I finally found some time to finish the soldering station and it works really well(er)!
Power Supply
As said in part 1, I used an old computer power supply. I removed it from the original case to adapt it to the GSS05.
To separate the PCB of the power supply, and to make it fit within the width of the GSS05, an adapter plate was made from acrylate.
Milling
Milling was done with a small machine from my brother. The y-direction was limited to 5cm, so we had to relocate the aluminium multiple times.
Electronics
The final step is to integrate the electronics into the new power supply housing. First, the display, button and connectors of the front plate are installed. I also wired the ground of the display to the aluminium front plate. Somehow the display would reset if I touched the front plate without this connection. The code for the Arduino is on Github.
Finally, everything is assembled:
Finished
With the addition of the top cover, the soldering station is finished! And it works great. Unfortunately I lost the photo’s of the cable assembly, but its basically a microphone cable.
Soldering iron stand
There is still one thing missing however: A place to put the iron when not soldering but while its still hot. The station is also able to go into a standby mode. The soldering iron itself is grounded. The black connector is connected to one of the Arduino inputs. If ground is connected to this input, the firmware detects standby mode.
The soldering iron stand I made is of a different class. It is completely hacked together from items I had laying around. I found an old webcam which has no Linux drivers and the clamping mechanism is perfect for holding a soldering iron. The guts were removed and I could put a screw through the camera hole to attach it to a piece of wood. I also glued a piece of wire to it, which can be connected to the soldering station for standby detection.
For the tip cleaner, I found a bottle cap which I also screwed to the piece of wood to put it under an angle. With some rubbers underneath the wood, the iron stand works excellent, although it does not look so nice. The angle of the iron stand can even be adjusted!
That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll make a nicer stand in the future, but for now this works fine.
Hi Bart,
I like this idea of having everything in one box (power supply and electronics)
Well done with re-using PC power supply. It totally easy to get those for reasonable money or find them laying around 🙂
If I may suggest something regarding the stand… I’m sure it fits the purpose but maybe it’s a good ideal to use one of those cheap chinese stands like that one: http://www.dx.com/p/pro-skit-sn-002-steel-clarinet-soldering-stand-black-silver-193152#.Vt8_3PnhCM8
It looks cool and has metal chassis so standby mode would be super easy to be done.
Great stuff! I like it.
I’ve considered those type of stands, but they are too big for the small tip. Also I don’t want the tip to touch the steel holder, because I’m afraid it will damage the tip. With the current solution, the audio plug makes contact with a thin wire for standby-detection, so the tip does not touch anything.
That seems to be reasonable 🙂
Few days ago I have received PCB’s and yesterday I started working with soldering SMD’s.
I will be updating grapiniakdiy.wordpress.com in appropriate section.
Cheers,
Marek
It’s quite beautiful,… Elegant and sophisticated. The “Soldering Station” graphic is cool and retro against the clean stainless steel shell. Hats off sir.