If a soldering iron tip becomes oxidised it will appear darker in colour and you may not be able to tin it. If your tip is oxidised you can use a tip activator to remove the oxidisation as it will break down the oxide layer. Once cleaned and refreshed tin the tip again to protect it from oxidisation. Soldering iron tip shapes As the previous posters said some of the lidl parkside tools are from the manufacturer/importer they mention however there are other suppliers for other bits of kit. Most soldering irons have interchangeable tips that have slightly different shapes to allow for different tasks or precision levels.For example, conical tips are used for fine electronics work. Other common tip shapes include:

Parkside Soldering Iron Tip Replacement PLS48 A1 B1 C1 D2

I bought a new TIP122, available from RS, Rapidonline and many others. I paid 57pence from the expensive outlet RS. This cheap fix solved the problem.. It now works again. Upon removal of thold transistor one of the legs fell off literally. i bought a parkside table saw 10" about 2 years ago i use it a lot in my wee workshop and its a great bit of kit i have a lot of tools made by parkside and are all great, i think they are every bit as good as my other tools with makes such as bosch,hitachi,worx,makita,panasonic.... Soldering iron tips transfer heat from a soldering iron into solder so that it melts and can flow into the joint between two components or workpieces. They’re also sometimes referred to as ‘bits’. To protect your soldering iron tips, you should tin your tip before and after soldering to create a protective layer between the air and the soldering iron tip. Tinning prevents oxidisation and allows for a more efficient heat transfer. Optimal operating temperaturePutting your soldering tips through excessive temperatures will shorten their lifespan. The temperature of the tip will decrease as the soldering iron is used more. There is the temptation to increase the idle temperature to compensate for this temperature drop – but don’t as this will shorten the life of the soldering iron tip. If you aren’t actively using your soldering iron think about turning it off or setting it to a low ‘idle’ temperature to maximise tip life. How do you clean a soldering iron?

Parkside Soldering tip for battery soldering iron PLKA 3.6 A2

To keep your tip in perfect condition you should aim to clean before, during and after use. Before you solder, ensure that you have cleaned the surfaces which are to be soldered with an alcohol wipe. The company that supplies them to Lidl is Kompernaß but this doesn't answer your question about who makes them. Presumably, they are made in factories in China which also make products with well-known brand names. If they share designs or components with the major brands I suppose those major tool companies take all kinds of measures to make sure we can't find those things out.To clean your tips, use either brass wool (less abrasive) or stainless steel wool (more abrasive). Try to avoid using a sponge as doing so rapidly cycles the tip through a hot and cold cycle. Doing this repeatedly will cause metal fatigue and tip failure. Once you have cleaned the tip ensure that you cover the tip with fresh solder so as to present oxidisation. Using flux