Portable Solder Station Examples

Morte615

Morte615

Active Member
Hello all,
I am dealing a lot recently with having to take my Solder Station onsite and do soldering in Racks and inside devices instead of on my workbench. I have a pretty good (or ok at least) bench top system so when I'm in my office it's fine but onsite my portable rig is a bit unwieldy.
I've been looking online for ideas on how to build a portable rig that is easy to carry and compact enough to place pretty much anywhere but there really are not any examples.
So what do you have for your onsite solder situations? Do you just grab a bunch of stuff and cart around and spread out as you get there or do you have a pelican or other case that it all fits inside of?

My perfect solution would be something that I can house my Hakko FX888D, solder roll, clamp, third hands, ect in a pelican and take it onsite where I can use it with removing the least amount of items from the case for quick deployment and clean up. Example of what I would like; the base for the Hakko would remain in the case along with the third hands and the solder roll while the iron and it's base would be removable. This way I could also use the pelican as a base while having the cable end (already run in a rack) right next to me.
 
Not sure how mobile you want to be but Ryobi has a cordless soldering iron that dual power. So you could run off battery when you need to, but plug in when you can. Wouldn't be as nice as having the Hakko though. Milwaukee has one also, but it's all once piece. That makes it big and bulky. It also only has one temp setting. On the positive side it heats up in a few seconds and with their XC batteries it will stand straight up, or you can pivot the head to a 45* angle. A lot of times I'll leave the iron sitting stationary and then use both hands to hold the solder and work piece. Using it kind of as a 3rd hand.

www.homedepot.com

RYOBI ONE+ 18V Hybrid Soldering Station (Tool-Only)-P3100 - The Home Depot

RYOBI introduces the 18V ONE+ Hybrid Soldering Station. This soldering station is hybrid meaning you can operate it with any ONE+ battery or by simply plugging it in like a corded tool, giving you unlimited
www.homedepot.com

www.homedepot.com

Milwaukee M12 12-Volt Lithium-Ion Cordless Soldering Iron with Soldering Iron Chisel Tip-2488-20-49-80-0401 - The Home Depot

The M12 Soldering Iron delivers fast application speeds by reaching operational temperature in under 18 seconds and maintaining an optimized temperature throughout the most demanding applications. The
www.homedepot.com
 
Solder max or solder kit? Spent a day in Wisconson fixing gear on show site in a corner with lights focused on me as best possible. Spent a weekend in Nashville on a construction site fixing cove lighting mostly in the dark on scaff with boxes piled up for me to reach. There is solder stations for fixing Soco cable... than those for fixing LED tape +

Obviously, in a case you want a solder station of 50-80w. It needs a place to store the hot tip and way to clean it.
Next most important is lighting for what you are doing! In Solder Max, I have a Juno wash light connected to a Little Lite swivel. This for the wash of light for soldering. And a LED MR-11 Juno also attached to a Little Lite swivel to point to the ceiling or where I'm next working. Solder kit (lite) is mostly for repairing Soco cable back stage without lighting and mostly the kit plus plugs.

Both have a Pana Vise and dual spool of solder 0.05 and 0.035 size normal.

Solder Max has also transformers bannana plug test leads and switches/outlets for 120v/12v/24v in pre-testing what was soldered. This was probably a bad idea in never used and going too far. The lighting on the other hand is constantly used.

Solder Max ++ as a seperate version also had a small bench vise and pipe clamp to hold pipe and is on tour.

Side note, my department guys recently over ruled me on a both cable repair kit and solder station kit in removing the solder station from the cable repair kits also. Instead they agree with the concept of providing solder stations, but it was just too much jammed into one case. More Solder kits TBA in neededed.
 
Unfortunately the local safety team won't let us use butane without having a hot work permit which is too much trouble for what it's worth most of the time.
I would prefer the butane (and a butane torch for heat shrink is so nice instead of the huge guns) as I use it personally whenever I can but those dang safety people in the parks! :) I remember using my butane quite a bit at Cedar Point working on the ride mics, power tower would have been a bitch without it (and was even with it!)

We just recently got a decent bench top unit that has a 0-24vdc power supply and meter built in along with a soldering station, so that took the place on our workbench and the Hakko is now our backup/portable unit.

I really just need to layout everything I need and figure out the best way to make it fit in a pelican, I think I have a spare pelican floating around I might end up using.
And yeah doing pretty good at Universal Orlando right now, in the middle of refresh season so of course lots of small projects scattered throughout the parks.
 
Ugh... we are now (in the last 24 hours) under the same ruling here...

25W electric pencil irons will be the de rigueur here for location repairs.

And I just bought a case of Butane...

Matt, you should hear the noise that Controls is making over this... "EMG, no more heat shrink on Giant Wheel lighting!" I suggested a 200' 10-3 extension cord and an electric heat gun...

