Giant Soldering Iron Teaching Aid

I made this giant soldering iron, PCB and solder as a teaching aid to help demonstrate soldering techniques to electronics students. It resembles the Hakko FX-600.

Attach the “hot part” of the soldering iron to the handle with M5 screws (you’ll need to tap the existing 4.4 mm holes.) or 5 mm self-tapping screws. The holes are 25 mm deep. I used M5 x 20 screws.

The “hole plating” diameter is 0.2 mm less than the PCB hole diameter. This resulted in a light press fit for me which worked well. You may need to adjust the hole plating model scaling or wrap scotch tape if too loose.

To hide the bottom of the thru hole, I colored the hole bottom black with a marker. You can alternatively use the thru hole bottom plate printed in black.

My parameters:
0.20 ~ 0.30 mm layer height
2 perimeters
Cubic infill at 15%
Tree supports for “soldering iron hot part”
Filament: PLA