Solder Tip Cleaner Soldering Iron Cleaner Solder Sponge and Dense Cleaning Steel Brush in Silicone Holder

A necessity in every workshop with a soldering iron. Works great

I got this as a 'travel sponge' for my pinecil. I'm happy enough with it, for the price and intended use.

Too small with low quality cleaning surfaces...The steel brush bristles have loose strands that come out stuck to the soldering iron tip, the brass wool is more like a twisted, wadded up ball of coper foil, and lastly, the sponge seems to expel water as opposed to absorbing it.It does however work very well as a throwable desk item in moments of frustration. It's soft silicone material provides for a non-marring, damage free point of impact.

Handy cleaning kit.Recommended.

Not large but convenient all in one spot on your bench.

I have nothing bad to say about this solder tip cleaner, except the size. And really, it's the brass wool, and sponge area, that is too small. Well, when I say "too small", I mean for my bench. For my go kit, this is an ok size, but I'd still prefer for it to be a bit bigger. The quality seems to be pretty good. It appears that the brush compartment was glued shut, when it was manufactured, however with some creative bending, I able to get the brush out, without too much hassle (this is very helpful, when you need to clean it).

I like a couple of things about this item. I really like the silicone outer cover itself, it's a convenient size and form factor for cleaning soldering tips for sure, I also like the design overall in having multiple different surfaces to clean on. Price is not amazing at $15, but it's not totally out of line either. What I do not like is the amount, and the coarseness of the "brass wool"... This is very coarse, not really wool at all more just like copper ribbons, and definitely not enough of them, that said, you could replace the brass when it gets worn out, or add some extra/better quality brass to start with if desired, and then you still have a very nice little tip cleaner so, I would say if you like the overall look of this item it may be worth a try. Do be aware that it looks slightly larger than it really is in the pictures, it's not terribly large - but for me that was a pleasant surprise, I didn't want something that would take up a lot of space.

Lately, I've gotten into trying to repair old video game consoles and cartridges, and am studying to learn to build some simple electronic circuits beyond just rigging up LEDs to power. I've got a knock-off copy of a Hakko soldering and hot air station that I break out when I've got hours to spend repairing/tinkering, a small USB powered iron when I have less time or a handful of solder joints to work, and two cordless irons (one small one that has adjustable temperature, the other large and just gets as hot as it can) for those times I just need to reflow a joint or two, or put the finishing touches on a repair.It doesn't matter which piece of equipment I've listed above I use, this little trifecta of an iron tip cleaner is VERY useful!I'm actually going to start off with the one gripe I have with this: it can be small if you use large irons/tips. Using this on my larger cordless iron, which has a medium conical tip, or my Hakko knock-off iron with a wide chisel tip can be a bit tricky since the sponge and brass wool are quite narrow.However, I'm picking at nits here; Since the housing of this cleaner is silicone, it doesn't melt if it's repeatedly stroked by a hot iron tip as one tries to thermally shock the tip or scrub off oxidized solder with the brass wool.My repairs and tinkering take place on a DeWalt collapsible work table these days (it's an excellent motivator to fully clean my mess, and it's ergonomic, but I digress), so space is at a premium. So, in this regard this cleaner's small footprint is actually a good thing. It's easy to grab this along with my iron of choice, dribble a little water onto the sponge, and get to soldering. The silicone helps keep this holder in place too; only really hard and careless swipes with an iron will knock it over.Now, I have never used a cleaner that had a cleaning brush in it; I've always thought the sponge and brass wool ball was all there was; if my iron's tip got heavily oxidized, I would dunk it in flux, wipe with the sponge, and repeat until the tip was sparkly clean (Don't use sandpaper to clean an iron tip, folks!)This is another reason why I shared my equipment at the start of this review; That larger cordless iron I mentioned, the one that gets as hot as it can with no temp adjustment? If I don't keep it's tip tinned with alacrity, it will oxidize heavily in a matter of seconds. I do my best to keep it tinned, but sometimes I just have to put the iron down to use both hands (bumping two components that I'm soldering point-to-point, for example). When that happens, I have to get the tub of flux paste out and dunk the iron's tip a few times to clean it off.BUT, with this cleaner's brush, if I catch it early enough, I can just add a touch of solder to the now oxidized tip, and give it a quick, good scrubbing with this cleaner's brush, and it scrubs the oxidized solder film off enough for me to tin the tip, and the flux within the solder I just tinned the tip with is sufficient to fully clean the tip. This is quicker and easier than getting the flux paste tub out, though I am glad I have that in case one of my irons' tips does get too heavily oxidized.So, based on my experience, I am REALLY happy with this iron tip cleaner and recommend it to anyone wanting a small but useful tip cleaner, regardless of skill level.