RE: Shop Tips - Pen Solder Feeder Hack

4ringfan — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 02:29:47 GMT

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.

RE: Shop Tips - Pen Solder Feeder Hack

jw0752 — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 06:23:37 GMT

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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[View:/resized-image/__size/620x465/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bec77137-f9a0-401f-ad48-c247aed6dfe5/8540.contentimage_5F00_179386.jpg:620:465]

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x465/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bec77137-f9a0-401f-ad48-c247aed6dfe5/7144.contentimage_5F00_179387.jpg:620:465]

John

RE: Shop Tips - Pen Solder Feeder Hack

DAB — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:46:07 GMT

I like it.

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

DAB

RE: Shop Tips - Pen Solder Feeder Hack

jw0752 — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:31:30 GMT

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