 Hey there YouTube, just as a request, I'm going to make this very short video and it is basically just about how I maintain my solder iron in order for it to be, you know, a constant service and no trouble to me, and the type of solder that I use, even that this is pretty much for a note like the other one, only real somewhere, it's been in the bag, I've lost the bag, I'll have to find out today as we've got more things to build. And I suppose the key to keeping the solder iron working and doing what it is, it starts off with a couple of factors, from my experience now I'm not trying to profess to be professional here or anything like that, but I use my soldering iron pretty much on a daily basis and I have to have it working if I want it to use it. And part of that, one of the biggest keys to keeping this working well is don't overheat them. On my solder station, I've got a pretty much cheap rebranded solder station, this Precision Gold A55KJ, I got it from Maplins, I've also seen Aten, label on these, Tenma, label on these, so it's a pretty generic unit and it's used by quite a few different companies and it is cheap, I think it's cost me 46 pounds from Maplins at the time. And Maplins are pretty good because if you do get problems, the very next day they'll send out replacements and even if they haven't picked up the one and that's going to be the next day or the same day pickup, you will still get replacements so it's quite good to use the Maplins for some things. This is a temperature control solder station and I generally just use the one temperature which is 315 degrees for my solder and for the tips that I use which is standard tips they come from the tips that actually come with the solder station, so nothing fancy, nothing fancy at all. I have not had any issues whatsoever with this solder station and all the use it gets on. When I use it, it's on for like three hours minimum, I say that not three hours, that's a bit of a porky actually, but when I'm building these kits, first of all I put the SMD it's on and we've probably got about ten minutes of soldering for that and then the rest of it, I do all the resistors and most of the push-through that I can get on and I don't know how long it takes really, it takes me about about two and a half hours in total to build one of these kits and if I were to show you how many, let me shift that out of the way, there's always a few spares, yeah, with these, there's always a few spares and if I were to show you how many spares I have left over from those kits, you can probably get a bit of an imagination on how many of these things are still okay, so and so it goes to show nice solder, my soldering line gets some use and it gets me used for something else, a time at some stages and so I've got to keep it, I've got to keep it working, I always leave the ones that are not full out of the bags because I want to use those for the first time, you know, on the next kit, I won't use the ones that's in there, I use the none full strips first, anyway, digress, now this solder paste, this flux, this came with some solder I bought, I can't honestly tell you what the brand of it was but the solder wasn't very good and you may find that if you buy some cheap solder you may not have the greatest of times, this stuff is 6 core, as it says 6 core or 5 core but it's got the rosin, rosin flux in it, which means that you don't really need to add extra flux or at least I don't find that I do that's even when I soldering the backs of these boards where you've got the BNC connectors and you have to put the big, you know, quite a bit of heat to that, I don't need any extra flux or anything for doing, this solder does work out quite well, there are other solders just as good I'm sure, I just use this because I know it works and it's not let me down at all and I just like to have stuff that works, I do have other solders, I've got various other solders that I bought from Asian places, I've not even used yet and this is 0.5 millimeter solder as well, I wouldn't suggest using anything bigger than that because 0.3, 0.5, great, anything bigger than that, you may not get the fine workability that you can get out of this sort of solder, like I said I'm not a professional, I'm not trying to profess anything, I'm just, somebody asked me, I'm showing them what I do, so a relatively good solder is always good, okay, this is 60-40, so we've got 60% tin and 40% lead, if you're going to use this sort of solder, I would suggest that you have some sort of extractor, so you're not breathing in the fumes, as lovely as they smell, they are not very good for you at all, now I keep the tip of my soldering iron clean by tinning the ends, I use one of these to clean my soldered tip, so that's pretty clean, there's not all, it's just the working area and I always tin, I know I've not got my extractor on now, but you'll just have to, I'm not breathing this in, it's actually quite a way in front of me, and I tin the end of my solder, my soldering iron, I don't normally like to fill it around with things in my hands, so stick this hole in there, back in its hole, I'm filling around, but whenever I use it, I've made comments before that when I've done like just one or two little bits of soldering iron job, it's the little tiny bits of solder that go on to the job, I actually use a lot more just to tin the ends before I finish using it to keep the soldering tip conditioned, but it's well worth it, because the next time you come back to your soldered tip, it's going to be in a good state of use, the air is not going to get to it, it's not going to oxidize that metal at the end, and any other chemical process that might happen, which I don't have the knowledge of the words for, but it's not going to end up with you, or when you're trying to solder, you end up just having solder beading off it, you want to keep this tip nice. Now some people like to use a sponge with water, okay, that's fair enough, it's people's choices, I personally don't, I've never used a sponge in here, I only keep it in there because otherwise it looks like that in there, doesn't look bad, but I don't know, it just seems a lot nicer with a sponge. I don't use a sponge, and the reason why I don't use a sponge, this is just my personal preference, is even though the sound can be okay, I think that when I'm trying to get on and do a job, and especially when you're doing some of the small stuff, and you've got tweezers in your hands and placing, keeping your surface mount device in place, and then you've got, yeah, I set up my bit of solder like this, so I can just tip on to the end of it, I've got my tweezers in my hand and then a solder, but if it starts, because it will get a little bit mucky, the bits of flux left on there, it burns, just that, and I can go straight back to it, the change in temperature by doing that is a lot less than the change in temperature of wiping it in a moist sponge, so and that's the reason, that's the only reason why I do it like that, I'm sure people have other preferences to how they like to do things, but that's just how I like to do mine, and then that's, well