How To Clean Soldering Iron With Flux

After securing and preheating the PCB and void in a vice or PCB holder you suck the solder off the board by squeezing and releasing the bulb from behind the hole.

How to clean soldering iron with flux. The brush should be flexible and soft so that it wont damage the sophisticated electrical components. Solder stations normally come with a sponge andor brass brillo pad. Once your iron is heated up for a job wipe it on a wet sponge to remove old solder and apply solder to the tip.

Touching the heated iron can cause second- or third-degree burns. Once the soldering process is done some flux residue is seen on the surface. Then dip into the tin of tinner cleaner with a slight twisting action.

The flux will be activated by the heat that will start a chemical reaction to eliminate the oxidation. Im currently building a prototype device at work that involves a QFN-64 05mm pitch IC a PIC microcontroller soldered onto a SchmartBoardez prototyping board. Isopropyl alcohol is generally used for the removal of flux residues.

Take a clean brush. If youre using solder with a flux core start cleaning your soldering iron by following the tinning steps above. Start your soldering iron and clean it while working with electronics.

This should lead to a clean shiny tip ready for use. If your boards contain some high-impedance analogue circuits then this flux poses a real concern due to conductivity issues. This should lead to a clean shiny tip ready for use for more info see this video.

The SchmartBoard instructions call for the use of flux which is not something I normally need to use so I grabbed a Kester flux. Its something of a vi-vs-emacs war about which is better but whatever. How to clean a soldering iron.