Did a just ruin a solder tip ?

[dude]

Was cleaning out a pot's leg hole with my Hakko 936 station, brand new tip and made the mistake of turning the tip in the small pot's hole. Now there's a black ring around the soldering end about 1/8" up from tip. Guess I took the tinning off, cleaning it with fresh solder and wet sponge the black ring is still there and won't take solder? Original Hakko tips are hard to find as almost all tips on ebay and elsewhere for this Hakko are Chinese knock-offs that are terrible.



So, did I ruin the tip or is there a fix...?


Thanks,
al

[sluckey]

Probably. Many tips are not meant to be filed or sanded. My Weller tips are like that. They have a special coating on them that lasts a long time as long as you keep the tip clean with a wet sponge only. Your tip may be similar. Should be easy to find out on the Hakko site.
 

[mschock]

Just wondering if you have tried a tip tinner compound, which contain silver. I like to use it especially on new tips, (Hakko). I find that it has a better heat transfer also. I hope this helps. 

[dude]

Just wondering if you have tried a tip tinner compound, which contain silver. I like to use it especially on new tips, (Hakko). I find that it has a better heat transfer also. I hope this helps.

Not sure what tip thinner is...? The tip isn't too bad but was new, to get a real Hakko tip, if you can find them, they are expensive like $7 to $10 a tip plus shipping. The real Hakko tips come in single packages with blue highlights on the package and all real tips come in packages. A big difference in quality, the Chinese knockoffs are junk.


The package with the blue is the real McCoy, the Yellow a cheap knockoff.


al 

[davidwpack]

Tinner not thinner. Most places that sell solder have it.

[dude]

Showing my age   Thanks

[mschock]

I am lucky when it comes to buying tips, I have several brick and mortar stores which I frequent, near by. The price seems to comparable, for genuine Hakko. I enclose a picture of the can of Tinner. It goes for roughly the same price of a tip.

[dude]

Brick and mortar stores around here are all gone, it's on-line for everything. So, I tried using the pad that came with my electric stove to clean the glass top, seems like a Scott Rite pad, used the stove top cleaner with it and to my surprise the black ring came off. Guess maybe I didn't cut into the silver tinning after all. Tip cleaned up like new, took solder well. Also, use the same pad and cleaner to clean the ceramic under the tip. All came clean. When I first started soldering I made the mistake of using 400 and 600 grit wet and dry sandpaper (wet), totally ruin what was left of the tip.


Thanks for all the advice,
al