Diy Soldering Station

I came up with this idea because the soldering stand my iron came with wasnt very sturdy and i have seen cool soldering stations for sale but I thought why not just make one, so I did.
I hope you enjoy

Step 1: What You Need

- A decent sized piece of scrap metal
- A sponge
- Dremmle or rotary tool

optional
- A mini fan- I got this out of a computer power supply
- soldering iron w/ solder
- Hot glue gun
- A battery clip
- An on/off switch

Step 2: Bending and Cutting the Metal

You are going to want to take your piece of scrap metal and bend it to about a 50-60 degrees and cut a circular groove into the edge of the scrap metal

Step 3: Connecting and Soldering the Electronics

Connect the positive terminal of the battery clip to the negative terminal of the fan, then connect the positive terminal of the fan to the negative terminal of the on/off switch, and connect the positive terminal of the switch to the the negative lead or the battery. Now you can make it permanent by soldering all the pieces together



The schematic might give you a visual and help you better understand the circuit

Step 4: Gluing It All Together

Now you can hot glue all the components onto the piece of metal as shown in the picture 
With the sponge  you can cut ti down to size so it fits
to make a place for your switch you can use your rotary tool to cut a hole in the metal

The reason I put the fan on this project is to extract the fumes of the solder

Step 5: Finishing Up

Now you can clean up the edges by sanding them down and you can whip away all the excess glue and your finnished

if you liked this project you can checkout some of my other projects
feel free to comment and subscribe to my channel
THANKS!

Comments

[Teletwanger]

Don't lean the soldering iron facing down with the tip on the sponge. Somebody said to soak the sponge...don't do that. The sponge should only be slightly damp. For a dry sponge you only need maybe one or two beer bottle caps of water to dampen it. If you soak it and wipe the tip across it will completely cool off the tip and you'll have to wait for it to heat up again. With a damp sponge just very lightly wipe the tip across it, followed immediately with some fresh solder to protect the tip from oxidizing.
You could make a soldering base or stand out of a working computer power supply modified for use as a bench supply. Mount a heavy steel spring on the side for a rest, with a fan behind that to suck the fumes away from your work area and it's powered by the power supply. The supply would be capable of several voltages to use on your bench.
Great idea for a project. Cheers!

[Luigi Pizzolito]

Cool!
Good job

[c-face]

Not bad! I made my first one out of an old amp and some plumber's tape. This doesn't look as getto as mine does!

[maxsim86]

good idea to be try

[agis68]

ok this not a soldering station is soldering base.Soldering station is more complicated (with temperature adjusters). Also its recommended to put the iron on a heatsing post. Without heatsing don't leave it for long time you will loose it!....put anykind of heatsing available (solinoid) for soldering irons. something like that

[Root Serv]

I think the fan is nice. anything that keeps the fumes away from you is a good thing... I used to do a lot of soldering where I worked and I had to put a fan lightly blowing on my work to keep the fumes from coming up my nose. :)

[pfred2]

What do you do with the fumes you extract? I never thought of trying to extract soldering iron fumes myself. Mostly because I can't think of much I'd do with iron fumes.

[Nick-Smith-513]

im extracting the fumes because they are somewhat toxic

[lean04]

you could add an activated carbon sponge filter

[Nick-Smith-513]

well if you put a Kleenex over the exhaust of the fan it will catch most of the fumes and you can just dispose of the Kleenex when you are done

[kingzilla]

I think upgrading to a section of cut furnace filter might work a bit better. The particles from the fumes are in the 0.1 to 0.5 micron range. A filter with a MERV of 16 or MPR of 1000 should cover that.

The fumes you get are from burning the rosin core flux, but according to wikipedia "Prolonged exposure to rosin fumes released during soldering can cause occupational asthma (formerly called colophony disease[10] in this context) in sensitive individuals, although it is not known which component of the fumes causes the problem"

So blowing them away from you is a good thing to do, but a filter might properly trap them.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg249.pdf <--- health risks due to solder fumes

[andreyeurope]

Don't use synthetic sponge because if the soldering iron is hot it will melt the sponge.
It's recommended to use a cellulosic sponge soaked with water.

[Nick-Smith-513]

ya i shouldn't have put that on there i found that out the hard way

[astral_mage]

would've used velcro to secure the pad down. like the hook side only there 4. u wont have use the glue gun

[Nick-Smith-513]

ya i guess i could have done that thanks

[spyder2021]

love the use of the battery for the fan. makes the stand portable

[Nick-Smith-513]

Thaks