.............. Who would I be to deprive any child of that enriching experience?

True. A little inhaled resin is not a bad thing, but the fear, that a little resin will hurt you, is a bad thing. I think we are trying to over protect our children far too much. Failure teaches far more character than the illusion of a success. Participation awards should be outlawed.

 

Funny. I've never had problems soldering. But I've laughed at college graduates who can't.

 

Kinda been scratching my head on it and rolling the concept around for a few years now. Mostly it would be for doing larger soldering work rather than surface mount but still with the work I do I can see where having a power feed soldering gun would be handy.

Especially so now that I see rosin core solder comes in sizes down to .031" without costing a fortune any more.

I know a few people who do plumbing work that think a small torch with a solder power feed on it would be handy too for those hard to reach pipe jobs.

I got a motorized pump vacuum solder gun on my aouye rework station that looks like a good start. Looks a lot like a mig tip. But it would probably start melting the solder 2" before it reached the tip, bad deal. I guess it would need to be induction melted right at the tip, and instantly cool when power is removed.

 

I would add that my personality is 95% the result of having inhaled soldering fumes for the past 50 years. Who would I be to deprive any child of that enriching experience?

In a previous job, we explored the medical issues with solder smoke (rosin fumes) and found such a small number of people With issues that the project was abandon. Either there is enough smoke in a room from 10 to 100s of work stations that is is worth installing a ventilation system. Or, it is not and it is not an issue. Most companies (and hobbies to even) don't solder in small closed rooms so there is also no problem. There are obviously a few of use who do solder in small closed rooms - but most of us would not give it up.

It seems to me that they are after the juvenile hobbyist market if On the safety side, are you going to buy your 12-year-old a $120 soldering iron so they don't risk a burn as they solder a single kit together? Then have it sit in the basement until the next generation has a wild hair and wants to build something.

I am sure someone will ask, why do you think it is for kids? Here is the OP's justification of the project.

?..
To address some of your thoughts,

• Blah, Blah, Blah ...but if there is a way to make it easier for parents and grandparents to protect their children, then we feel it's something worth exploring.
• Blah, Blah, Blah
  
• Blah, Blah, Blah

Blah, Blah, Blah

If they manage to get a thermostatically controlled with MIG feed for under $120, I would be amused but still not buy one. I just don't see the accuracy possible with solder feed and without overheating the component by the time you one-handedly hold the tip on the component and push the feed trigger just the right amount.

Finally, don't think they should be asking us to do a survey on a 3rd party site without full disclosure of the results. If he wants to do a survey, he should use the survey feature of the site. If he doesn't want to use this site's survey, I would consider this thread to be spam.

 

Only use good equipment, only hold the cool end, and only use good solder. The end - what do I win? No need to reinvent the wheel. Really - I have a 5 year old at home... I don't worry to much about her and the soldering iron. I figure that when she's curious I will let her use it with me by her side and I'll explain to her one side is too hot to touch. If she still grabs it then Darwin wins again. I worry much more about her safety when I have high voltage in the basement which is surprisingly often.

What I really don't care for is someone coming here with a sales pitch disguised as 'survey'

That's the way we learn, You only catch a dropped soldering iron once unless you're a moron or a masochist!

 

Finally, don't think they should be asking us to do a survey on a 3rd party site without full disclosure of the results. If he wants to do a survey, he should use the survey feature of the site. If he doesn't want to use this site's survey, I would consider this thread to be spam.

Just do what I do and fill it all out with contradictory and nonsensical answers.

 

Personally I would like a soldering gun with a solder power feed so I don't have to hold the gun with one hand and the solder with the other hand try and clamp something down in some odd position so that I can get both the gun and the solder into a specific hard to reach spot.

Yup, like a hot glue gun. But I'd add to that a reverse operation, so that I could desolder with the same tip. Kind of like a reversible drill with a rocker switch to choose the direction of solder flow.

 

Thanks again to everyone for chipping in their thoughts!

