn’t like with the mains powered soldering iron, was that it used to burn through soldering iron tips, and that it wasn’t temperature controlled.
I couldn’t control the temperature without making something. I decided to make my own soldering iron tips as an experiment to see if better quality tips could be made from different materials. Plus, I could also custom make my own tips in terms of soldering iron tools. Rather than look for them to purchase
I’m currently saving up to buy the Hakko FX951 or FX888D soldering station from the UK Supplier. As I now prefer to use high end equipment for reliability, as I have less problems with products that made to a higher standard.
How do pen-type soldering irons work?
Pen type soldering irons heat up their tips by passing current through heater cores. In higher end ones it’s normally a dedicated ceramic heater cores. In cheap models like mine it’s done like a toaster, current is passed through a resistive wire like ninchrome (same as a toaster) and builds up heat through resistance. This heat is then used to heat up the tips for soldering. Unfortunately the heat isn’t controlled, it’s just always on
What materials did I use for my soldering iron tips?
I purchased three different pieces of metal 100mm in size (4mm thick) from eBay. With the intentions of filing them down, covering them in rosin to protect the ends and then fully tinning them with solder. If the experiment was successful whenever I needed a new tip I could simply buy a new bar, cut it down to size and make a new one.
These materials were Copper, Brass and Stainless Steel
How did I make my soldering iron tips?
The first thing I did was chop off around 20mm of the metal with my Dremel, the tips to be inserted were far too long for soldering with and I wanted shorter. This left around 1″ residing out the end of the soldering iron.
After trimming down the length of the copper bar, I installed it into a drill chuck and drilled it. Holding at an angle to form a sort of point on the soldering iron using a metal file
After grinding down the edge for the tip of the soldering iron point. I decided to make it shiny, I’m not actually sure if this affects it to any degree, however it doesn’t hurt. Making it shiny helps to get rid of any oxidation anyway and gives a better surface to prep with. I held some P240 grit emery paper over the edge of the rod and just held the trigger down on the drill
Nice and shiny as you can see the comparison before and after below
Now. I needed to protect the newly formed solder so that weak points don’t form in the tip and crack it. This is to prevent the damage which caused my existing tips to crack. I wanted a good quality tip for soldering with that would tin and solder each time without issue. I did this by installing the bar inside the soldering iron and switching it on. When the iron started to smoke after burning off the crap I pushed the tip into a Rosin pot. I was holding it there whilst I waited. The purpose of the Rosin is to help prevent oxidation of the tip, so I drowned the tip to the end in Rosin just to protect it first.
After the tip was heated in the Rosin and melted it, I gave it a quick clean with some brass wool then completely coated the end of the tip in 0.8mm lead free solder for maximum protection. You can see the before / after of the tip below, and how the end is covered in solder. The tip is then considered “tinned”.
After tinning the tip I decided to test it out with some solder and flux / rosin on a circuit board. The upper points are ones I soldered with the old tip and no flux whilst it was burned through. The points at the bottom had rosin and with the new tip. I was happy with the results.
Did the custom soldering tips work?
Yes, and no. The custom made soldering iron tip out of copper worked like a treat. I expected copper would work anyway because soldering iron tips are normally coated, and copper has good thermal and electrical conductivity
What about the other metals?
I repeated the experiment using the Brass rod, and Stainless steel rod after making them into tips. I managed to coat the brass in solder, but the stainless steel was simply too slow at retaining the heat so I couldn’t get it to temperature to apply the solder. After removing the tip the end was glowing red, but that was it. This is where the experiment failed
What was the end results?
Next I installed the brass tip, and tried soldering with it. Bit too slow really, I removed it and installed the Stainless steel tip. The iron heated, but it took forever. Eventually the household electric tripped. My best guess is that there was simply too much current being pushed through the ninchrome wire to heat up the stainless steel OR, the wire had simply burned through when trying to heat up the stainless steel. I powered up the electrical again and classed the Stainless steel as a dead end, tried with the Brass Tip but this was no longer heating up properly. At this point I tried with the original copper tip, and this wasn’t heating up fast either.
I then considered the pen dead and wires burned through. I dismantled the pen, internals were intact but the ninchrome wire was oxidised heavily and burned through. So it failed.
Can the soldering iron be fixed?
Probably. I realistically need some ninchrome wire then just stick it inside a new casing with some insulation like Fibreglass. After this it should heat up again, and I know the copper tip works because I was using it. Hwoever the price of Ninchrome wire, vs the cost of a new iron. Its’ easier to simply buy a replacement iron. The tips themselves are around £5, the irons can be purchased for around £9. So it’s not really worth it in the long run to repair the iron except for a spare.
The scientific data of why the heating method failed
As a note, I welcome comments about this experiment. If you understand the Science behind it better, please feel free to comment. I can only post from what I learned
Here’s some temperature ranges for the Materials
I might revisit this, but basically as you can see below, the Copper is almost 3x better than Brass at transferring heat, and over 30x better than Stainless Steel when it comes to transferring the heat. So no wonder the pen failed when it come to the steel. It simply couldn’t keep up with the output required to keep the metal hot.
- BRASS @ 20’C ~ 144(W/m.K) of Thermal Conductivity
- STAINLESS STEEL @ 20’C ~ 12(W/m.K) of Thermal Conductivity
- COPPER : 20’C ~ 401(W/m.K) of Thermal Conductivity
Any take away notes or points?
Yes, if you’re going to make soldering iron tips, make them out of Copper only. If you decided to use other materials, you may need to upgrade to a different heating element like thicker ninchrome wire, or a quartz heating element. This is another experiment that I haven’t done but I’d be interested in learning from. The other two materials lack the termal conductivity with the power required. Copper has a thermal conductivity around 3x higher than brass, and 6x higher than stainless steel. Which explains why it worked as a tip. Most soldering iron tips are normally coated too so this is the material I most expected to work anyway
Thank you for reading
