Dissolving soldering tips by Weller?

[tszaboo]

The iron is from the red series, which is the lower quality wellers. I had experience with tips like this from my pre professional time. They die very fast, very rapidly, and it doesn't really matter what you do. Somewhat better, 230V irons are the WM20 or weller mini 2000 series, but I dont thin they are manufactured anymore, they have been replaced by the 2012 and other, which are again red, and lower quality. Unfortunately, they still eat the same tips, so no improvement there.
What I would do, if I'm stuck with the iron: There is no point to buy these weller tips. They will be bad quality control, and they will die fast. Maybe not in 1 hour, but in 20, if you get a good one. Just but any tip which is compatible, buy it in bulk. I went to my local store, they had something from metal for about 2 Euros, I could use them for some soldering jobs. But I used it very rarely, and by the time I needed to solder every day, I had a decent station.
The red series is the "IKEA free wrench in the box". It should not be considered for any serious work.

[IanB]

The solder don't adhere very well to the tips, which makes it very easy to wipe off on the wet sponge.

This is completely wrong. The tip of a soldering iron should become "tinned", which means the solder wets it and coats it. Once a tip is tinned it should be completely impossible to clean the solder off it. Wiping the tip on the sponge should produce a shiny silver layer of wet solder.

Maybe the iron you have is not designed for soldering? Maybe it is designed for some kind of craft use like wood burning?

[TheAmmoniacal]

The solder don't adhere very well to the tips, which makes it very easy to wipe off on the wet sponge.

This is completely wrong. The tip of a soldering iron should become "tinned", which means the solder wets it and coats it. Once a tip is tinned it should be completely impossible to clean the solder off it. Wiping the tip on the sponge should produce a shiny silver layer of wet solder.

Maybe the iron you have is not designed for soldering? Maybe it is designed for some kind of craft use like wood burning?

Yes, you're right. If I take a new tip and apply solder right away, it does get tinned. But I have to do it right away, because the tips will go black from oxidation rather quickly. I've tinned a new tip and we'll see if that helps.

[Shock]

Should have spent that $15 on a Yihua like uncle Dave.

[John Coloccia]

An awful lot us dumped Weller around 2002 or 2003 due to QC issues.  Disintegrating tips was one of them.  I've never seen one go quite THAT quickly before, but I'm not surprised because their tips have been hit or miss crap for a while now.

The same group owns Nicholson tools.  They recently moved their file production to Brazil.  Once again, they've turned it into absolute crap.  Nicholson files are now useless, unless you need to knock off a corner on a block of cream cheese.  For best results and longest tool like, I suggest you warm up the cheese in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it first.  Their wood rasps are complete GARBAGE too, now.  They used to be very useable.  At least you can still buy world class wood rasps from plenty of other sources.  Decent files are getting harder and harder to source.

But I digress.  If you buy enough tips, you'll eventually find a decent one.  Still, it's hard to believe that you could kill a tip that quickly without doing something profoundly wrong...even a crappy Weller tip.

[TerraHertz]

While there's definitely something weird about how fast those tips are disintegrating, another factor may be that years ago lead-tin solder for electronics used to contain a small percentage of copper. The purpose was to minimize the rate of copper dissolving from soldering iron tips.

I have no idea whether lead-free solders have the same problem, or whether they contain any copper to reduce the dissolving of tips. I'd have thought that with the higher temperature of lead-free solders, the problem would be worse?

With iron-plated tips the purpose is the same - prevent the copper from dissolving into the solder.

Also if that iron is not temperature regulated, maybe the mains voltage where you are is higher than the iron is rated for, and the iron is overheating?

[nanofrog]

While there's definitely something weird about how fast those tips are disintegrating, another factor may be that years ago lead-tin solder for electronics used to contain a small percentage of copper. The purpose was to minimize the rate of copper dissolving from soldering iron tips.

Wasn't this before any iron plating was being applied to the copper bit though (very early days)? 

I have no idea whether lead-free solders have the same problem, or whether they contain any copper to reduce the dissolving of tips. I'd have thought that with the higher temperature of lead-free solders, the problem would be worse?

Some do, though not much. SAC305 for example is 96.5% tin, 3% silver, and 0.5% copper.

[Fokusscience]

  the same thing happened to me :

I have a 40W weller WHS40 and everything was fine about 3 Jears the tip was Perfect .
Then It began to get bad so I changed it
I was very happy it last that long !

And after 2 weeks the new one was bad again ! 

I always used The same Solder the same flux and

with the third tip the same happened last week ! after only 3 Week's

so it looks like  a few tips are good and a few are bad ?
I bought new tips and I will make pic's if it gets bad again

Fokus  (I hope my english(and this post) is not too bad)

[TheAmmoniacal]

Continuing the saga...

