Why dont soldering irons keep going

[FarmerPug]

I bought a new soldering iron from the local hardware store the other day to fix some wiring on the suzuki samurai, and the soldering iron worked well for a while but about 2 days later it didnt seem to heat up as well, it could still burn my finger but didnt melt the solder. I have had this problem with soldering irons in the past, is there something i should do to get the iron to last longer.

[Welly]

The little gas ones are pretty good, sometimes Lidl or Aldi have a shed load of them in for pennies.

[sirwiggum]

I tend to use flux on the solder surfaces, and have a little wet sponge to dab the iron on too, and no problems so far.

Sounds like they're burning out, are they plugged in for a long time?

[steve_earwig]

They usually die dead, rather than diminishing in power. Is the tip still nice shiny silver? If not dress it with a file and tin it with flux/fluxed solder. Another thing that happens is if the iron's not powerful enough the moment it touches the job all the heat goes out of it - you soldering something large?

You should get a stand, soldering irons do like to overheat and burn out. One of them ones with a big spring (acts as heat sink so it doesn't get too hot) and a sponge pad for wiping the tip on to clear it. And a solder sucker, and and and...

I got me a soldering station (iron and vaccum sucker thing wiv thermostat and temperature gauge), it was just sitting in a cupboard at work

[sirwiggum]

They're useful for soldering the COM2000 connectors that always break back onto the airbag unit when you rip the airbag out to change the COM2000 then forget to put the big steering wheel bolt back on

[Welly]

it was just sitting in a cupboard at work

Next to the cable ties?

[teamster1975]

it was just sitting in a cupboard at work

Next to the cable ties?

And the cat5?

[steve_earwig]

Come on guys, I spent 2 years as the storeman for all the telephone exchanges in Northern London, use your imagination

[DiscoPol]

Come on guys, I spent 2 years as the storeman for all the telephone exchanges in Northern London, use your imagination

Argh so now we know why you had to leave the country

[steve_earwig]

Argh? The annoying thing was my brother panicked me into giving almost everything back, I hid a fair bit but he was going on about them finding one pencil (they were like that in the days of the GPO) and my handout/pension going down the tubes. When I gave the van back to my governor he sad "didn't you want to keep anything?" Then again, I'm sure a few of my former governors would have relished the opportunity of saving BT a spot of cash at my expense.

[sirwiggum]

Certainly not worth keeping the Escort van anyway

[steve_earwig]

Oh I dunno, it didn't belong to me 1.8 non-turbo diesel, the trick was to get it up to speed and keep it there, whatever happened. I had it in the air quite a few times (N.B. I was working nights, clear roads, nobody about etc.) but never managed to break it (which I managed to do to every other van I had )

[sirwiggum]

I remember the days of non-turbo diesel driving.

My old ZX 1.9D.

You are right in the trick of keeping the momentum going.

I remember the days of coming off the Forth Road bridge Northbound onto the motorway, there is a dip and a hill, Used to fly down the dip and pray that nothing pulled out in front of me to keep the momentum to get up the hill, otherwise it's inside lane 4th gear 50mph

Rugged old thing, was going to keep it until it died, but it would never die (even with a friend putting petrol in it- in fact it ran better! ). In the end I used the excuse of "boredom" to change it for a Xantia.

Most reliable car I ever owned, a world away from HDis.

[Welly]

*laughs at the Photocopy paper*

I was the proud? driver of 2 brand new Escrote vans in my last job, one non-turbo [read: you aint gonna break me] and a Turbo one (endura engine) the turbo one moved along nicely and was pleasantly quiet (got done for speeding on the M1 @ 96mph and earned myself an SP50)

The biggest problem with the scrotes was the cambelts snapping

[steve_earwig]

*laughs at the Photocopy paper*

I had stacks of the stuff when I was the storeman, I could have built walls out of it. I also had all the laptops for all the engineers in Northern London come through my hands, the most I had at one time was 130. They were supposed to be almost indestructible and cost about a grand each, even though they were dog slow due to all the crappy BT-ware on them. Oh, and they couldn't survive having a van driven over them