Or, how I learned to love the ohm.
Ohm, .. ohm. get it? its an electrical joke.. see.. never mind.
Yes folks, you too can make your own Cold Heat soldering iron!
Why spend $19.95 of your own hard earned money when you can make your own from the junk you have laying around. As a bonus, the unit you make will most likely be far more powerful than the commercially produced toy and much cheaper to maintain.
I have always been a "why buy it when you could build it" kind of person. I had seen the ads for the Cold Heat product for some time, but never really considered getting one until someone started asking about Christmas gifts (Thanks Matt). I looked up some reviews, and became fascinated in the "how".
We are playing with electricity and heat here. Please take all necessary precautions and be careful. I won't take responsibility for the scorch marks on the cat. Again.
If you're not interested in the science behind all this and just want to get to the meat, skip to step 4.
**NOTE** Many people have had ideas and recommendations (go figure). I'm going to treat this as an open project. I'll be positing improvements and failures at the end or the instructable. Check frame 10 for further developments. Now, back to the story..
Ohm, .. ohm. get it? its an electrical joke.. see.. never mind.
Yes folks, you too can make your own Cold Heat soldering iron!
Why spend $19.95 of your own hard earned money when you can make your own from the junk you have laying around. As a bonus, the unit you make will most likely be far more powerful than the commercially produced toy and much cheaper to maintain.
I have always been a "why buy it when you could build it" kind of person. I had seen the ads for the Cold Heat product for some time, but never really considered getting one until someone started asking about Christmas gifts (Thanks Matt). I looked up some reviews, and became fascinated in the "how".
We are playing with electricity and heat here. Please take all necessary precautions and be careful. I won't take responsibility for the scorch marks on the cat. Again.
If you're not interested in the science behind all this and just want to get to the meat, skip to step 4.
**NOTE** Many people have had ideas and recommendations (go figure). I'm going to treat this as an open project. I'll be positing improvements and failures at the end or the instructable. Check frame 10 for further developments. Now, back to the story..
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Traditional soldering irons use a heated metal tip to melt solder into electrical joints. This concept works great, but it can have some drawbacks. If the iron is too large or powerful, it can easily overheat the joint and destroy the board or components being soldered.
Its also somewhat dangerous to have a chunk of metal sitting around at a flaming 250-400+ degrees. People can burn themselves, and sometimes others, like that one time in my basement. And once in the garage. And maybe a few times in the attic. Not that anyone can prove anything.
The science behind the Cold Heat concept for soldering is not magic. Its not alien technology. Its not even that mysterious. The scientific principles behind the tool have been used in everything from light bulbs to space heaters to building cars. It's all about the resistance.
Viva la resistance!!
Its also somewhat dangerous to have a chunk of metal sitting around at a flaming 250-400+ degrees. People can burn themselves, and sometimes others, like that one time in my basement. And once in the garage. And maybe a few times in the attic. Not that anyone can prove anything.
The science behind the Cold Heat concept for soldering is not magic. Its not alien technology. Its not even that mysterious. The scientific principles behind the tool have been used in everything from light bulbs to space heaters to building cars. It's all about the resistance.
Viva la resistance!!
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That is what I am interested in doing.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-battery-powered-soldering-iron/
First YOu will need soldering gun.
1. Pencil lead from a standard No 2 wood pencil fits very nicely into female molex connector pins. Makes tip replacement a snap!
2. after taking apart a wood burner/soldering iron, I noticed that they had wrapped the copper coil around a thin tube of mica. you can use this for the insulation between your contacts.
You'll need a casing, 230 VAC male connector with a cable, a 230 to 5 volts transformer, 4 diodes (5V 4A) for a graetz-bridge, a Zener connecting the 5V circuit to the ground for your safety, and a - let's say - 4A fuse also for safety. I assume you know how to build a simple power supply out of this. Then you just connect the output of the circuit to the soldering iron through a switch, push-switch, potentiometer, goldfish, goulash, testicles, whatever you want. The power drawn from the network will approximately equal to power used for work, and no power loss on monitoring and control circuitry will be introduced.
what i did was:
split the two tips into two smaller parts so that i could solder small chip circuits.
it works well but burns the solder leaving it black and non-conductive, im using a Delta Electronics AC adapter for a printer with an output of 30v .83A(too lazy to find a proper adapter) am i using too much current or am i leaving it on there too long?
thanks for the great instructable and any feedback would be great!