So I followed the advice given in the thread, and read the links. Took my time to properly tin the tip and get a nice coating, but with no avail. It lasted about 10 components more, after an hour of use it looks like this:

The message of this story; do not buy this model series of irons. I'll have to go shopping for a proper station.

[John Coloccia]

Just get yourself a nice, used 936 and stop screwing around with slip shod companies cruising on a name that was built when they actually cared.  It's a shame, but my time and money is too valuable to waste on nonsense like this.  I wish they'd get their act together...but they won't, so oh well.

[liquibyte]

Personally I think the irons are fine, it's the tips that suck.  I don't think it's a QC problem either, my hunch is that it's failure by design to make you buy more tips.

[deth502]

heres my question. i have the same weller at home, and one at work. the tips do not last long. they dont deteriorate nearly as fast as the ones youve shown, but none the less, they only last a few months. ive made replacments out of copper before, which only seem to last half as long (i do dress and file and re-tin the tips on a regular basis) after reading this thread the other day, i saw talk of stainless steel tips. i turned one on the lathe today, put it in the iron, and afer 5 min it still wouldnt melt solder. i waited abotu 10 min and it was melting solder easily..... at the base of the tip, but still cold out to the very tip (the working area you need to be hot)

so, copper = sucks = disolves in lead.
stainless = sucks = dosent transfer heat.

what is the best material type to use?
 

[TheAmmoniacal]

what is the best material type to use?

I'd personally try tungsten, you can get pure tungsten welding rods (the green color code, not sure if you'll be able to cut it with the lathe, it's hard shit). But give it a try! I can't imagine that deteriorating, and the thermal conductivity is high, around half that of copper. The thermal conductivity of stainless steel is even 10 times lower than that of tungsten, thus 20 times lower than copper.

[deth502]

what is the best material type to use?

I'd personally try tungsten, you can get pure tungsten welding rods (the green color code, not sure if you'll be able to cut it with the lathe, it's hard shit). But give it a try! I can't imagine that deteriorating, and the thermal conductivity is high, around half that of copper. The thermal conductivity of stainless steel is even 10 times lower than that of tungsten, thus 20 times lower than copper.

pure tungsten is actually not that bad, and they do make "free machining" tungsten, but at over $70 shipped for only 8" of it, throwing out the entire iron and buying a new one looks like a much better option, lol.

ill have to see if i can scrounge up some scrap from somewhere.

[nanofrog]

Continuing the saga...

So I followed the advice given in the thread, and read the links. Took my time to properly tin the tip and get a nice coating, but with no avail. It lasted about 10 components more, after an hour of use it looks like this:

The message of this story; do not buy this model series of irons. I'll have to go shopping for a proper station.

Just out of curiosity, did all the tips come from the same source, and roughly the same time?

Wondering if they've all been from the same batch, given just how horrible they've been. 

[liquibyte]

The tip that came with my iron did this and was many months old before I ended up needing to use it and it did this.  I've gotten tips from Mouser several times over a year at least and they have all done this same thing.  As I said, I just decided to file and sand them back to a point until they're too short to use.  I hope to have something else soon enough but for right now this works for me.

[John Coloccia]

heres my question. i have the same weller at home, and one at work. the tips do not last long. they dont deteriorate nearly as fast as the ones youve shown, but none the less, they only last a few months. ive made replacments out of copper before, which only seem to last half as long (i do dress and file and re-tin the tips on a regular basis) after reading this thread the other day, i saw talk of stainless steel tips. i turned one on the lathe today, put it in the iron, and afer 5 min it still wouldnt melt solder. i waited abotu 10 min and it was melting solder easily..... at the base of the tip, but still cold out to the very tip (the working area you need to be hot)

so, copper = sucks = disolves in lead.
stainless = sucks = dosent transfer heat.

what is the best material type to use?

Get a brand of station, like Hakko, that doesn't make crap tips, and stop worrying about it.  To make tips properly, you need to be able to do plating.  By the time you've spent time and money making tips and plating them properly, you could have just bought a decent used station.

[nanofrog]

The tip that came with my iron did this and was many months old before I ended up needing to use it and it did this.  I've gotten tips from Mouser several times over a year at least and they have all done this same thing.  As I said, I just decided to file and sand them back to a point until they're too short to use.  I hope to have something else soon enough but for right now this works for me.

I've had a few bad ones in the LT series mine uses, but not all of them, and even the bad ones lasted longer than these.

Damn, Apex... Granted, this is the bottom of their product lines, but a bad impression such as this would likely turn those customers into someone else's customers. Think they'd realize this, but maybe they'll have to learn the hard way. 

[liquibyte]

I've had a few bad ones in the LT series mine uses, but not all of them, and even the bad ones lasted longer than these.

Damn, Apex... Granted, this is the bottom of their product lines, but a bad impression such as this would likely turn those customers into someone else's customers. Think they'd realize this, but maybe they'll have to learn the hard way. 