• atferrari - At this point, we're not publicizing the prototype because it's not ready to be shown to the public. Having worked on this project as our engineering capstone project, much of our efforts were focused on designing and building the current prototype without a lot of opportunity to consult users outside campus. Many of features will be changed, in design and performance, if not removed entirely; other features may be added. This survey advises our design decisions moving forwards.
  
• InspectorGadget - We didn't mean to be patronizing and condescending, so we apologize if we came off that way! We don't expect our product to be the be-all and end-all of soldering, but hopefully we can develop something that folks find useful. We appreciate the caution flag you guys are raising when it comes to the risks we're facing as a startup.
• tcmtech - Cool thought with the solder power feed! It's definitely a solutions that solves the problem of sometimes need a third hand with some projects.
• GopherT - Out of curiosity, could you give a bit of detail as to how you explored the medical issues from rosin fumes? We've seen some descriptions of studies online, but it'd be great to get some info from someone who's actually been through it. Market-wise, the juvenile market is one of the ones we're considering; this survey is also being used in-part to help us lock in on which market to best develop our iron for. We weren't aware that this site has a survey feature. We only saw the polling tool. Is there a separate survey feature? We're using Google Forms since it helps aggregate the data and responses for us. Great point about the disclosure of results! We should have mentioned this in the survey and we're sorry for missing it, but if anyone would like to get a copy of the results, just send us an email to info@solderotter.com. You'll receive a copy of the results, minus personal information and comments submitted.

 

I took the survey - it's only about 5-10 minutes. Recalling the days when I was a kid starting in electronics, I had very little money to spend, and a soldering device was a low priority. Fortunately, my father already had an iron. There was such a thing as a battery-powered soldering iron at the time, but that was way out of reach, would have taken me a year to earn it. For harvesting components from junk piles behind TV repair shops, I would either cut or unscrew assemblies, then unsolder at home. If I had to solder or unsolder outside, I used a 4" lens to melt the solder with the sun. For mass harvesting of DIP IC's, I would heat the back of the board with a propane torch, then pull the chips off with a homemade puller.

Sorry for the long story, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that as a beginning maker, cost was paramount.

 

• GopherT - Out of curiosity, could you give a bit of detail as to how you explored the medical issues from rosin fumes? We've seen some descriptions of studies online, but it'd be great to get some info from someone who's actually been through it.

I work in the chemical industry and my job is to find chemical solutions to engineering problems. I looked into alternative materials for solder pastes, fluxes and rosins. I concluded they the existing materials worked well and there were not enough people willing to pay more to justify any research or set up manufacturing and market a new product.

It seems that most OSHA-recordable injuries and exposure to metals when soldering is in the plumbing and automotive (radiator) and refrigeration repair area. The type and severity of issues associated with electronics was not worth perusing. From what I remember, almost no metallic emissions were associated with soldering pencils (mostly associated with high temperatures (red hot) soldering guns and torches.

For the rosin, there is a small number of people who become sensitized to rosin fumes after a long time of exposure to the fumes (the treatment is to stay away from rosin fumes). As I said above. Companies with a big staff of people soldering have a vent system. For DIYers, it looks bad to inhale the smoke but most people can handle it pretty well. In all the years of soldering pencils, there are very few reports of health incidents - and lots of people soldering in their non-ventilated basements. I know, I read the Material Safety Datasheets and, yes, the warnings are worse than the bite.

 

Roderick - Thanks for the personal story, that was some resourceful recycling you did when you were younger. We'll definitely keep in mind that cost is paramount for beginners.

Gopher T - Thank you too for the detail in regard to the health and safety studies you conducted. Your experience is very valuable to us. We'll do some more thorough digging ourselves through what documentation OSHA might have available.

To Everyone Else - We'll be closing the survey tonight, thank you again for all your input. We'll be using it to guide the decisions we make moving forwards. If you have any input, please feel free to keep commenting, we'll stay engaged!