Mike's Solder Smoke Suckers

This began as a plan to make something useful out of scrapped parts that serves a useful purpose.  I work in a shop that mandates the use of no clean solder flux which is very irritating on the mucus membranes, and there is a need to keep this smoke away from you.  Scrapped computer fans do this very efficiently.  I then built a motley set of very scrappy looking Solder Smoke Suckers.  But then after building a dozen fans I ran out of scrapped components, and had to source parts.  This is when I went to the surplus electronics store, and bought surplus components to build the Solder Smoke Suckers.

Now rather that relying on what I could scavenge out of the scrap bins, I could specify parts, and literally design a product.  These look much better than the early Smoke Suckers on blocks of wood.  This also let me redesign in a way that minimized the foot print, and noise.  I chose a ball bearing fan that is extremely quiet.  The base has been reduced to a piece of Aluminum sheeting with silicone rubber feet.  The speed control potentiometer also has a power switch now, and I added a nice blue LED for the power on indicator.  I can build one of these with surplus components for less than $20.

Tanner Electronics also had some nice chrome plated fan screens that look cool.  I picked the right size stainless steel hardware, and nylon insert lock nuts to hold the mechanical pieces together.  If I was to source the parts to build these fans with new parts they would still probably less than $40.  Eventually I will run out of surplus parts, and have to build them from new parts.  I've been sourcing new parts, and building the bill of materials to build a new Solder Smoke Sucker, which eventually I'll offer for sale here.

Maybe eventually this will be my little hobby thing that turned into a business...