Soldering Iron Inquiries

[thedirestrat]

Hello everyone, 

I've been getting started on some mods, so that means I'm using my brand new soldering iron I got for Christmas! This is my first "real" soldering iron? The one I had before was just some random 20 dollar thing I got near me, it worked but as crutch-- not for long term use, it's already kind of dead... Anyways, I never really payed attention to how I used it, but with my new one I'm trying to do it right. 

This is the soldering iron I have:

The "Weller WLC100 40-Watt Soldering Station"

It doesn't say what temperature it gets, so that's too bad, but I got a Temp gun, so I can check.

So the weird stuff I saw:

I tried pre-tinning the solder iron tip but it just got a weird matte brown colour. Flux just made it weird, basically did nothing.
I tried using it after to undo a solder joint, but it took kind of long, not efficient at all.

I think it was not hot enough, but I gave it some time to heat up and I put the knob at the max "heat" or temperature. Am I doing something wrong, or is my iron defective? I have no idea, thank you guys!

[thedirestrat]

Oh yeah I also replaced the tip with a pointy one, I don't know if that has anything to do with anything.

[b4nj0]

I may be guilty of making assumptions here but it sounds like you're putting flux on the tip? In my world you "tin" the tip with solder, and the flux is intended for the job in hand?

でつ e&oe ...

[thedirestrat]

Thank you so much! I honestly regret making this thread... I used my soldering iron today and it worked fine! Still got to get the hang of it, but I am confident now. What I did, is I pre-tinned it. But properly this time. Iron off, I put a slight film of flux on the soldering tip, then I wrapped solder on it, turned the iron on, and it's tinned! Nice and shiny, heat flow is awesome. It works, and I am happy! Thank you for your kind reply.

[b4nj0]

Showing my ignorance, I have soldered guitars and electronics for about 45 years now, and it's only in the last two years that I've discovered how much easier it becomes with a little flux. I guess I've always used rosin cored solder so it seemed superfluous. Onwards and upwards huh?

でつ e&oe ...

[thedirestrat]

Flux helps so much! And you know that nasty brown stuff that could occur? I thought that was because of my crappy soldering and I burned something, but no that's just flux! Flux from the solder! You can take it out fairly easily with a cotton swab and isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. Everything becomes shiny