Comments on: Home made solder pot

By: damir

damir — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:13:54 +0000

You can use anything you want, it is important that material is insulator and that it can withstand high temperature. What do you have on mind?

By: mike ruch

mike ruch — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:11:55 +0000

to you have to use ceramic insulators or can you use something else

By: Raj

Raj — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:06:49 +0000

Thanks for it.
Itz a very good idea to have something like this in Electronics lab. But one idea I would like to add here is, for this kind of Solder pot we have to control the temperature of the heater by a temperature control circuit. I thus like Steve to fit a circuit which controls the temp. of the heater..
If you make such arragements, kindly send it to my email id

By: Roly

Roly — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:06:38 +0000

@stinkymonkey and @misha are right. Once lead (or anything) is liquid some starts vapourising into the air (and your lungs). I have been known to strip motherboards with a gas torch – outside, when there is a good wind blowing and I’m upwind of the work. But then I’m an old bloke and it’s not as much risk to my development as it is to a child.

Lead, mercury, cadmium, lithium &c are all common in electronics and all are toxic if injested, and easy to injest if you’re careless. They should not be underestimated.

I’ve seen people poison themselves by careless heating of metals, plastics, and solvents, and it ain’t pretty. There is no reason why we can’t have fun *and* play safe.

@urd – “One can purchase asbestos plates”

Asbestos? How about something cheap, effective, and non-toxic like bolting it to a *sand* tray?

By: damir (author of article)

damir (author of article) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:20:52 +0000

tnx for info, I did not know that.
But probably temp. of my solder (cca 300C) is too low for thermal stress effect.
Once i try on purpose to spill a little solder in water plate, nothing terrible is happened.
Solder cools down in one second with sound of boiling water.

By: URD

URD — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:58:11 +0000

I work in the electrical distribution field and splice lead-sheathed cable (650 PILC) on a daily basis, so a much grander scale (50lb pot of 1500 degree glowing bright orange poured with ladles)).Water is probably the worst thing in the world to have around molten solder, as a molecule of water expands 30x when it comes in contact with molten solder due to the effects of thermal stress. If we drop a pot of solder into a manhole with water present, it’s over. Granted, the solder in the article probably gets nowhere near our temp, but it will probably still shoot up at you if hit with water. One can purchase asbestos plates on which to set solder, although this seems risky indoors.

By: damir (author of article)

damir (author of article) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:36:10 +0000

wow, all comments are about low security of device, and I must agree with all of you.
Pictures and video are taken in early stage of development and testing, and I have written these article more to show the principle of device.
To comfort all of you later the pot is mounted on heavy metal plate (about 6 kg, diameter cca 40cm) that just can not be flipped over, so spilling hot solder is impossible. Even it is possible to fill the plate with water to cool down the solder instantly if it is spilled, but I never used these and there is no need.

I will take some pictures of finished soldering pot and put them on my site when I catch some time.

By: jim slipper

jim slipper — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:41:35 +0000

fuckin idiot has this shit on a notepad..

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:23:38 +0000

I wonder if a $20 hot plate would get hot enough to melt solder. It not, maybe I could use a camping stove.

By: comonsence

comonsence — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:28:50 +0000

the idea behind this is a good idea … maybe insted of bashing the hacker and the hack why not use this as a springboard and make your own that would work better … kinda like a v#.# duh … hell id use something like that thanks guys

By: conundrum

conundrum — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:16:24 +0000

or make your own variant using the correct ratio of bismuth, indium and tin, melts at 57C.

works almost as well but the flux they include makes it flow better; more handy for removing multi-legged DILs from old pcbs.

By: natrix

natrix — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:55:30 +0000

i can think of a much better way to do that. ever hear of chip quik?

By: spiffed

spiffed — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:42:31 +0000

Mouser and Digikey both sell them. Stanley sells them in cases.
You can of course also just melt down a pile of wire solder, but the consistency can be off.

They’re literally called “solder bars”

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:38:00 +0000

I’m not going to try this but seriously, where do you find big chunks of solder like that?

By: vic

vic — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:32:39 +0000

If you’re worried about lead fumes, just use lead free solder. Another issue is that solder will dissolve other metals like copper, I wonder how steel will resist.