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Help designing a button?
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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You can't do a lot of things with other irons like you can with a 900 tip, especially with 3d printing. There are hundreds of specialties. Like I have tips for ribbon cables, a Xacto blade holder, common heatset inserts installation tools, but also the specialty threaded removal tools from McMaster. That is in addition to all of my specialty soldering tips.
I've been tempted in the past to go to a faster heating setup for my rework station, probably a T12, but instead I made my own circuit boards for mine. I have the old digital soldering station from RadioShack. It is a 900 series clone from Atten that uses a 2 wire element with the thermocouple in series with the element. I mase circuit boards that offset the element to contact one side of the tip and adjusted it to extend closer to the end of the tip bore. I also modified my station to have dual irons so that I do not need to change tips often, I just swap irons with a switch.
I think a case for a different setup can be made for soldering, but for 3d printing, there is no replacement for the number of options available for crafting extras and heatset inserts options. Like I wouldn't do iterative designs with heatset inserts in many cases if I had no ability to remove them.
Totally fair, on the tip side I'll totally admit I've modified some to fit in my older Weller station I use as a dedicated heatset iron, it has heater cartridge that's semicircular so the tips run the length of the iron. That said, I mainly do through hole and connector soldering, I'm not doing a lot of precision work, pretty much grabbed it because I was familiar with the iron and knew that it'd be comfortable for me. Think I use my heatset iron the most out of anything tbf, got me thinking about tools to recover inserts, that'd be super nice to have.
I just got lucky with the RadioShack unit having been the most convenient option and a 900 series iron. I got into electronics long before 3d printing. The hot knife attachment mixed with Xacto blades has some uses and the attachment is nice for a way to add a longer threaded stud for other custom stuff.
In a pinch, it might be possible to add a single threaded turn to a sharp conical tip, especially if you can find the cheapest copper ones without the hard plating. Before I learned about the 900 series tips from McMaster, I had a couple of conicals that I used a die to cut a single thread into. That thread is enough to save the insert, but the ones from McMaster make the task more precise in a press jig that can pull too. There is a decent chance of getting an insert out methodically and saving a larger print with the threaded removal tips, you'll just need a larger diameter insert if you can get the old one out cleanly.