that's pretty much about it, it's all about this last bit really at the end, just making sure that you've cleaned off the tip, I give it a nice clean in here, I pop that away, turn it off, and you can move that, now there's two different types that I've found so far, fill all that in now, two different types that I've found so far, oops, just going to make this paper, because I want it to catch, it's going to come out here, of these, these violins, these, these wire wall tip cleaners, now I've got two in here, and it's going to be hard to distinguish between them, I think one of them's pretty much disintegrated, and the other one is going to last longer, now it's a bit to fine, I thought that was a place, I'm not going to pull it apart too much, but I promise you there are two different types in there, one of them's the more flexible softer metal, like a brass, and the other one's more like just a steel wire wall, now I've found that the steel wire wall ones break down a lot quicker, and become a lot more sort of dusty, most of that in there is actually solder, but they become a lot more dusty than the brass ones, the brass ones are a little bit more expensive, but if my preference, yeah this is, this is, I'm trying to pull out the steel, the bigger stranded stuff, the wider stuff is the brass, and the thinner stuff, it's probably going to be really hard to see with this camera, it's not the greatest, but the thinner stuff, and there's not a lot left of it, so a lot of it goes to dust really, is the steel wire wall, so I would suggest, you know, get the, get the brass one, I've had this in here now for probably around about a year, and it's still going to do its job, all you got to do is like open it up a little bit, turn it round, so it's like that, and you've got, let me just turn my solder on, just leave it there, burning light, and then you've got, you know, more use out of it again, but it is going to come apart a little bit over time, and you're not going to be able to buy one and keep it for life, unless there are some out there like that, and if there are, that'd be great, and that's it, that's how I keep my soldering on, serviceable, you know, service and usable, every time when I need it, it's just, it is, don't have to clean this, now if you do, if your tip becomes unusable, don't use sandpaper, don't use anything that's going to be gouging grooves in the tip of this, you don't want to do that, I mean if you have some very fine, let's say, I can't think of what gauge, but that's all of a fine metal of finishing sandpaper that you may use on a car paint job finishing, then you probably could just gently, you know, just try and get off the day, it's going to be sort of coated, I'm not exactly sure what it's coated with, but it's a, it's enough of a problem that you can't, you can't solder it very well, but if you have some of this and you're just constantly turning slightly like I am, the actual solder wire, I'll bear in mind this is switched off and I'm not switching back on again, I've got some more solder back on, it will clean off the tip eventually, you may have to spend 15 minutes doing it, but it's well worth it, especially if you've got a tip that your got used to and it's your favourite tip, and you don't want to have to buy a whole set of tips or spend the same amount of money that you may spend on a set of tips, just for one, because you're going off to one of these, a chemical, no it looks like a cone, it's a pointy tip, like a pencil tip, and that's great because you've got a good dispersion of heat all the way around it, it doesn't really matter what sort of angle you get it at, and you're going to be working with the same sort of surface, and if you get used to that, like I say it doesn't matter then how you have it, sometimes other ones flattened off, and when I first started I liked a real thin one, with it slightly flattened off, and I got used to that and I loved it, and I didn't think I'd get used to one of these, but I've got used to one of these now and I'd much prefer to use one like this, so yeah and just basically do this to it, don't try and put too much force between like sideways force so you don't do any damage to your wand, sometimes these can break quite easily, especially when they're hot, and become a problem, I've been lucky so far with this one, I wasn't very lucky with the first holding iron I bought, I managed to break that wand very quickly, but that was just breaking down under heat, this thing here wasn't very good on it at all, and just do this, you'll eventually get off, do it when it's hot, do it when it's hot, you see mine's discoloring a bit now, it's not as silver as what it was, that's because there's no solder on there, and so what I'm going to have to do now is reheat that up, fortunately my solder station just heats up pretty quickly, and recondition this on there, put all this in the appropriate recycling container, so I'm just going to let that heat, but I wouldn't deny if I can get this wand actually bead like that, so I can see the tip off better, no it's not beading at all, I'm not beading at all, I'm not breathing in these fumes, I'm moving out the way of them, probably be better if I did have the extractor on, but no big deal, that's good, I'm looking quite back again if I want to, and like I say it doesn't adjust the temperature, look how beautiful that tip is again, it doesn't adjust the temperature, there we go, beautiful, that's ready to go back in the stand, and it'll be perfect for when I want to use it again, put that up out the way, turn it all off, and we're good for the next time, so hey I hope that's helped, I'm sorry it's like I've dragged it out for so long, but I just continue so you don't want to miss anything, but that's it, that's all there is to it, as long as you keep that tip clean, keep it tinned at the end when you're not using it, and don't have it on too hot, you know, the way I do mine is when I, because some people say 340, 360, 380 for temperatures, I found the melting point, that was a good working melting point, and I didn't go over that, I think that's what you've got to do for your individual iron, because there's no saying that that temperature gauge on my solid station is correct, you know, I don't have enough facilities or even the inclination to get something to find out whether that is correct or not, I just want it to do, what I want it to do is a job, so it's trial and error, I don't want it to be too hot, because it would knock off the tip from my soldering iron, and it costs more electricity to use it, but I don't want it to be that cool that it doesn't melt this, and I have to, or I have to hold the tip on the area that I'm soldering for an excessive amount of time, and 315 on that particular solid station with this particular solder is just correct for me, and that's maybe what you're going to have to find out for yourself, a little bit of experimenting with your own solder, and your own solder station to ensure that you're melting quick enough, but not too quick, not overheating, okay, I know that helps, cheers for watching guys, bye for now.