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  • Author Author: 4ringfan
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Shop Tips - Pen Solder Feeder Hack

4ringfan

First off, I will preface that this was NOT my idea, but I felt compelled to post it because I thought that all of the people on E14 who solder could find it handy and useful.  I saw it pop up on an Instructables feed that I get very regularly.  If you do not follow the instructables site, I strongly recommend it.  Lots of crazy good ideas.  The link to the initial article is HERE it was written by ptkrf.

 

This project really caught my eye because it reminded me so much of the simple, albeit super functional, shop ideas that my old man comes up with all of the time.  Thus I decided to preface this blog with his conventional "Shop Tips" title.

 

The basic idea of this project is to use a Pentel Side FX Mechanical Pencil to mechanically feed solder.  You remove the eraser section of the back of the pencil and use an appropriate sized mechanical pencil for the diameter of the solder that you are using.

 

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Improvements on the design included methods to hold a supply of solder at the end of the device:

The first one used a paint can spray tip that was bored out and fitted to the back of the pencil to allow solder to flow through and a tube of solder was taped to the back of the pencil.

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The next one is the image that really made me think of my dad and his creative ideas.  They used a sewing bobbin and some bent copper wire to hold a "spool" of solder.

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A simple one handed conveniently sized solder feeder! Awesome! Man, everytime I say "Awesome", I think that I sound like Australian DAVE!

  • Meh.  I tried a Papermate .5mm pencil with .5mm solder and the advance rate was terrible.  There were sometimes where it did not seem to be advancing at all.  Might need to try the Pentel brand of pencil if I can find one, otherwise this is idea is kind of a bust.

     

    Sorry.

  • in reply to jw0752

    I have yet to build one (time, I never seem to have enough of it), but I suspect, even though the original designer stated it would work for various solder sizes, that it probably only works sufficiently with smaller diameter solder like .5mm.  The original model that was pictured was using .5mm and .5mm solder would obviously bend easier offering less resistance.

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    I'm not sure if the chucking mechanisms are different between the different sizes, but when I saw it, I was curious if the amount of advance per click was going to be fast enough to keep up with soldering.  It sounds like it most definitely is not.  If the advancement of the solder is not sufficient with the mechanism, and you have to use two hands to pull the solder out then I don't see any advantage to this device at all because it would be hardly different at all when compared to just holding a tube of solder and pulling some out of the end.  The only advantage of the pencil fed system then is that the solder coming out of the pencil is straight and held rigidly.  I think the tube fed solder will push back into the tube slightly and not always be straight.

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    We could get really crazy with this and have a foot controlled electronic solder feeder where the motor section pushes the solder up a tube where the end piece is a pencil shaped holder, but that again defeats our purpose of something simple and convenient, not bulky and cumbersome.

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    Mike

  • Hi Mike,

    I attempted to make a functional solder pencil today and this is what I found. I used a pencil designed for 0.7 mm lead and my solder was 0.8mm. After resizing the feed mechanism and the tip which must provide a little back pressure to make the feed mechanism work, I was able to get the pen to feed solder. Unfortunately the rate of feed was about 2 mm per push. Not letting the low feed rate stop me I continued to make a supply reel and mounted it to the back of the pencil. The reel was very easy to turn with the only significant resistance being the force needed to straighten the solder as it unrolled from the spool. Unfortunately this resistance from the spool was enough to keep the feed mechanism from working. The pen did provide a very nice feeling platform to hold the solder. I found the best way to advance the solder was to push the button and pull out the length of solder I wanted. Perhaps if the feeder mechanism had metal teeth instead of plastic and had a longer stroke it would work as advertised. The pencils were however designed to handle graphite using a plastic chuck and a short stroke on a pencil lead is desirable. Here are my pictures of the prototype. As I mentioned it will still probably be useful where holding the solder steady is critical and the solder is easy to feed by pushing the button and pulling the solder out the front.

     

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    John

  • I like it.

     

    Time to dig into my pencil stash to see if one will work with my solder.

     

    DAB

  • Thanks for the pointing out this good idea by ptkrf , Mike. I am also glad that you used the Shop Tips header as this should be a heading that everyone feels free to use to post ideas about shop operations.

    John