To make good solder joints, you need to keep the tip of your soldering iron clean from any oxides and dust or dirt. A clean, well-tinned tip will transfer heat properly and help you avoid cold solder joints. Many solderers use wet sponges to clean soldering iron tips, and many solder stations have troughs to hold these sponges.
An alternate method is to use a wire cleaning pad like the one shown above. You stick the iron into the pad and then draw it back out. The wire scrapes the oxides and dirt from the tip as you do this. Proponents of this method claim that this method increases the life of the tip as it avoids the rapid temperature changes that using a wet sponge cause.
73!
Dan
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Ned WB4BKO says
I attended a NASA high reliability soldering class back in 1976 and the rukle for keeping the tip from oxidizing while not in use, is to clean the tip then add a big glob of solder on the tip and let it remain there untill the next time the iron is heated up for use.
An inexpensive tip cleaner is a copper Chore Boy pot scrubber, or its stainless steel equivalent available at Dollar Tree.
Ned Davis
Dave, N8SBE says
You too? I still remember to clip the lead almost flush with the board *before* soldering, so the solder completely covers the end of the lead, so there is no lead end/solder interface left exposed to the environment (or lack thereof).