Power drill solder spooler

posted May 21st 2010 8:00am by
filed under: tool hacks

[Scott] over at curiousinventor.com has posted an instructable detailing how to use an Arduino and a power drill to spool solder. The Arduino senses the speed that the drill is going via an opto interrupter and a laser and adjusts with a servo hooked to the trigger. While we don’t think many people will be dying to spool some solder, this system might be useful for all kinds of things, like winding yarn or making coils.

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21 Responses to Power drill solder spooler

  • AlanKilian says:
    May 21, 2010 at 8:49 am

    That’s really nice.

    Well crafted and an excellent example of a
    working control system.

    Reply Report comment
  • Cmboyl02 says:
    May 21, 2010 at 9:02 am

    Very cool!

    Reply Report comment
  • fermicirrus supperdish says:
    May 21, 2010 at 9:29 am

    while the servo to turn the drill switch on is fun to watch, why not just use a relay?

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  • Alex says:
    May 21, 2010 at 9:54 am

    fermicirrus supperdish:

    RTFA? He needs to be able to control the speed.

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  • bigbob says:
    May 21, 2010 at 10:00 am

    The servo allows speed control rather than fully on or fully off.

    Is it just me or does this guy sound exactly like Jim from “The Office”?

    Reply Report comment
  • Ziegler says:
    May 21, 2010 at 10:00 am

    @fermi… ‘simple’ speed control?

    All… why is he re-spooling solder? (He probably said why… I just missed it.)

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  • peter says:
    May 21, 2010 at 10:02 am

    alex:
    i would’ve used a bunch of stacked op amps… but that’s just me :) well made, good project :P

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  • zerth says:
    May 21, 2010 at 10:50 am

    It seems to spool better/smoother at the higher speed. The slow spool looked a little uneven, not that it matters much for solder.

    Reply Report comment
  • keenox says:
    May 21, 2010 at 11:25 am

    nice! and it actually works better at higher speed.

    Reply Report comment
  • bogdanfirst says:
    May 21, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    It’s nicely made, but why would you need to re-spool solder?
    You could use it to spool inductors for home made audio filters, but i find it rather imprecise…

    Reply Report comment
  • Wes says:
    May 21, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    Thats awesome

    Reply Report comment
  • Alexander says:
    May 21, 2010 at 2:44 pm

    @Ziegler: He is making some smaller spools from a much larger spool. My guess is he wants to have a bunch of 1/4lb spools from like a 10 or 20lb spool.

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  • M4CGYV3R says:
    May 21, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    Pardon my confusion, but doesn’t solder come on a spool?

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    • Caleb Kraft says:
      May 21, 2010 at 3:42 pm

      @why re-spool it?
      You can see that the big spool is, in fact, big. That probably wouldn’t be very convenient to actually use. Smaller spools can be popped in a pocket/ toolbox and much easier to use. Doesn’t seem like that odd of an action to me. I don’t solder enough to need to buy in bulk though.

      also, curiousinventor.com has a store in which smaller quantities of solder are sold.

      Reply Report comment
  • Daniel says:
    May 21, 2010 at 4:10 pm

    Using an arduino for something like this is a bit overkill… I’m being nice now. I really would like to express myself a bit stronger… :)

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  • Ziegler says:
    May 21, 2010 at 4:40 pm

    Caleb… think you answered it with the last sentence.

    Reply Report comment
  • tyco says:
    May 21, 2010 at 5:01 pm

    I wouldn’t be surprised if this was driven by a hackerspace of some kind doing a group buy of a large solder spool, and then breaking it up so it’s actually usable by the group.

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  • Mitch says:
    May 22, 2010 at 12:42 am

    I’m willing to bet the guy has an electronic class or sorts, so it is cheaper for him to purchase the 10/20lb rolls, and make tiny ones for students, rather than purchasing the tiny rolls.

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  • Lucassiglo21 says:
    May 22, 2010 at 5:35 am

    very nice device!, very useful

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  • Pete says:
    May 22, 2010 at 9:15 am

    I buy solder that comes on spools. I buy them in all different gauges too. It works out pretty well. And when one is used up, I buy a new one.

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  • Per Jensen says:
    May 22, 2010 at 10:39 am

    LASER ? Where’s the frickin’ LASER ? – Am i missing something, Hackaday ? Now you got me all happy, writing “Laser” and then it’s just a big scam :-)

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