Solder Fume Fan

At work, there was a couple benchtop solder fume extractors, one that I used and another that sat off to the side. I kinda was a bit annoyed that it used an AC fan which was loud and didn't seem to move much air (even without the filter), so I decided to make it more efficient with a DC fan and add in a light while I was at it.

I grabbed a 120mm case fan with the highest CFM that I could find from the local computer store, since I didn't want to wait for a package in the mail. If I remember correctly, I already had the LED light array on hand, so I didn't have to wait on that at all. I decided to use the extractor that wasn't being used, so I didn't have to deal with the hassle of not having something readily usable if I didn't get all of it done during lunch.

Mounting the fan was a bit weird, since I had to use two of the screws packaged with the fan to mount it to the front grill of the housing and use two of the original screws to mount the front grill to the rear housing. Luckily with the fan I chose, I was able to remove the unneeded corners, even though the original screws fit through the holes just fine (I think?).

The fan screw attaching the fan to the front grill, and the extractor screw holding the grill to the housing.

Mounting the LED array was slightly trickier because of the curved surface, but I found some #4 spacers that were a good length and used that in combination with 4-40 x 1/2" screws and nylon locknuts. I tied the wires to the LED array with the fan at the switch, so when the switch is in the on position, both the fan and the light come on. I was also fortunate enough that the 22 AWG wire that I used for the light fit through nicely between the top of the grill and the housing.

Close-up of the light mounting, the mounting at the top of the fan, unit off, and unit on.

It's hard to describe how bright the LED array is, but it's something you really don't want to look into too often or for too long. It does get warm, but isn't really a concern (or at least I'm hoping not). Anyway, there were some unused 12-volt power supplies at work, and I used one of them for the project, feeding the cord into the housing with a strain relief that we also to happen have.

I don't use the filter, since I don't mind the smell of flux - it's just to pull it away from my face. I stuck with it for a while, but then decided to upgrade it a bit since it wasn't really usable with a vise that I use to hold parts to solder. I eventually found some parts that I was able to use to build new legs to enable it to stand taller so that I could use the vise and the fan. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures before I modified it again.

I then found some other parts that I used to move the solder reel closer so I didn't have to reach across the desk (and have an excess length of solder). I also attached a screw to the lower part of the right leg to kinda trap the brass ball holder so it wouldn't run away from me while I'm stabbing it. Eventually I got some SPST on-off switches, and also added it to it, so that I could turn the light and fan on independently of each other.

Close-up of the added SPST toggle switch, overview of "version 3", close-up of the solder reel mounting, close-up of the brass ball stopper screw, and a close-up with the brass ball holder in place.

I was a bit slow to take pictures because I didn't get a good chance to properly test it (i.e. use it for extended periods) and I was unsure if it was going to stay that way. The other reason for the delay was because of the company move, and so it resided in a box partially disassembled (just enough so that the pieces lay flat.

Eventually I didn't really like the solder reel being on the inside, and so I moved it outside, but then the spool itself became another problem - making it hard to draw solder when necessary (mainly at the seam of the spool). I really liked the openness that I created because I was able to fit the vise however I needed, but didn't want to deal with the awkward draw when I hit that seam. The other thing that got annoying is that the ball holder kept rotating, which eventually made it difficult to stab properly.

I mounted the brass ball holder to an L-bracket and mounted it to the leg, which raises the leg a bit, but there wasn't much of an option otherwise. With the solder reel, I fashioned a couple brackets to hold a shoulder bolt, but found it would be easier to draw the solder if the radius of the bolt was larger. At first, I used a couple plastic spacers which I thought would be fine, but the solder would either work its way between the spacers or between the spacer and the bracket, so I had to look for something taller. I think I also had a problem where the bolt wasn't tall enough as well.

