Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Portable Soldering Station!

Adam Savage from Testim here in my cave with a new one-day build and today's one-day build is dedicated to store infrastructure. These are some of my favorite

builds

because I end up living with these

builds

daily, sometimes for years, and when you design something well that works for you, it becomes a pleasure every time you do it and that's what I hope to finish today . There are also several different types of store infrastructure builds that I have never dealt with. that rack over there, which is true, I've never dealt with that rack over there, yeah, it's got to happen someday, so I just got a new piece of gear shop infrastructure which is also something I've done in the past, but today it is a tool that I have been using regularly almost daily for decades and I have seen myself use this tool here in the shop enough to conclude that I think I need a mobile

station

to stay with my

soldering

iron, yes, solder it.

It is a key part of any manufacturer's arsenal and there are many different options for

soldering

irons and I have used them for the last 30 or 40 years. I have used plugins. I have used propane. I have used Weller and Dremel and them. They've all been good, I mean, I particularly like butane soldering pens because they tend to run hotter, they heat up quickly, and in my experience they're pretty reliable for me, but I recently came across my dream soldering iron and it's this puppy my friend Zac Ratting used this when he worked with me putting laser tags on Peter Jackson's WWI planes for wild builds and I was like dude what is that?

And he says it's something new, these welders. They are fantastic, first of all they plug into a standard 12 volt outlet. Here you can use them with a lithium ion battery that has this plug, but I have a preference on that and it has to do with how stores use batteries, like you can buy a lot of them. different types of my own batteries of different form factors and I use them to power things and that's fine. I have a bunch of these, I go to look for the charger and I plug it in and I go to look for the charger and I plug it in it turns into this A whole extra infrastructure that I find a little tedious, so whenever I can I prefer to use the batteries I already have in the workshop.

Batteries for my cordless tools. Like most stores, I have chosen a specific brand for most of my cordless tools. That brand. it's for Walt so I have tons of Dewalt batteries like this big flexible 60 volt mofo and Walt makes an aftermarket clip for these they make a aftermarket clip that allows you to charge your phone through two USB ports that's pretty great, but there is an aftermarket Dewalt clip you can also buy, which in addition to the two USB ports has a 12 volt port, so insert this into your battery, place your soldering iron in its turn, on the soldering iron, it starts to heat up immediately to the maximum temperature you What I have to do is adjustable, it heats up pretty quickly and to be honest I think this is my favorite sensitivity form factor.

Everything I have experienced for a welder. I am ecstatic about this thing and have been using it. recently and monitoring, like I said, monitoring my usage patterns. I guess I don't need this to warm up, but I've been monitoring my usage patterns and I think I now have the right design for a

portable

soldering

station

in my head. That allows me quick access to a welder and all the things I might need with that welder that is today's build. The first is the first. With a design like this, I'm going to put together all the things I plan to have on my stuttering laptop. station and then I'll figure out how to attach it to my

portable

soldering station.

Here's what I've learned about my soldering iron inclinations. 1 I need help, i.e. those 2 alligator clips on movable arms to hold your parts. Mutual Guidance We covered this years ago in the test when I showed off my electronics cart. I found these great helping hands from China. I'm going to reuse the ones here. I had built those helping hands into my electronics cart with the idea that I like to try to start wherever I need to solder. I discovered that I am NOT interested in doing that. I tried to do it. I just find it gets in my way.

What I really need is a portable soldering station that I can literally pick up and drop on my workbench so I have helping hands. Two of them made with alligator clips. This is very funny. I know it looks the same, but this is the company's official blocking line. I invented this beautiful rigid ball joint technology. This is an off brand bee brand, not as good a version of it, so I'm going to change this to this. I will have wire strippers like these. I will have a torch which is for tightening the heat shrink tubing, the solder of course, the electrical tape, the soldering iron, a soldering iron station which is what holds the pen and the steel wool to clean the tip, the connector of the battery, a battery again, these batteries are just going to be taken off my battery line when they're charged and put in when I need them and some heat shrink tubing.

I have found that most of the wiring I do is narrow gauge wire, so I will only have a small complement of this size of heat shrink tubing. my kit I just don't need all the versatility if I need other things it's there and the wire nuts are basically small mechanical connectors for a wire that you can make a connection without soldering. This is just my preference. I love these little ones. I use them all the time. I probably use about 50 a month. Honestly, I can never keep them in stock, so I'll have a little drawer in here with probably a hundred of these at any given time.

Those are all the things I have. It has to fit into a small form factor that doesn't have to be small, but one of my other requirements is that I don't want it to take up so much space on my table every time I have an electronics project on my table. it gets covered in all this junk so I want a small size which I think means a tall device. I think this device will probably have a surface area of ​​five square inches, but it will be tall and the idea is that it will have a low center of gravity so it is stable but has a narrow footprint so it doesn't take up too much space on the workbench and everything. this fits vertically and now it's time to figure out exactly how this all fits into a five inch piece of furniture per five inch vertical package I would love this as a piece of steel at the base of this but I don't think I have such a thing to be honest.

