Geoffs SMD Dual USB Soldering Iron Holder - Mk3

thingiverse

I've recently started using Surface Mount Device components, as affordable, professional-grade Printed Circuit Board assemblies are now widely available. I personally use easyEDA, with its free online Schematic and PCB design tools and low-cost PCB manufacturing capabilities. I found soldering to be relatively straightforward using my normal iron and a tiny tip, but de-soldering is quite challenging for small resistors and capacitors, as both sides need to be heated simultaneously. The hot-air rework tool tends to get nearby components too hot in my opinion. I searched Thingiverse and discovered minipimmer's "3D-printed SMD soldering tweezers" at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1934731, but I found the soldering irons kept falling out. So, here is my version, which has worked well for unsoldering a few small SMD resistors and capacitors. It's also very easy to remove an iron for single-soldering iron jobs - I prefer using these over my temperature-controlled Hakko because these $7 USB irons heat up many times faster, which is not particularly useful for large soldering projects, of course. I have included my SCAD source code, so you can modify it for different printers or irons.