[Elecraft] Hakko 808 tips

[Jeremiah McCarthy]

I get the reflector in digest form and did not get to read some of the past week's input until this morning...There is a chemical called "sal ammoniac" (ammonium chloride)...It comes in small white blocks and is sold in hardware stores and tin smith supplyers...I have a block that is probably 40 years old...Sal ammoniac is used to tin soldering iron tips...I use my Hakko 808 quite a lot for stripping and tinning the enamel coated wire in toroids, so the 808 sits cooking in the holder for hours...When my 808 tips start to discolor and reject solder, I re-tin them with sal ammoniac and they are restored to as good as new...These tips are QUITE expensive and we don't want to have to be throwing them out when they are still useful...

Soldering iron tips and de-soldering tips are usually iron plated copper, and they are factory tinned near the tip only...Sometimes the iron coating becomes discolored and will not tin anymore...Filing it will remove the iron plating and ruin the tip...This is where sal ammoniac can be used...If you are not careful, it will tin the ENTIRE tip, even the part that was not factory tinned...

Jerry, wa2dkg