Some welders use this method but I cannot remember which type?
You can even get soldering robots: http://www.mta.ch/pages/tbrasage_plateformes_tr300.asp
PCBPolice Electronics Forum - we need some users....please!
PCBPolice Electronics Forum - we need some users....please!
With mains voltages (which are inherently dangerous anyhow) you tend to have ELCBs set at around 15mA - this is considered (along with the 240VAC) to be a ~lethal amount apparently?
PCB Police
My only question is how close can i get the tips before causing an arc? I only ask because I do soldering in some tight places sometimes.
Thanks for the Instructable!
I've been thinking about how to do this more portable like the coldheat for awhile and I think I've figured it out. I'm thinking that a stun gun would be a sufficient power source for this. I would very much like to know if anyone knows if a stun gun gives off a continual charge.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadarite
Got to see lotsa people using dismantled pencils to light illicit cigarettes by sticking them in electric outlets for vending machines, though
(see how gracefully I brought it back on point?)
** it lasts about 50 solders.
Wendy's burgers are the devil. Dave Thomas puts a special chemical in there that make you crave them fortnightly.
Btw, won't the sharp turn-on, turn-off power changes affect the PSU? Can't imagine that's too good for it, but hey, if it survives ok, it's a pretty neat hack!
How about some kind of momentary push button on the handle to make the prongs live, instead of a foot activated thing?
Also, the thin glass slides used for microscopes might be a useful substitute for the plexi / mica; don't know. Not sure how it would do for the heat aspect.
Oh sure, I can shock myself. I can shock myself on a AA battery. I'm exceptionally conductive.
See frame 9. I recommend not using this unit on sensitive electronics for exactly that reason. Fireworks are fun, but they belong on the 4th of July. :)
Thanks for your comments. I would like to respond to a few points.
In frame 9 I also recommend not using this unit on anything that could be damaged by stray current. Thanks for reinforcing this point. This technique should be used only on passive components or non-electronic projects, such as jewelery and what not.
Most conventional soldering units, including the production "Cold Heat" units do not have any active temperature control. Most are regulated through the type of tips being used, or the delicate hand of the owner and practice. That said, many people have tossed around some constructive ideas for temperature control in the comments and I even posted one or two in the last panel. The temperature of this type of unit is actually easier to control due to the quick tip cooling.
If you are looking to do any kind of serious soldering, I would also recommend a temperature controlled station. Something like a nice Weller unit. http://www.action-electronics.com/wewes51.htm.
They do pay for themselves if you do a lot of work. If your just an occasional hobbyist and are not doing any precision work, the standard Radio Shack 15-20w ($15) iron would be sufficient.
- the surface area per volume of thicker leads is lower so they dissipate heat less effectively and so the electrodes should become hotter
- the contact area with the work might not double in size so the power density would theoretically increase
- higher temperatures radiate more energy so doubling the power wouldn't reach double the temperature increase (ie number of ° above room temperature)
All things considered, I would guess you're going to hit somewhere between the original working temperature gain and double the original temperature gain- I'd be very surprised if it fell outside those (admittedly barn-door-size) bounds, but then again I don't think soldering with pencil lead and a power supply is a precise science :PPersonally I would be tempted to use regular writing pencil size leads (around 1-1.5mm?) and possibly sharpen the points to reduce fragility, make detail work easier and keep the heat on the work piece, not the electrodes.
Thumbs up! Great idea.. I'll try to get some.
I had also considered cutting a regular #2 pencil in half and hooking the leads up.
For the graphite spacer I have loads of dud Tubes or Electron Valves kicking around which all contain nice Mica spacers.
Great Instructable, well done