Soldering and Hot Air Station

[limadelta26]

You can find activated carbon at lots of places - even pet shops. If you build something like that you don't actually need a sponge, you can just pack it in a pipe with cloth holding it in place. Another option is cooker hoods have activated carbon filters, as well as some cars for cabin filters.

That said, I would just get something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Extractor-Ab...ering-Fan-Extraction-Prevention/dp/B099ZN8TRJ

@HK-Kid @P1000 is spot on with this.

The amazon link he shared can be easily DIY'ed with cheap, easy to find parts at pet stores and most hardware stores as well. The main thing to keep in mind is getting the fumes away from your work station and then either dump it into the carbon or just out the window.

Again, overall ventilation is a must, so fresh air coming in from the door of the room and then out the window with some form of fan in the room to circulate the air will do the trick to get you set up and going while you sort out the filtration system.

 

[limadelta26]

@HK-Kid check this out bud.

Going through xmods for a purchase of some controllers and such and saw this. Pricing is not too bad either (Shipping fee is R150 though so do take that into account)

Soldering & Consumables

xmods.co.za

 

[ThatGuyJD]

Hi Carbies.

Hope everyone is well.

My son has showed great interest in electronics and robotics in high school and would now like to get himself a soldering and hot air station.

I'm not too clued up and would like to get something decent that he can learn with but also won't break the bank.

I have put up a wanted advertisement, but some advice on what to buy and where to buy from would also be great if I don't get anything on the forum.

Thanks

I know this comes a little late but bare with me.

Now for simple through hole single or dual sided boards you could essentially use a hair drier and and some metal scrap you picked up on the side of the road. (Jokes, please don't try this) but you really can get away with using the cheapest tools you can find, just match tip size to the size of the parts you're expecting the kid to be soldering, and hot air isn't really necessary.

The new pencil style irons are amazing for anything short of heavy multi-layer boards, works good on laptop motherboards but do struggle on high power GPU motherboards and PS5/Xbox Series X. There are a couple different standard designs for them; Pine64 ones are good quality but more expensive, Miniware has the TS100/101 which are good and decent pricing and then there are the Sequre ones like the SQ-D60 which are cheap but have worse build quality.
Their tips are replaceable, you pull the whole "cartridge" out and replace as they have the heating element in the tip closer to the point that you're working with which has the bonus of much better heat transfer but at an increased cost.

Hot air won't be required unless he wants to do SMD stuff and even then learning with the Iron isn't wrong because there are times when using the hot air isn't the best idea do to other components around what you're trying to solder/desolder.
The cheap hot air stations are blower in handle and are fine-ish if it's just to learn with but the non blower in handle stations are far superior, just not sure what the price difference in SA is.

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF LEADED SOLDER. It is going to be your friend. Unleaded melts at higher temps, is harder to work with and is more prone to failure/cold joins.