I have two cheap soldering irons, one of which was given to me. I was also given some solder (of unknown quality), which I recently used up. I bought some cheap solder from Harbor Freight. I've used both a wet sponge and steel wool to clean my soldering iron.
With both soldering irons and both solders my soldering iron tip would slowly be eaten away during use.
Is this normal for soldering iron use in general? Which factors would cause or worsen this?
I'm trying to determine if buying a quality tip and some decent solder would be enough, or if I will need a quality soldering iron to keep this from happening.
Best Answer
When you say "cheap soldering irons", you ain't just whistling Dixie. If this happens with rosin-core solder (not acid-core) then your problem is that the tips are not iron-plated. And frankly, I didn't think they made them like that any more.
If you can get a decent tip, this should solve the problem, but ensuring that you've got proper materials is not likely to be easy.
Since you've apparently been using these irons for a while, it seems that you'll be soldering for a while longer. I'd recommend trashing both of them and get a good temperature-controlled iron. And you can keep on using cheap solder, as long as it's not acid-core.