Anyway, after getting a taller shoulder bolt and finding a couple metal spacers, it worked well, but I was then presented with yet another problem When I pull too much solder and push it away from the workspace, it'd fall of the side of the bracket and get caught on the bracket edges. I grabbed a smaller shoulder bolt to remedy this, but had to disassemble the brackets a bit to grind enough of one of the brackets away to allow for the nylon locknut to sit flat against the other bracket. I found it worked decently to keep the solder from going over the edge, and went with it.

Close-up of the brass ball holder and bracket, close-up of the solder reel section, right side of the solder reel section, and the overview of it all.

While using it recently with the vise, I found that the solder went over the short shoulder bolt on a few occasions. I first went for the same shoulder bolt that I used, but then realised that I probably wouldn't have space for the nylon locknut because of the screw and nylon locknut that holds the two brackets together. I found a screw that was definitely long enough, but was kinda weary with the threads.

I took the screw back with me and found that if I added a jam nut, it might give me the space I need to raise it to the same height as the shoulder bolt. It didn't, so I went back for another jam nut and found it was just slightly taller, which I was fine with, until I realized at the fastener cubby that I could just use one nylon locknut instead. The next problem was the remainder of the bracket that was ground down some. The nylon locknut would might have barely fit, but I didn't want to take it all apart and try to carefully grind it down to the bare minimum, so I opted for a spacer instead.

It took a few minutes, but I found one that was perfect (albeit taller than necessary, but it didn't matter), so I removed the leg and the solder reel and went to bore out the hole to fit the screw that I found. I ran into another problem, but it was from partially rushing to finish the modification quickly. The drill I used is the exact same size as the screw I had, which means the screw very tightly fit inside the bored hole. At first I thought that the drill was the wrong size, but then realised I'm supposed to use a slightly larger drill bit. I walked across the "warehouse" to grab a very slightly larger drill bit, which fixed the problem within seconds.

The new "blocking pin", and the close-up of below the brackets.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to fully test this, as I had just took the above two pictures just a couple days ago, but in theory, it should be just fine. The bottom part of the legs was made from one piece, which was cut into two (with one being slightly longer than the other because I didn't take enough time to measure it). The "top" part of the legs is made with a bracket that is used to hold a switch box at the end of an armrest. The adjustable part of the legs is made from two matching pieces, and is tightened appropriately, so that there is adjustment in two out of three joints.

The knob for the housing is the original part, since it's either a metric or odd-ball screw/nut combo, but luckily, the piece isn't too thick to render it useless.

I also had made a thing that I used to rest the solder on, so it would be easier to pick up, which I originally had to modify because of the reflection of the lighting array, but I no longer needed it after relocating the solder reel. While I used to use the light occasionally at the old location, I now use it a bit more frequently because of how dark the deeper half of my room is (the lighting fixture needs a new ballast).

Anyway, I think that's about all that I'll be doing to it... Unless I actually design, draw, and have parts made for a cleaner version (highly doubtful on the latter).

NTPi

I think posts from here on will be chronological, but I can't give any guarantees.

Anyway, this Raspberry Pi (first generation) was my best friend's and he stuffed it away since it was underwhelming for him (I don't know what he was trying to do with it), so I decided to take it off of his hands to tinker around with. Sometime last year, I decided to turn it into a stratum 1 time server and got it all put together in the latter half of April, with the fine tuning being finished in May.

I started with removing the RCA video and the stereo jacks, since I was going to mount the antenna connection there. I also removed the ribbon cable connector for the camera (marked as S2 on the board), since I didn't need it and it might've been in the way of the GPS breakout board (it might not have, but I didn't want to take chances). I got frustrated with trying to de-solder the parts, so I ended up destroying the jacks to get to make it easier. The ribbon cable connector I ended up using the cutters to break the legs away from the board, almost damaging the capacitor at C1 in the process (I think it made it out alive). I did the work during lunch at work, since work was better equipped (or at least I thought I would've been better off doing it at work).

The newly-modified board in the lower-half of the unmodified case.

