Tag: soldering iron

More Maker Tools

As I’m building up the “checklist” page for building a makerspace, I keep remembering additional things that should be added or expanded on.  I ‘d prefer not editing the original blog posts and just adding a new one to address anything I’ve missed.

Honestly, I’m not even sure how I forgot some of these items – except that I was jumping around a lot as I was writing that initial blog post.  How could I forgotten to add a soldering iron?!  No matter.  We’re fixing that.

  1. Soldering Irons

    1. Pen soldering iron. $20+

      1. It’s fine to start with a basic pen soldering iron, just know that you will almost certain dump it as soon as you get your soldering station.  You can get a basic soldering iron at a hardware store, big box retailer, or your favorite DIY electronics company.  However, you have to manage the cord while using it – otherwise the weight of the cord will want to pull it off the table / bench / work surface even if you have a iron stand.  My hack to deal with this was to tape the cord to the table, so the weight was borne by the tape and not pulling at the hot iron next to me. If you are going to get a pen style soldering iron, get a good one where you know you can get replacement soldering iron tips.  It was hard to find replacement tips for the crappy soldering irons I had.
      2. If you’ve got just a few things to solder, these are actually fine and will work for many years.  Even the fancy pen soldering irons that have temperature readouts on them take a while to heat up, lose their heat fast, and the ones I’ve had tended to have an inconsistent temperatures.  That said, you can get a lot of soldering done if you go slow, are patient, take care of your soldering iron tips, and just accept some of your soldering will need to be redone.

    2. Soldering iron station.  $75+

      1. I’ve bought probably three crappy to okay soldering pens over the last 20+ years and if I had just bought a single soldering station, I’d probably be ahead.  However, the price, replacement costs, and ease of use aren’t the only considerations.  I’ve never really had a big work space to have a soldering iron station set up until very recently, and if space is a premium for you too, just stick with the soldering irons.  However, if you’ve got the space, these are great.  Weller soldering irons are supposed to be the gold standard and having used them, I can see why.  They heated quickly, transferred heat to the solder quickly, and were just easier to use all around.

    3. Soldering supplies

      1. These all pretty basic and all make sense.  You’ll probably want extra soldering tips.  You’ll definitely need lead-free solder and flux.  You could get along without flush cutters and helping hands, but they’re extremely useful and will make your life easier.

  2. Multimeter.  $20

    1. I bought a basic one from the hardware store years ago and it’s still going strong.  I feed it a new 9v battery every few years and it’s fine.  I can test continuity, voltage, resistance, and that’s about all I do.

  3. Decibel meter.  $20

    1. I wanted to test out some 3D printed whistle designs, so I printed a bunch of different designs, and picked up an inexpensive decibel meter.  I don’t use it very often at all, but it’s come in useful tons of times.

  4. Temperature gun.  $20

    1. I think I originally bought the temperature gun to get a sense of well our HVAC system was working.  But, it’s also fun to just use in a variety of circumstances.  How hot is it outside?  How hot am I?  Or, heck, you can even use it as a laser pointer!

  5. Lathe / CNC Lathe

    1. Lathes are incredibly useful tools – if you know what they are and how to use them.  I only have a general sense of what they can do – and have never used one.  However, if I was building out an ultimate makerspace, I’d probably get one for the shop.  After taking a class on how to use one safely, of course.  They basically operate by holding something in a large chuck and then spinning it so that you can scrape at it to make a useful shape.  If you’re not sure what this is – it’s exactly how you’d imagine a round chair or table leg is formed.  A metal lathe could make screws, custom cylindrical parts, and tools to make more things.
    2. The first time I even heard about a lathe was a long time ago in high school as a friend was telling me about his depression era grandfather who wouldn’t go to the hardware store for small parts – when he could find a small nail, put it in a lathe, drill it out, and make a small metal tube for some repair purpose.  I didn’t really think about them much until I saw Cathal Garvey’s 3D printable microlathe on early Thingiverse back in 2010.  That lead me down the path of learning about the Gingery lathe, how it was part of a toolpath to build a whole metal workshop starting from basically nothing. 1
    3. Since I mentioned it above, a CNC lathe is a late that is connected to a CNC so that you can program it rather than manual operation.

  6. Plastic injection molding

    1. There’s a lot to say about plastic injection molding and I’m probably not the right person to say it.  Usually injection molding generally requires some amount of CNC milling to create the mold or a CNC’ed metal frame / holder for a 3D printed mold.23  I don’t know that an injection molding device is right for a makerspace, because these can be expensive, big, require heat, plastic scraps or pellets, CNC’ed molds, and are only really better than a 3D printed object if you need a lot of a particular small item.  I don’t think I’ll be getting any of these any time soon, but if you had a makerspace and some grants for equipment, I could investing in a smaller model.
Making a Makerspace
  1. Tool Recommendations for Making a Makerspace
  2. Makerspace: Just a few more things for the shopping list
  3. Building a Cardboard Cutter Table With Cardboard
  4. Makerspace Addenda – Homegoods edition
  5. More Maker Tools
  6. 3D Printer Pens for Makerspaces
  1. This reminds me of the Terry Pratchett quote from The Truth on Forrest Higgs’ website. [↩]
  2. If you’re not following The Crafsman Steady Craftin, you’re missing out.  He makes amazing things, shows people how to make amazing things, and the videos are funny and entertaining. [↩]
  3. There’s at least one guy making interesting 3D printed molds for flexible wiggly fishing lures, but these are molds for pouring gooey curing silicone rather than injecting hot plastic that cools into shapes. [↩]

Things I learned while soldering opto-endstops

The opto-endstops marked the very first parts I had to solder for this MakerBot.  Not having soldering anything more complicated than two wires together, this was an adventure and learning experience.  Here’s what I learned today:

  • The 3-pin connectors used for two of the opto-endstops (on the Y-axis stage) are in the Generation 3 MakerBot Electronics Kit (Mostly Assembled) with some of the other connector bits.  I was a little confused about this for a while.
  • It helps to lay out all the little bits in an organized fashion beforehand.
  • Keep a long thin rigid stick handy for bending delicate leads into the circuit board holes.
  • Although I read the RepRap electronics fabrication guide and found it helpful, I still felt a little lost.  I found the most effective way to solder the parts in was to:
    • Get the soldering iron good and hot
    • Put the leads through the holes
    • Bend the leads a little so that they stayed in place
    • Flipped the board over so the leads were sticking up
    • Touched the solder to where I wanted the joint
    • Gently stroked the solder with the soldering iron tip towards the joint
    • This process seemed to create a pretty good joint
  • You’re going to burn a finger at some point, accept it.1
  • This almost goes without saying, but go slowly.
  • Check and double check the orientation and placements.
  • I found it helpful to take a large sheet of aluminum foil and shape it into a tray.  This helped contain the parts I was working on and was a good way to catch the flying leads that I clipped off.
  1. I burned two. [↩]

Opto-Endstops arrived today!

Huzzah!  I have been both excited and a little bit apprehensive about these parts.  I have to admit I was almost relieved that they were accidentally swapped out – forcing me to skip their assembly for a little while.  Now that they’ve arrived I need to actually solder these itty bitty parts.

I have a soldering kit I use about once or twice a year – and never for anything more interesting than connecting two wires.  For some reason I find soldering little bits more intimidating.  With my trusty soldering iron and a steady hand, on to adventure! 1

  1. “Oh, sister Magdelene won’t you fetch the
    Doctor’s flask.
    He is going to need a steady…
    A steady hand”
    Cracker – Take me down to the infirmary [↩]
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