Soldering with essential tremor

Try relaxing your grip. While I doubt I've ever taught anyone with your specific condition, the usual problem for people with shaky hands that I have taught soldering is grabbing the iron too hard so it shakes when they do. If you can relax and let the tip rest on the work while you and the back end of the iron shake around, your problem may cease to be a problem. Arranging a place (think a small bridge or shelf over your workpiece) you can rest your hand on while you have the iron in position on the work may also help.

I don't know of any particularly short decent irons, except perhaps the butane powered Portasol, and even that you don't want to grab too close to the tip or you'll get burnt.

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What you are describing might be a "stubby". I haven't seen any recently. You may be more comfortable with a battery powered iron. You can get your fingers up closer to the tip.

Good Luck, Tom

Would having a support to rest your hand on and just manipulating the iron with wrist, thumb and fingers help? Mike

Jameco used to sell a little soldering iron that strapped around your index finger (it was about 4" long, total, protruding perhaps an inch behind the tip of your finger in use). It was popular when SMT soldering first became attractive to hobbyists, but unfortunately they don't seem to sell it anymore. I did a little Googling, and while you can find articles about finger tip soldering irons, in the first few hits I didn't see anyone selling them anymore. But perhaps with a bit more searching...

How about an intermediate pivot sort of support to rest the iron on, between your hand and the work? It could be a small rock or brick, a metal or ceramic rod in a PanaVise, or a mitre-box sort of thing you could make. I don't have tremor and something like that might be useful to me at times... parts keep getting smaller and smaller.

ftp://jjlarkin.lmi.net/BeamLeads.JPG

John

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JF

...and a couple more and you don't care. ;-)

krw wrote On 2010-01-19 02:20:

Just my $.02 worth:

You know those ergonomic cushions used under your mouse wrist? One of those and appropriate number of books or brochures under it, so you get a good working height to have your wrist resting on the cushion while you solder. And then of course, an appropriate soldering iron of short type.

/Teo.

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Remove stupidity to reply.     |

The Metcal ones are pretty short'n'stumpy.

Dave.

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This iron in particular looks like it may come with their base level station?, if not available seperately:

Even comes with three different grips. Doesn't look like much longer than about 1" on the tip?

I've used an older style Metcal with such a short stubby tip, it really does help with the handling and any hand shake.

Dave.

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Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
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I have thought about the same thing a few times when working with really small stuff.

Would it be possible to make some sort of sleeve that goes around (but not touching) the heating element, so that you can grip near the soldering tip?

It would have to be well insulated to protect your fingers, and it would also need to provide adequate ventilation between the element and the sleeve, so that the iron does not overheat (unless your iron is temperature controlled).

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RoRo

I hear you.

I think we need a "waldo" thingee - massive robotic hands that translate the surgeons finger movements into steady sure output.

I want a stick-on suction-cup pantographic thing that I can stick on fine-pitch ICs and land tiny probes on the pins or nearby parts.

John

Suction cups that small? I just fixed my old printer - most the time went to replacing the chip resistor I took off during trouble shooting. I ended up putting it in upside down because my first attempts caused the connection on the chip to come off - probably 1 mm square - suction cup?

For what its worth - one guy on a forum I frequent claims to be building surface mount circuits by tinning the foils, dropping the parts on, then using a hotplate to re flow the solder over the whole board at one go.

s

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Thanks for all your suggestions re: soldering and essential tremor. I am searching for a Metcal dealer in my area. The Metcal irons look short enough to work for my needs.

--FWIW I've got similar problems and what I do is try to hook my little finger around someting solid like a bar clamped near the work; this helps quite a bit. It's sort of like holding two chopsticks..

-- "Steamboat Ed" Haas : To help the helpless Hacking the Trailing Edge! : To comfor the fearful...

---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

and what I do is try to hook my

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I have been like this my entire life, I am 52 years old now but that way in high school electronics:(

The following make it worse, stress, hurrying, pressed for time, havent eaten lately, anyone watching:( the smaller the item the worse it is:(

--Add to that coffee and caffeinated sodas..

-- "Steamboat Ed" Haas : To help the helpless Hacking the Trailing Edge! : To comfor the fearful...

---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---