Industrial Design Student Interview Questions

[industrialdesign]

Hello Everyone,
  I am an Industrial Design student and just started working on a project that is to re-design a soldering iron. I was hoping you guys could enlighten me by answering some questions. I was thinking of designing a good all around DIY, type soldering arm. I was thinking temp. adjustment, so one could solder different materials; small electronics, plastic, and pyrography. I was also thinking it could be beneficial to be able to complete the soldering task with one hand. (thoughts were like a mig welder, hot glue gun, or mechanical pencil). Basically a system to run the solder through the iron. Anyways, if you guys have any other thoughts on what I should consider, I would greatly appreciate it! Below are a few specific questions I was looking to get answered. Thanks!


Soldering Iron Interview

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)
2.   What do you solder and how often?
3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?
4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?
5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)
6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?
7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?
8.   What is your average time duration of usage?
9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?

[c4757p]

1. Well... it's an electronics soldering iron, so a small "pencil"-format iron with a narrow "chisel" tip and variable temperature.
2. Small electronic parts, daily.
3. Only typical material used in electronics - copper, tin/solder, occasionally gold plating. It needs to handle lead-free crap without being digested.
4. It has a metal stand in which it sits, and it stays there all the time.
5. Yes I have - many times - not concerned. I'm pretty used to it by now... my "fucks per minute" increases slightly for a while... but it's already pretty high when I'm assembling/prototyping... that's about it.
6. No.
7. Too light and it's easily knocked about. A bit of extra weight makes it easier to move tiny distances, for SMD work.
8. An hour at a time.
9. Fast heating - not necessarily when powering on, but it needs to be able to warm a ground plane quickly.
10. Huh? Aren't they all "single handed"? Oh, I see. Hmm...... if it were done right. I'm not sure what I'd call "right".

From my perspective, soldering irons are already pretty much perfect.

[Fsck]

autofeed stations already exist http://www.jbctools.com/al-auto-feed-station-product-91.html
 they can be handsfree as well.  http://www.jbctools.com/al-ia-hands-free-soldering-arm-for-al-product-139-category-7-menu-70.html

[Smokey]

The problem with self feeding is that you don't really want to be feeding the solder directly on the tip much. 
I guess it could work for specific cases like it might be possible to get the feed angle right to do a whole ton of dsub pins or 0.1in through home headers in a row.  It would have to be setup for something really consistant and then do a ton of those joints to be useful.  I'm just speculating here..
I agree that there isn't much that really needs improvement.   Just make the base flashier with brighter colors.  It worked for hakko

[dfmischler]

Don't forget that the iron needs to be ESD safe if it is for electronics use..

I sometimes switch tips for different jobs.  A 3.2mm chisel tip moves a lot more heat than a 1.2mm tip.  One size does not really fit all.

If you need to automate something, can you automate cleaning and retinning the iron?  It isn't hard, but it takes both hands and sometimes has to be done pretty often.

The geekier among us would love to know the actual tip temperature in operation, and maybe even log it and offload the data to an external device.

I occasionally sweat copper pipe or even braze with a propane/MAPP torch, but the torch has an equivalent power of over 10 kW so it would be impractical to do that electrically.

[Psi]

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)
Hakko FX888, Aoyue 968, old DSE digital station.
Occasionally i solder onto copper and brass plates.

2.   What do you solder and how often?
I mostly solder copper wires and components onto PCBs.
Pretty much every day.

3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?
Yes, as above i also solder brass

4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?
Yes, i have a work bench, the irons are always setup there and all irons can be turned on with a single switch.

5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)
Safety is always a concern but i don't worry about burns. Burns from soldering irons are usually mild and heal quickly.
The safety issue is setting things on fire and potentially burning the house down.
If the iron was left unattended and something combustible came into contact it could start a fire.

6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?
Not with my hakko and dse irons, but the Aoyue iron had a tube running down the side from the tip (for fume extraction) which make it difficult to hold comfortably.
The fume extraction features was good, it worked well to remove fumes (much better than a typical desktop fume extractor).
It only caused problems because the tube was externally molded to the iron grip which meant the grip wasn't round. If it had been routed internally it would have been perfect.


7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?
Not for me, i find a typical sized iron light enough

8.   What is your average time duration of usage?
I'm probably holding it for ~5 seconds at a time when doing a single joint or ~20 seconds when soldering multiple things at once.

9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
As said above, the vacuum fume extractor tube works really well to get fumes away but MUST be routed inside the iron. That way the grip stays round and easy to hold.
I would add maybe 5 programmable preset buttons, they would be very useful for quickly setting the temps i use often.
For manually setting temp i would prefer a rotary encoder (that would make it easier to have preset buttons as well).

