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Doug Ring · 14th January 2004

I would make sure you have a damp sponge handy too, for wiping off the tip. Once solder's been sitting on the tip for a while, it seems to go "stale", maybe because the flux boils away. Also, the solder seems to melt quicker with a clean tip. I think the stale solder may not allow the heat from the copper tip through very efficiently.

BTW, I usually wipe the tip, then tin it with a tiny amount of solder before applying it to the elements of the joint. doug-hti suggests that you shouldn't do this, but I've always found it speeds the transfer of heat. I wired up a 52-way B-gauge balanced jackfield to multicores with XLRs and stereo jacks using this method, and not one dry joint resulted!

14th January 2004	#10
Doug Ring Gear Head Joined: Mar 2003 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland Posts: 50	I would make sure you have a damp sponge handy too, for wiping off the tip. Once solder's been sitting on the tip for a while, it seems to go "stale", maybe because the flux boils away. Also, the solder seems to melt quicker with a clean tip. I think the stale solder may not allow the heat from the copper tip through very efficiently. BTW, I usually wipe the tip, then tin it with a tiny amount of solder before applying it to the elements of the joint. doug-hti suggests that you shouldn't do this, but I've always found it speeds the transfer of heat. I wired up a 52-way B-gauge balanced jackfield to multicores with XLRs and stereo jacks using this method, and not one dry joint resulted!