I'll never buy another Weller.  I plan on saving up for a station but it will probably take awhile.  In the mean time I'll just keep re-doing the tips.  I don't use it that often but when I do, it's usually all day.

[TheMG]

Yikes, I've never seen soldering iron tips wear out that quickly! Even the Radio Shack brand non-temperature-controlled iron I had back in the day (which got REALLY hot), didn't wear out the tips anywhere near that fast.

I currently have a Weller WD-1 soldering station and the original tips show no sign of wear after several thousand solder joints.

[nanofrog]

I've had a few bad ones in the LT series mine uses, but not all of them, and even the bad ones lasted longer than these.

Damn, Apex... Granted, this is the bottom of their product lines, but a bad impression such as this would likely turn those customers into someone else's customers. Think they'd realize this, but maybe they'll have to learn the hard way. 

I'll never buy another Weller.  I plan on saving up for a station but it will probably take awhile.  In the mean time I'll just keep re-doing the tips.  I don't use it that often but when I do, it's usually all day.

I imagine your experience has left something well past a "sour" taste in your mouth, and can certainly understand your position.

FWIW, to put things into perspective in my case, my failure rates with the LT series have thus far been ~30% (defective out of the bag, causing premature tip destruction). NT series, zero % failures (still using the original tips purchased 6 years ago). There may also be 3rd party alternatives from companies such as Plato that can solve the problem. Do keep in mind, this is from a rather small sample size (3 out of 10 tips for the LT series).

Hakko makes excellent tips, as do most of the other name brand manufacturers. Only had issues with recent Weller tips, and only recently relatively speaking with one series (been using Weller for ~30 years, issues only showed up for me ~ 6 years ago, and it's no where near the 100% premature failure rate you're seeing).

[liquibyte]

I was thinking about an X-TRONIC but haven't really done any research on them yet.  I have to admit, they do look good though.  I know I certainly won't be spending more than $200 tops and not even that if I can get away with it.

[nanofrog]

I was thinking about an X-TRONIC but haven't really done any research on them yet.  I have to admit, they do look good though.  I know I certainly won't be spending more than $200 tops and not even that if I can get away with it.

After new or also willing to consider used?

Can find some great deals on eBay for name brand stations if you can be patient.

Used Hakko's currently listed as examples:
FX-951 (don't see it's stand in the pics; Hakko replacement new would run ~$63 here). Could substitute a cheaper one, but won't attach to the station without modification (micro switch).
FM-202 (seem to be at least partially refurbished by the seller; some things used, others new to make a complete package from what I can tell in the "what's included" section of the listing).

BTW, both of these use the same tips (cartridge type).

[liquibyte]

I have been looking at this one for $139.80.  I don't know how good they are versus some of the name brand stuff but for the features and accessories the price point seems very attractive.

That's the biggest issue I have with Weller.  Those tips aren't cheap even for their cheapest irons and to have them go to absolute shit after a day of soldering is totally unacceptable from a "brand name".  I don't know how good the tips are on the x-tronic but the price per tip is only slightly more than what I'm paying now.  I've used "firesticks" all my life and have only recently had this issue but for it to be a consistent issue over months of purchasing seems to not be about quality but a design decision.  Imagine this discussion in the boardroom.

Tool #1:  We can save X cents per tip if we use this cheaper process and increase our bottom line by XX dollars per quarter.
Executive Tool #2:  Yes, yes, good idea.  Then we'll have the added advantage that these tips will fail faster and therefore profit even more per quarter because our stupid customers will have to buy more.  Don't do it consistently with the higher end models, just 25% or so and blame that on QC but on the lower end models, we'll go with 100% because a new customer might think that's how these tips are supposed to behave and accept that as a cost.  By the way, have you gotten your $100,000 performance bonus check yet?

Call me cynical but I imagine conversations like this all over our country for all kinds of products.  Never attribute to stupidity that which you can attribute to greed.  Boardroom 101 IMHO.

[tjb1]

heres my question. i have the same weller at home, and one at work. the tips do not last long. they dont deteriorate nearly as fast as the ones youve shown, but none the less, they only last a few months. ive made replacments out of copper before, which only seem to last half as long (i do dress and file and re-tin the tips on a regular basis) after reading this thread the other day, i saw talk of stainless steel tips. i turned one on the lathe today, put it in the iron, and afer 5 min it still wouldnt melt solder. i waited abotu 10 min and it was melting solder easily..... at the base of the tip, but still cold out to the very tip (the working area you need to be hot)

so, copper = sucks = disolves in lead.
stainless = sucks = dosent transfer heat.

what is the best material type to use?

Get a brand of station, like Hakko, that doesn't make crap tips, and stop worrying about it.  To make tips properly, you need to be able to do plating.  By the time you've spent time and money making tips and plating them properly, you could have just bought a decent used station.

I've been using the original tip with my WES51 for a couple years now and it has no damage.  Also just bought 4 other tips is various sizes/shapes and they are all fine.