10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?
I assume you mean right and left handed?  na, i don't see that being an issue. The iron should be round and symmetrical so having R an L version isn't needed.


Note:
It would be cool if i could quickly change the tips while still holding the iron.
I'm not sure exactly how this would work but something like..

Press the iron into an empty slot in the tip holder and the current tip disconnects automatically.
Then press the iron onto a new tip in the holder and it clicks on.
You would need to ensure the tip cant come off while soldering and when pressing it against other things.
Maybe use magnets

[AndyC_772]

I quite like your idea of feeding solder down through the tip, but with one important caveat: it's only useful for very small tips, which aren't big enough to hold a drop of solder on their own by surface tension. For soldering the smallest parts, a pointed tip doesn't easily achieve enough heat transfer into the parts being soldered to get them up to melting point, and if there's a solder blob on the iron, it tends to sit round the side of the tip rather than right at the point where it's needed.

If you could come up with a tip like a hypodermic needle, 0.25mm across, and which somehow managed not to clog up or bend all the time, then that would be a potentially useful tool.

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)

Metcal STSS, used for soldering a variety of electronic parts in both SnPb and lead-free

2.   What do you solder and how often?

Occasional lab use, about once a week on average. Typically the components involved are 0603 and SOIC, but occasionally 0.5mm pitch QFP, or much larger power components (DPAK or similar).

3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?

Couldn't care less tbh, everything I'm interested in is copper.

4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?

Out, as in on the bench? Sure, it has a permanent home on top of my bench multimeter.

5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)

Not really. Every engineer gets burnt occasionally, and it really hurts - but we soon learn, and the damage only lasts a few days. I've had a lot more 'ouch' moments from heat being conducted up the wire I'm soldering and into my fingers that way than I ever have from the iron itself.

6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?

We're still talking soldering, right?  Can't say I have, no.

7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?

No. The stiffness of the iron's power cable is much more important; an iron with a flexible silicone cable is much nicer to use than the stiff, plasticky cables attached to some cheap irons.

8.   What is your average time duration of usage?

Anywhere from a minute to an hour. Rarely any longer without a decent break.

9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?

Real-time tip temperature display would be nice, so I can see whether the large component I'm trying to solder is ever likely to get up to temperature or whether I'm wasting my time and need to use a heat gun instead.

10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?

It is single handed. For any jobs fiddly enough that this might be an issue, there's already solder on the tip. My other hand is free to hold the component, usually with tweezers.

[EEVblog]

The geekier among us would love to know the actual tip temperature in operation, and maybe even log it and offload the data to an external device.

I'd love to see a live tip temperature profile plot after each solder joint, captured and displayed when you put the iron back, to see how much thermal capacity the joint sucked out. My JBC iron has a nice graphical display, and tip temp sensing, so it could in theory do that.

[poorchava]

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)
2.   What do you solder and how often?
3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?
4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?
5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)
6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?
7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?
8.   What is your average time duration of usage?
9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?

1: Xytronic LF1600 for all electronics-related soldering (from fine-pitch smd to thick power wires)
2: Mainly smd and small prototyping work. Depends on the job, sometimes an hour a day, sometimes 20hrs straight
3. Copper only
4. If I definitely finished the work (eg. I'm going to sleep) then yes. Otherwise (like 15 minutes to have a coffee or something) no.
5. Burnt myself countless times and I don't care.
6. After a few hours of work obviously I do.
7. Yes. Too heavy iron makes your hands tired much faster
8. anywhere from 1 minute to several hours straight.
9. thinner handle (because I have small palms for a man), thinner cable (sometimes I knock over other stuff on the bench while moving the iron)
10. As in what? I use soldering Iron with one hand. If you mean separate handle for right- and left-handed people... Maybe this could be an idea but then you should also have different sizes for different palm sizes

[G7PSK]

The only thing that I would want is a very high thermal capacity, all the soldering irons that I have used that have temperature control have a low mass in the tip thus giving low thermal storage works fine for small joints but then has to rely on element heating capacity as soon as there is a large heat draw, I want what I know I cant have close temperature control and a tip with a large mass of copper behind it at least 50 grams.

An auto solder feed through the iron would not work as the solder would melt and the flux boil off, I have used tig torches with a wire feed and they are fine on long seams but no good in tight spaces and soldering irons tend to be used in tight spaces so an external feed for solder wire would always be in the way, and yes I have tried cored solder in a mig/mag welder and it just blows all over the place you cant solder by passing the current through the solder. 

What in my opinion would be a real seller is tip change at the touch of a button so that you could have all your tips in a carousel and change tips while the iron is still hot and on with one hand.

