soldering iron question

[pogle]

last week i built my first mod-a battery box-burnt fingers aside,everything went fairly well,but today had a go at a tin mod and could not get the solder to melt,took nearly two hours of deep breaths and walking away to even get two wires attached.it seems the soldering iron just wasn't getting hot enough to melt the solder,tried cleaning the tip,leaving it for time to heat up,but to no avail.
anyone got any suggestions-its one of these-http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/40w-soldering-kit-n72hy-the only thing i can think of is to change the tip,but thats a 45 mile round journey to get a replacement,or have i just bought a piece of cheap and nasty crap
cheers...

 

[robteifi]

What were you trying to solder the wires to? A 40W iron should be good enough for most things except large lumps of metal that conduct the heat away.

 

[Chegs]

Large as in big,heavy or large as in surface areas can be a basted to solder, even a small washer was giving my 100 watt gun a hard time as the heat was just carried away too quickly. Ever noticed how thicker wires tend to melt your fingers before the solder flows?

Sent by lazer from just north of the world's largest nuclear dustbin

 

[pogle]

What were you trying to solder the wires to? A 40W iron should be good enough for most things except large lumps of metal that conduct the heat away.

nothing too heavy,just 0.2 wire to the terminals on a battery holder-about 2mmm by 3mm.even touching the iron directly onto the solder had no effect-maybe its the solder rather than the iron if you reckon 40w should be more than ample for most jobs.do you get dodgy solder ?

 

[robteifi]

That definitely doesn't sound right, the solder wouldn't melt on the iron directly? Was the iron hot - not that I'm suggesting you touch it! Try touching it to a bit of wet kitchen roll, you should get steam off it at least.

 

[pogle]

cheers for the help guys-but it seems i kinda screwed things up myself-didn't know about tinning the tip to stop it oxidizing before using it for the first time

 

[pez]

Did u plug it in first?

 

[pogle]

Did u plug it in first?

yeah i even tried that-still didn't bloody work

 

[Tubbyengineer]

yeah i even tried that-still didn't bloody work

Sounds like you may have Plumbing solder, needs a blowtorch to melt it. Electrical solder should melt the instant you touch it to the iron - unless the iron is faulty...

 

[pez]

Try the fuse in the plug, if not that what he said about plumbing.