Status: done
Aim and motivation
This project was born after I had a conversation with a student about the toxic fumes that are released when soldering electronic components.
I always was under the impression that „it can’t be that bad, right?“ until I googled it and saw multiple sources describing the toxic effects it can have on the lungs.
Well, a couple hours of 3D designing, printing and soldering later, I got myself my own solder fume extractor.
The goal was to make it battery powered, rechargeable and also write a build guide, so that my students (or you?) can build one of their own.
You can find the guide including the electronic schematic in the download section.
Materials and tools
I used a 18650 battery I got out of a battery pack of an old power drill that broke. It gets charged by a standard TP4056 USB-C charging module and it’s voltage gets boosted to 12V using a mini step up converter.
The 18650 powers a standard 120mm PC fan that I salvaged from an old mining rig. It pulls the air through an activated charcoal filter mat.
My personal highlight is the magnetic lid that covers all the electronic parts in the base. It’s the first time I used magnets for this kind of use case and I like it a lot.
Pitfalls and outlook
As always with Li-Ion batteries be careful when soldering, if you short one it can get hot in the blink of an eye!
The fan is sucking the air through the filter quite ok, I suspect it could go a lot faster though. I think the problem is the limited current the boost converter can provide.
I tried to make a mount for the TP4056 module and I think the last iteration got pretty rad. The bad thing was, that I printed 6 bases before I got it right. But hey, I learned a lot designing those prototypes!
If you want to build your own, you can find the print profile as well as the STL files on makerworld!
Happy tinkering!