Laughter and then the brief glimmer of consideration... :)
 
Ancient Engineer said:
Matt, you should hear the noise that Controls is making over this... "EMG, no more heat shrink on Giant Wheel lighting!" I suggested a 200' 10-3 extension cord and an electric heat gun...

Laughter and then the brief glimmer of consideration... :)
Click to expand...

If you really want to make their day, perhaps you could buy them one or two of these cordless battery-powered heat guns (and the requisite chargers and batteries). High capacity batteries are highly recommended, as you'd probably imagine.
 
I have forwarded your suggestion to the associated departments... some are excited... :)

Actually that is pretty epic. As an ancient person I had no idea.

What's next? 18V board planer?
 
As a mater of fact, there are cordless 18V power (handheld) wood planers available. They, and their corded equivalents, are especially popular among wood boatbuilders, I gather, as it's one of the easiest and quickest tools for fitting wooden hull planking together. I guess if your boards are narrow enough they could be board planers, of a sort, though a stationary planer is undoubtedly preferable for that sort of work.
 
In design of one's portable solder/work station, it would seem more about what you need to do. Granted 10 or 15 years ago I bought a butane iron and it might be fine for 24ga data cable, but certainly wasn't what one would in at least 50 Watt 800 degree solder station will do in power to solder 12 ga. conductors for a Soco cable.

In my case, I have a outlet strip inside the case for a Wagner "little princess" heat gun, to power up the solder station, and it's various transformers, and the solder station's lights. As with extra speific outlets for other stuff including cell phone / computer charging outlets. So one cable to base station in powering up anything.

In addition to that, I wanted to have both pipe holder clamps, ratcheting bench vise and Pana Vise. Plus lots of room for solder suckers, different sizes of solder, flux and a multitude of plugs for the "by the way." Smaller kit had less clamp types but mostly the rest. Figured out what I wanted, than figured out what size Pelecan or R&R size custom case to have made for it.

In your case of having cases to see what fits.... indeed see what fits in getting what you want and arranging the floor plan for what will work. How is that Pana Vise going to fit - mounted to a weighted plate or mounted to the case. To the right of it, the soldering iron holder, to the left of or behind the stand solder spool holder. Some form of power supply to test what's done if not a DMX system decoder to power up the work etc. Lights, more Edison outlets to power up the heat gun - where does it get stored, where do you store extra plugs/cable/heat shrink etc. Of the cases you want to use, one cannot pre-design it for you, you I think have to lay out what trap door storage is needed for some things in jacking up say the vise or stand. In doing a storage under say the vise, what parts less on the table to put into the case to you have else to store and organize. Done this a few times with other solder stations.

Primary goal for me on such solder stations was having a soldering iron in an in general cable repair kit. Less plugs adhesives and tools in the cable repair kit, more about what those on site in needing a quality solder station might be repairing. Don't for instance need me to include a 5-20R duplex receptacle in a cable repair kit if one can get it from a local home center. Room freed up for the solder station amongs less parts. Such kits were more in general and focused on people needing less plugs/receptacles and cable repair materials, and more about someone needing to repair a data or soco or LED tape on-site.

This as opposed to the custom solder stations with lights, power, testing, etc. customized for use you seem to want to do. Base what you want in lining up what you want to include on the case you have and figure out how to make it work. If you will never be doing Soco, or need to clamp a 2" pipe... or stand on a scaffolding and pile up road cases on the platform to work late into the night into ceiling coves... you probably won't need some things for Solder Max case. If you are not back stage in the dark working on fixing LED light pipes the talent will once fixed probably break on purpose that night anyway, you might not need lighting localized to your work. Etc.
 
Ancient Engineer said:
Matt, you should hear the noise that Controls is making over this... "EMG, no more heat shrink on Giant Wheel lighting!" I suggested a 200' 10-3 extension cord and an electric heat gun...

Laughter and then the brief glimmer of consideration... :)
Click to expand...
LOL Send them this I bought one for the same reason. I also grabbed a small solder rework pencil type for it's small size, but it's still corded.

And I looked and saw someone suggested similar already :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Crisp image
Control/Dimming Pathport PWPP Portable DMX Gateway
Replies
13
Views
2K
TimMc
TimMc
TJScalzo
When to Replace Birdcaging Wire Rope?
Replies
11
Views
596
egilson1
egilson1
L
Alobar’s sets the stage for excellence at prestigious St. Louis school with Obsidian
Replies
0
Views
654
Larry Beck
L
Jay Ashworth
X32Rack rentals?
Replies
10
Views
2K
Amiers
Amiers
J
Unison DR12 Control Station Not Working
Replies
7
Views
3K
Malabaristo
M

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back