No, I don't think I have one oh well. I mean, as long as you use the large battery, it provides its own significant amount of weight. I have a couple of these flexes and used them for different things. Yeah, okay, I'm going to operate under the assumption that the battery is the lowest on this. Okay, so I can see that this is a complex problem to solve as there are a lot of moving parts, so I'll start with the base and battery connector. I'm going to continue from there, so I'm going to break down my yeah, yeah, once we get that figured out, we'll start to grow from there to make sure we can sustain everything.

I'm aiming for maybe no more than 18 inches tall to keep all things in orientation, yes. Let's get started, okay, that's the good thing. Oh, more good stuff, good stuff, good stuff, bad stuff, good stuff, good stuff, okay, let's take a moment here to talk about plywood, it's a particular topic of mine. I love plywood. Plywood is amazing, but not all plywood is made equal. So if you went to a random lumber yard and said "give me your give me a great finished ply," they might hand you a piece like this that has really beautifully finished surfaces.

This is a beautiful piece of plywood from both sides from the end. it also leaves me with something, you can see it's, uh, it's, I know this looks like a lot of layers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven layers, in my experience, this plywood, which is often sold As a high-end finish coat, it has very little cohesive strength in its gluing infrastructure and there are a lot of gaps, for example, like there was a complete void that appeared while I was cutting it. A note to be cautious if placing a piece of plywood like this in your laser cutter.

The gaps can fill with hot gases and set your laser cutter on fire. I've seen it happen if you want high end void las plywood, use something like this arctic birch, put a lot more layers on it and I'll actually show you a close up view. above and if you want to see some really atrocious things like another example that it's shit times five, that it's semi-disguised shit, this is the good thing, it's the excellent filling of the sandwich and it's glued together so there are no gaps, so There are no places where they are hot.

Gases can build up during laser cutting. I'm not going to laser cut any part of this, so it won't show up, but in general, since I love plywood, I tend to like the good stuff, this here, this is a luan, this is a single core layer. sheaves in two nice layers and again, this 8 inch luan looks great on both sides and can be fine for finishing certain things, you never have to put mechanical pressure on it or anything, but from the end you can see it has this great fat. soft middle layer and two thin veneers on each side and this thing I'm trying to tear off, there we go, it just doesn't have the same tensile strength as other airplane layers I've collected, even these five layers that are a quarter inch thick thickness is much better, how was that?

For a quick two minute rant about my feelings on plywood, you're welcome, it starts with the base, so I'll have that. I think I'm going to try to put this together, oh. that's what I do, I put it like this because always yes, I'll mount it on the ground, so I put it like this and then a soldering iron can plug into the side here, all right, so what's that form factor? yeah, five inches, okay. I'm going to start cutting some pieces to size here and start assembling. I'm going to break out the glue and my nail gun.

I like that, so this would be that was the diameter of that, right, yeah. I'll do it right, happy with it, happy with it, you have a certain amount to get out of the way, okay, so these guys lived there, okay, these guys come here, so they don't have to do it, it should be oneechan, they'll be able to do it . If they live like this here and I have a second one who is here now I am getting somewhere little by little I keep digging holes until I get what I need they are wrong about this maybe I want them here because if they are here and I am taking this out, yes, I think that I want them here, okay, great, that will be a separate thing and it will be its own sink.

Okay, so I can undo that, wow, now I can be aware that I'm using a lot of crazy glue on this thing. I'm using a lot of cyanoacrylate glue, but that's not for holding it down, that's not the end of it, it's to keep everything in orientation until I can use wood screws and make it all go together. right, just FYI, okay, it's time to do some assembly, some assembly required, here it comes, I'm going to apply some glue and yeah, okay, that's pretty good, we're doing it pretty good, here goes, this guy flashes really good, my handles in the way. of methane well hells bells margaret we have a form factor that works we just aren't tall enough i mean crazy handles i know fluff that floor okay let's see here yeah i gotta trim it again , okay, I'm getting happier with the second one, this is great, puffs like that, so okay, now we're in the home stretch.

I'm going to put my little decorations there. Rubber feet you brought him. Will we try it while the soldering iron heats up? We'll take a piece of wire, we have two pieces of wire and we want to join them together, so we twist the ends, bring them closer to each other using helping hands, that's good, it holds its own weight, oh, these are good, put them together. that's not a pretty joint I know it's not a pretty joint this is just a proven concept it's not about my soldering skills stop yelling at the screen that I'm terrible at soldering I know this however I'm very satisfied with my soldering ability I'm so impatient I have to build my portable welding machine.

I have one more thing that I don't know where it goes, which is the heat shrink, but that's as reasonable a place to generate flow as any other. Oh, it's really important. note about these aftermarket Dewalt 12 volt adapters, if you leave the battery inside for about three days, it will drain it to such an extreme degree that it won't be able to charge, so don't leave the battery in the battery holder, no make fun of the happy fun. Ball, this has been a one day build and I'm very happy to see you next time.