A buck-fifty soldering iron tip-cleaning sponge versus one that cost thirty cents

I’m still using the same cellulose tip-cleaning sponge included as an accessory with my Hakko FX-888D but I’ve been soldering more frequently in recent months and anticipate doing even more in the near future. When is it time to replace one of these sponges? Mine seems A-OK at the moment but, come to think of it, I’m not sure what a bad one would look like. I moisten the sponge with distilled water before setting to work and often give it several sequential rinses and squeeze-outs when I’ve finished, to get rid of small beads of solder and rosin flux residue, and it seems just as usable now as ever.

Nevertheless, in mid-August, when I placed an order with the local Hakko office for a FA-400 smoke absorber to suck up soldering fumes, I went ahead and put in for four replacement sponges (see photo below).

Hong Kong’s Hakko office forewarned me that fulfillment of my order would take over a month, with the items likely arriving in late September, and so they did. In the meantime, on Taobao, I saw a seller offering “factory direct” sponges for the FX888D for the equivalent of about thirty cents a pop and bought a few. They arrived days later but I set them aside until I had new, official Hakko-supplied sponges for comparison. One of each type of sponge is shown in the image that tops this post.

The straight-from-Hakko sponge (on the right) is slightly larger and thicker and a few shades lighter than the “factory direct” sponge (on the left) but otherwise they seem similar. The Hakko sponge was still perceptibly moist when removed from its sealed bag whereas the cheaper sponge arrived bone-dry in a ziplock bag. I repeatedly soaked and squeezed both sponges before taking those snapshots and both of them shed black dye in what seemed, to my eye, similar amounts.

I haven’t yet had cause to try either of them but will update when and if I do and if anything surprising happens as a result.