You shouldn't have any concern about using any of the tip cleaning materials
you've mentioned. Jabbing the tip into the the highly flexible curly
material isn't the same as scraping the tip with a knife edge.
The soldering equipment manufacturers' prices are inflated for these
products, and any generic scrubbie material from discount stores should be
just as effective.
BTW, tips are considered consumables, and definitely aren't intended to last
forever. In production, where tips are subjected to excessive temperatures
and some exotic active fluxes, short tip life is accepted as normal for
better production rates.
In hobby or small shop use, the user can establish some habits to extend tip
life for considerably longer useful lifetimes.
Reducing the temperature to an acceptable point is probably the most
effective habit, and turning the temperature down (or off) for extended
periods when the equipment isn't being used.
Using a cleaning method such as the scrubbie material to keep the tip from
developing a buildup of flux.
Applying fresh solder to the tip at the time the unit is turned off, so the
tip is covered, and not bare when the equipment is turned back on.
It may be helpful to cut apart a used tip to see what it's made of. Many
tips have a copper core which is iron plated, then plated with copper and
finally, a nickel alloy. It's when the nickel is compromised, that leads to
tinning problems and tip replacement.
Bare copper erodes very quickly when used with active fluxes and solder.
Steel or iron aren't good materials for tips, but nickel plating accepts
solder very well and is very good for keeping the tip tinned with a wet
surface.
Ungar HotVac threaded tips were steel (probably a leaded steel alloy) and
very problematic if they were overheated. The only effective way I found to
clean them was to use silicon carbide wet/dry sandpaper to cut away the very
hard surface layer and restore the tip area to shiny steel. I eventually
made adapters for the threaded tips, which could use low cost 1/8" diameter
plated tips.
There are many variations of tip fabrication, and short working life cycle
tips should be replaced with tips of better quality.
I've been using some stainless steel scrubbie material for a couple of years
and haven't seen any signs of tip damage. The tips are Edsyn, Plato and
Pace, which are fairly good quality tips.
I used damp sponge tip cleaners for years, but sponge wasn't as effective at
removing flux residues from tips. Damp tip cleaning sponge is probably the
quickest, easiest way of removing excess solder from tips, when too much
solder can be a problem, such as with surface mount reflowing or very
delicate soldering jobs.
By using a paper punch to produce numerous holes in the compressed sponge
material when it's new, you can provide numerous cleaning edges for removing
excess solder from tips.
Scrubbie-type products can be found that are brass, copper or stainless
steel. I would suggest that steel wool be avoided, since small pieces of the
fine strands can stick to a tinned tip and find their way on to a circuit
board.
--
Cheers,
WB
..............
"larry moe 'n curly" wrote in message
...
Is there any reason why I shouldn't clean iron-plated hot soldering
iron tips by poking them into this curly stainless steel ribbon
material (3M Scotchbrite stainless steel scouring pad):
http://tinyurl.com/n48keq
instead of poking them into similar curly ribbon material made of
brass (Hakko soldering iron company's cleaner):
http://tinyurl.com/nf7clh
Does the stainless steel eat through the iron plating?