Instead of using the SD card protector add-on (that I would've had to buy), I decided to use a micro SD card adaptor that fits entirely within the case, which allows me to make a cover with a flat piece of plastic instead to cover the hole.

View of the micro SD card in the adaptor in the SD card slot of the Raspberry Pi.

I also decided to use some flat-black paint stuff to paint the stems of the light pipes, so that there'd be less bleeding, and once that was dry, I put the case together (without the screws) before setting it aside for the night.

The painted light pipes, holes where the jacks are supposed to be, and the outside view of the adaptor.

I then modified the case by cutting away the plastic between the holes meant for the RCA and stereo jacks to allow for the GPS antenna connector. Drilling an appropriately-sized hole wouldn't have worked well, so it's why I decided against it.

Though it didn't matter, I did spend a small amount of time to make it look decent.

Out of an old project box from Radio Shack (which was for my electronics correspondence course final back in high school, which became the first version of the soundcard switchbox), I cut an appropriately-shaped (and sized) piece to cover the massive hole and to mount the antenna connector to. I also cut a piece of thinner plastic to make up for the extra space.

It was turning out better than I was expecting.

Then, I cut another piece for the SD card slot, using the leftover piece of the panel I cut off of the box (the picture was taken after I cut both pieces from that panel), and also another piece of the thin plastic to fill the remaining space. While I wanted it to be completely flat, I didn't feel like cutting into the box any more than I already had, so I just took the more efficient route instead. The cover is tight enough to where it is fairly difficult to slide, but it wouldn't matter much with the micro USB cable plugged in.

Inside and outside view of the SD slot cover.

Afterwards, I drilled the holes to mount the GPS breakout unit, and the hole for the antenna connector. As you can see, I also cut a hole in the thin plastic (also labelling the orientation so that the hole lines up properly), so that the connector would mount against the thick plastic. I used some wires from motherboard harnesses along with an appropriate plug, which I had to drill a hole to allow it to be plugged into the GPIO header.

The drilled hole, GPS breakout mounted to the case, inside view, and outside views.

I finished it up by securing the antenna connector and testing it out. Eventually I got a hold of some leftover parts from work and redid the wire harness from the GPS to the GPIO so that the wires would be at a right angle from the pins. Unfortunately, the IDC connector that I used was 3-pin (two of them) and not 6-pin, but it didn't matter, since it was going to stay plugged in. While using the crimper, I didn't squeeze/release properly, which misaligns the plug, and ended up smashing the last in the crimp series (red wire). I crimped the connection properly, so it works just fine, but just doesn't look that pretty.

The connectors, close-up of the "bite mark", height of the pins compared to the wire exit, height of the plug compared with the GPIO pins, and the GPS end of the cable with orange wire cut.

Unfortunately, while reassembling the NTPi after taking pictures, I accidentally sandwiched the antenna cable between the spacer and the case, and luckily I caught it before it became a major problem. While it looks bad, I made sure that the cable wasn't shorted, and carefully reattached the GPS unit (the picture above was before disassembly for pictures). I also scraped the solder mask of the GPS a bit when I was using pliers to hold the nut to loosen the screw, but since it was just the ground pad, I wasn't too worried about it.

Top and bottom of where the cable was sandwiched, and the scrape on the GPS.

Well, needless to say, I put the case back together, and got it back up for testing. At some point I put in the coin-cell battery for the RTC before putting the NTPi into service. I played around with the offset amounts some, and at some point just left it alone when I was okay with it.

Inside picture to mimic a previous image taken, better inside shot, NTPi assembled with screws painted.

While the NTPi isn't at the location where I was planning on having it, I find it actually better than the planned location, since the GPS unit gets quite warm, and the magnetic antenna is able to stick to the metal drywall cover where the window is.

It used to be the time server for all of my computers, but since I've switched to Manjaro, it now just serves the time for my old smartphones (which are being used as clocks). I might modify the NTP config file and start using the NTPi again, but, that's for another time...

The case I used is the Cyntech case for those wondering.