Good news! We just released seven new soldering tips for our FixHub Smart Soldering Iron. If you’ve been waiting with bated breath, pop on over to our store.
We’ve doubled the lineup of FixHub tips!
New today: Bevel Cup 1.5, Bevel Cup 2.6, Angle Knife, Angle Cone, Bent Cone, Wedge 4.0, and Heat Insert Tip.
But if you just read that paragraph thinking, “You can get different tips for your soldering iron!?” then you’re reading the right article.
Just like you wouldn’t use a Phillips head bit to unscrew a Torx bolt, you should also pick the right solder tip for the job. And just like you’d never use a flat-head driver to open a can of paint (right?), you should also care for your tips to keep them working properly, and to make them last longer.
ICYMI, after selling out several runs in a row, we’re finally able to keep enough FixHub Soldering Toolkits around to meet demand. Get one yourself to see why Make calls it “iFixit all the way down.”
Just the Tip
Let’s start with types of tips. Or rather, let’s start with what all those different-shaped tips have in common. Whatever the shape or size, they all have a copper core for maximum heat conduction. Ideally, that would be it, but solder dissolves copper (especially lead-free solder), so we put a thin iron layer on top to protect it. This still conducts enough heat to melt the solder but lasts way longer than copper.
But iron, as we know, oxidizes quite readily. We get around this by using flux, and tinning the tip before use (more on tinning below). On the shaft of the tip, where we don’t care about conductivity, you’ll find chrome plating. Chrome is bad at wetting solder, but good at not oxidizing.
Types of Tips, and Their Uses
Everyday tips fall into seven shape categories: conical (type B), beveled (C), wedge (D), bent (J), needle (I), knife (K), and hoof, in various sizes. There are also more specialized tips which we won’t talk about here, because most folks will never have to use, say, an RF shield remover tip.
We’ll touch on each type here, with a description and examples of use, but for a really in-depth guide to the uses for different tips check out our article How to Choose the Right Soldering Iron Tip.
Conical (Type B) This is the canonical (see what I did there?) soldering tip. It’s a pointed cone shape, and there’s probably one already mounted on your soldering iron. It’s a good all-round tip, as you can use the point or the side, depending on how much heat transfer you need. It’s also easy to poke in from any angle. This is the type of tip that comes with every new FixHub Smart Soldering Iron.
Beveled (Type C) A beveled tip is like a cone with the tip lopped off at an angle. The flat end gives much more surface area for better heat transfer and is good for PCB pads and joining wires. And you can still use the pointy parts for finer work. This is another good all-arounder (though it’s less round). We’ve previously released 1.5mm beveled tips and 2.6mm beveled tips.
Wedge (Type D) I like the wedge aka chisel, which looks just like a small flathead screwdriver bit, because it offers a nice big flat surface and is still easy to maneuver. The ridge at the tip is also good for fine work. We launched FixHub with a 1.5mm wedge tip, and today we’ve got a wider 4.0mm wedge tip, too.
Needle (Type I) The needle is a pretty specialist bit, suitable only for very fine work. The tiny point is only good for small joints as it can’t provide enough heat for larger ones, but its accuracy for fine work is unrivaled. Our fine point tip is narrow, but with a diameter of 0.3mm, slightly wider than most 0.2mm-diameter needle tips.
Bent (Type J) A bent version of needle or wedge tips, these are good for accessing awkward angles, and for applying either point or distributed heat depending on your angle. Also usable for drag soldering (more on that in a sec).
Today’s tip drop includes an angle cone tip and a bent cone tip.
Knife (Type K) Notable for being the only tip whose type letter (K) actually matches its name, and it can also be used as a hot knife for cutting through heat-shrink tubing, for example. Mostly used for repairing solder bridges, and can also be used for drag soldering (stick with me here). We’ve launched an angle knife tip for FixHub today.
Hoof or cup A hoof or cup is a tip with a hollow cut into the point, like a tiny ice-cream scoop. This is the quintessential tip for drag soldering, which I’ll finally explain: Better than any other tip, a hoof tip lets you drag solder across things, as the scoop keeps the blob of molten solder in place as you drag. Why would you want to do that? Let’s say you want to spread solder across several pins of a surface-mount component. The hoof tip’s got you. As you drag, surface tension and natural wetting forces will deposit the right amount of solder on each joint. Like magic.
Drag soldering is also good for tinning lengths of wire, or anything where you need to smear solder around. The hoof tip is actually a pretty good all-round option, thanks to the way it holds onto the solder.
In our latest drop of tips, we’ve got two sizes of cup tip: A 1.5mm bevel cup tip and a 2.6mm bevel cup tip.
Heat Insert Tip
The last type of tip we’ve released today isn’t actually for classic soldering at all: It’s called a heat insert tip, and it installs heat-set brass threaded inserts (M2 through M5) into 3D-printed and plastic parts. It uses the iron’s controlled heat to melt each insert cleanly into place for strong, reusable threads.
Cleaning and Maintenance
Modern lead-free solder requires higher temperatures than lead solder, which means that tips wear faster. These solders also have a higher tin content, and tin is the corrosive part of solder.
The first maintenance tip, then, is to not heat the tip up too much. That sounds like a bad joke, but if you’re using iFixit’s FixHub Smart Soldering Iron, then it will use an accelerometer to detect when you set it down, and drop the power to the tip (also saving battery power). The accelerometer also detects when you pick it back up, and has the tip back up to soldering temperature in seconds.
Next, protect the tip while in use, and in storage. Do this by tinning the tip. Tinning is where you melt solder onto the iron’s tip to leave a thin coating of solder (which contains lots of tin). This will protect the iron from the atmosphere and prevent oxidization. You should also regularly wipe the tip in either a brass sponge (made for the purpose) or a wet piece of regular sponge. Brass sponges decrease the risk of thermal shock, which can theoretically crack a tip, but some sort of tip-cleaning is important to remove burnt solder and old oxidation from your tip.
You should tin your tip when you’ve finished using it, to keep give it a protective layer during storage. Cover the entire working surface of the tip with solder and allow it to cool.
We have a whole guide on inspecting and maintaining your tips, so we will just give you the gist of things here. Before using your tip, take a look at it. If it is hopelessly pitted, cracked, or the copper core is visible, it’s time for a new one. If it is a little bit oxidized, then you can use a “tip tinner,” a special cleaning paste for soldering tips. It’s a mix of flux and solder that you shove the hot tip into, simultaneously cleaning and tinning the tip.
If the tip is really ravaged by oxidization, then you can bust out the wire brush, or—as a last resort—high-grit sandpaper. Go easy though. You don’t want to sand off the iron layer.
And that’s pretty much it. Once you’ve bought a decent soldering iron and tips, it makes sense to look after them. And you should buy good tips to start with. Really cheap ones will not only seem to dissolve away after a very short time, they’ll make soldering a lot harder than it should be. Like any tools, buy well, and look after them for a nice long life. Happy soldering!
1 Comment
I've been soldering since I was 12, in the late 60s. Still do once in a while. Only soldered a surface mount component once, a resistor. I respect those that do it often and well!
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