Life hack: how to solder small parts with a soldering iron with a thick tip

Surely everyone has had a situation in their life when it was necessary to solder a thin wire that had fallen off, or to replace a very small SMD component by soldering, but only a regular soldering iron was at hand. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to make small soldering with a thick tip. But here a trick can come to the rescue - a life hack: how to make a mini tip for a regular soldering iron, which is just suitable for such things.

Will need

• Copper wire (single-core insulated wire) 1-1.5 mm in diameter.
  
• Wire cutters.
  
• Pliers.
  
• File.
  
• Sharp knife.
  
• And of course the soldering iron itself has a thick tip.

We modify the soldering iron tip for soldering small parts

We take a thick single-core copper wire and bite off the required length of about 10 cm. Using a knife, remove the insulation from the copper core. If you use wire, do not forget to remove the varnish coating with a knife or annealing.

We take our soldering iron and wind the wire tightly onto the tip. To ensure the best heat transfer, it would be good to first clean the tip from carbon deposits. Fine sandpaper is perfect for this.

Bend the rear end with pliers.

And we align the front one - this will be the new tip for the soldering iron.

We bite off the desired length. You should not leave a very long end - it will not warm up, and it will not be convenient to solder.

Using a file, we give the desired shape to the new tip. In general, we grind it down at a bevel.

Now turn on the soldering iron and heat it up. We tin the new tip as usual using tin and rosin, the procedure is not tricky.

Now it will not be difficult for you to solder any SMD components or other small connections.

If you did everything correctly, the spiral should fit well and not wobble when soldering.

Watch the video