Buying whole new accessories for your soldering station can burn your pocket. But, how about setting up your own amazing accessories for a fraction of the money? From our collection of DIYs, we bring to you six amazing guides that will turn your soldering station into a super tool! Happy making!
Atithya Amaresh
1. Solder Fumes Remover
During soldering, lead fumes are generated, which are toxic. The flux used for soldering also emits fumes, which again are highly toxic if inhaled in excess. So it is always better to remove these toxic fumes from the working area. The circuit described here removes these toxic fumes from the area automatically, when required, using a small exhaust fan.
2. Soldering Iron Temperature Controller
Here is a simple circuit to control the temperature of a soldering iron. It is especially useful if the soldering iron is to be kept on for long since you can control the heat dissipation from the iron. When a soldering iron is switched on, the iron takes time to reach the solder’s melting point. Simply connect this circuit to the soldering iron as shown in the figure and the iron reaches the solder’s melting point quickly.
3. Automatic Soldering Iron Switch
Quite often, we forget to turn off the soldering iron. This results in not only a smoking oxidised iron but also waste of electricity. To solve this problem, here is a circuit that automatically switches off the soldering iron after a predetermined time. The circuit draws no power when it is inactive. The circuit can also be used for controlling the electric iron, kitchen timer or other appliances.
4. Soldering Iron Tip Preserver
Although 60/40 solders melt at about 200°C, the tip temperature of a soldering iron should be about 370°C. This is necessary to make a good joint quickly without the risk of overheating delicate components. One should not hold the tip of the iron to the joint for too long at such high temperature.
5. Simple Soldering Iron Temperature Regulator
This temperature regulator circuit provides manual temperature control of an ordinary 12V AC soldering iron.
6. Inverter for Soldering Iron
This is a simple but inexpensive inverter for using a small soldering iron (25W, 35W, etc) in the absence of mains supply. It uses eight transistors and a few resistors and capacitors.
The author is a senior correspondent and marketing support lead at EFY.
