Why solder doesnt stick

And since I thought it has the same melting temp. It went all good but after a while the solder wouldnt melt. It helped only for a while and after that the solder wouldnt melt even if applied directly to the tip! After all that torture here is what happens: If you apply solder to the tip the solder melts but doesnt stick to the tip! The "ball" of melted solder remains on the solder wire!

Of course you cant solder any contacts because you cant heat up the contacts to the melting temperature! I'd say total fail. I already ordered new iron tip and Sn60Pb40 solder but Iam not sure it will help? And I always cleaned my iron in a wet sponge before and after the soldering. I shouldnt done it after, right?

I cant do that even after using the sandpaper! What temperature do I use and how do I apply the rosin? They are not the best way to maintain your tip. Get yourself a brass fuzzball. The wet sponge is like thermal shock for your tip. Thats weird, because everyone says to use a sponge. But anyway I cant even tin the tip of the iron, any way I can fix it? You can try to go to radio shack and get some tinning compound and try that to get it back. But you are going to need a new tip after that sanding.

Join my weekly newsletter and receive helpful tips, tools, and theories about welding and joining. Please confirm the subscription Email in your inbox. The link is only valid for 60 minutes. Another element that might play into solder not sticking is your equipment. To ensure a fulfilling and easy soldering experience, here are some common pieces of equipment you should have before you get started.

Although, in reality, all you really need is a soldering iron and some solder, these tools with enhancing your soldering abilities, help you maintain your equipment, and make the overall process easier. This tool is great for cutting strips of solder or stripping the ends of wires before soldering.

The most basic options on offer with do the trick or, alternatively, you could invest in a wire stripper. Simply heat and liquidizes the solder, then use the solder sucker to suck it off the joint for a fresh start. Soldering irons get up to to degrees Celsius when in typical use, which is plenty hot to be a safety hazard. For peace of mind, when you are using a soldering iron and want to prevent any burns or property damages, invest in a soldering stand.

This is another cheap purchase essential to soldering, especially when you are constantly putting your iron down to maneuver things. In order to prevent issues with oxidation on your soldering iron tip, it is essential to have steel wool or a wet sponge on hand when soldering. You can use these to clean the iron, but steel wool can also be used to clean metal surfaces if necessary.

Your soldering experience will be made significantly easier if you have a tin of flux on your workstation. This chemical cleaning agent is great for preparing metal surfaces for soldering. Flux will effectively remove any present oxidation or impurities that might have caused issues later on. Safety is essential when handling soldering equipment and one of the easiest safety measures is to wear safety goggles. Safety goggles are an inexpensive purchase and will protect your eyes from accidental splashes of solder.

Soldering as produces fumes that can be potentially harmful to your eyes and even lungs. Be sure to only solder in well-ventilated rooms, and if they are not ventilated enough, invest in a fume extractor.

Soldering can be a delicate process with many issues if an individual does not use the proper techniques. As we have mentioned, there are a series of common issues when it comes to soldering, but thankfully, most of them can be prevented or easily fixed. More often than not, if you are experiencing one of the problems mentioned here, the issue can be remedied by reheating the joint and either removing the solder and starting over or by adding solder to reinforce the joint.

Equipment and maintenance are just as important as a technique when it comes to soldering. You might be able to solder a joint perfectly, but if your equipment or the metal or board you are soldering is dirty or oxidized, the joint will be compromised. Prevention is the easiest step to ensure none of the issues mentioned here come to fruition. By cleaning your equipment and protecting the tip of your soldering iron, you should be able to breeze through any soldering session problem-free. If you liked this article, have a look at my other articles I wrote about the topic!

To address some of the questions I frequently got asked or was wondering myself during my job, I started this blog. It has become a bit of a pet project, as I want to learn more about the details about welding. I sincerely hope it will help you to improve your welding results as much as it did improve mine. Brazing is a method of joining two metals together using a molten filler metal. Brazing is different from welding, as none of the base metals undergo thermal melting.

Instead, the joint is formed by Brazing is a process used to join metals and sometimes ceramics in which a molten filler metal called a braze alloy is used for joining.

This site also participates in affiliate programs with other sites. Skip to content. Solder Tip Has Oxidized. Let me help you to improve your welding! One more step necessary! Active Oldest Votes. One word answer A classic reason solder won't stick to something is because you're not getting it hot enough. Put a nice little blob of solder on the tip of the iron. Press the blob of solder into the metal to be soldered.

Rocketmagnet Rocketmagnet This method is, in my experience, superior for working on small stuff with thick solder, when you want to precisely control the amount of solder applied.

If the problem was soldering to a ground or power plane, that would be different. Show 6 more comments. One word answer [Appendix:] Cleaning the board with, say, alcohol or Windex won't be enough-you're not really worried about finger greases here.

Kevin Vermeer Kevin Vermeer I recommend "clean-free" varieties that come in a pen-like dispenser so you can dab it on easily. I've always preferred Kester's RMA flux pens which are not no-clean.

Contrary to their name, no-clean fluxes do leave some residue Less than RMA, but still present. The no-clean seems to refer to the increased difficulty in cleaning it off! I prefer to ignore the flux on my experiments and hacks and to clean presentation boards0 well, rather than making every board mostly clean and struggling with the ones that have to look good.

If you're worried about making your board shiny, you can always give it an alcohol bath. Heated surfaces must be clean to reduce surface tension. The tips should be cleaned daily with solder and sponge, keep tip on tight. Surface, if oxidized, must be cleaned abrasive and fluxed. General purpose irons are W. Shields or large ground planes need more power or mass to tip to heat up the surface faster. Peter Mortensen 1, 3 3 gold badges 17 17 silver badges 23 23 bronze badges.

Hot air gun on the ground plane to warm a large area then iron to the junction. The Overflow Blog. Podcast Explaining the semiconductor shortage, and how it might end. Does ES6 make JavaScript frameworks obsolete? Featured on Meta.

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