[Fsck]

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)
     Metcal STSS and a Hakko 936
2.   What do you solder and how often?
       Basically like everyone else here. Small electronic parts onto PCBs
       just once or twice per week. if I'm busy with other things, not even that.
3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?
      copper, gold, tin, brass, silver : basically like everyone else here, there won't be too much deviation. copper and brass tend to be actual item composition. gold/tin/silver tend to be plating
4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?
      they're always resting in their stand on my bench or somewhere accessible
5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)
      like everyone else, yes. all the time. never from direct contact with the iron's tip. usually a heated part that just hadn't cooled down all the way
6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?
      no
7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?
      no, irons are light
8.   What is your average time duration of usage?
      300-3600s, not sure what the average is. probably around 900s, I tend to get interrupted with other things
9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
      availability of extremely fine tips as well as those with huge thermal inertia, extreme power capacity: say 400W for an average sized handpiece (JBC T245 sized) so you wouldn't need/want a micro handpiece as well as a high power handpiece in addition to the normal one
      I'd kinda like having a fume extractor so I can be lazy, but the extractor nozzle needs to rotate freely around the iron
10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?
     you need to explain this.

also, cheap is a boon.

[BravoV]

.... so one could solder different materials; small electronics, plastic  , and pyrography.

Don't try to design the solder to be a burner/melter for everything, for example on your idea using it at plastic, certain types when in melting state, they are very-very corrosive and will eat your solder tip like there is no tomorrow. Unless you're going to invest at the R&D in a special corrosive proof metal tip which I doubt it.

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)
   Hakko 936, soldering electronics components at normal copper on the pcb

2.   What do you solder and how often?
   Component's leads + Copper + solder (non ROHS) in electronics only, nothing else. Just few times < 10 in a month, I'm just an enthusiast.

3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?
   No and don't plan nor intend to, besides its pointless, sounds lazy and tad stupid if an expensive soldering iron is used to burn/heat/melt other material types that its not designed for. Just use other proper tools like your stove, matches, iron, gas lighter/burner and etc. 

4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?
   Yes and turned off.

5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)
   Yes and burnt accidents (minor ones) are just part of the soldering activities.

6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?
   No, only at the neck on long period say like hours since my bench is not very ergonomical.

7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?
   No

8.   What is your average time duration of usage?
   15 min up to 2 or 3 hours max.

9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
   Not exactly at the iron though, I'm thinking of the solder stand, maybe a very clever design that able to clean + wet the tip evenly and automatically once its placed at stand. This, a free & fresh idea for you. 

10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?
   Such as ? Sometimes I use my mouth to hold the other tool while used the other hand to scratch my itching butt.  C'mon, you should be more detail at this question, or at least what are you up to ?

[nanofrog]

1. Weller WD1 station + WMP & WSP80 irons, and one Stop-n-Go stand (iron temp drops when in the stand, then turns the iron off if not used <temp & time = programmable). WMP is for small SMT, and the WSP80 is for larger SMT & Thru Hole (primary iron).
2. Electronics, typically on weekends.
3. I only use it for electronics.
4. Dedicated bench, so it has a permanent spot.
5. Yes, but namely fire prevention. Burns happen, but not usually from the iron itself (usually from tinning wire or flux splatter).
6. Yes, but not from the iron.
7. No
8. Typically on weekends for an hour or so (take frequent breaks).
9. It's fine as-is.
10. The irons themselves only need one hand to hold. Juggling solder wire and the part itself is where help can be needed, but there are solutions for that already (some very good ones, including DIY).

[qno]

Most important issue is the temperature control loop. Figure out a way to keep the the temperature the temperature set on the display. No matter what. Different sizes of tips is also a must.

[Kryoclasm]

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)
   *Gordax 952 work bench combo hakko style pencil iron with SMD hot air gun.
    *Used to repair electric pcb boards and replace componets.
    *Sometimes to fabricate free form wire connections.
   
2.   What do you solder and how often?
   *Electronic componets, desolder and solddering, minor repairs, wire work.
   *Sopradic.
   
3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?
   *copper, tinned componets.
   
4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?
   *Always on the bench.
   
5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)
   *Yes, cord flipping around and knocking things over, burning iron's cord, overheating  near the finger grip area.
   
6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?
   *Yes, hand cramps, thermal issues.
   
7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?
   *yes.

8.   What is your average time duration of usage?
   *any... 1 minute too hours. kinda sporatic.
   
9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
   *I'd add a flexable silicone wire cover instead of the rubber one.
   *I would add a swivel at the iron to allow the cord to hang free without getting torsion induced into the iron.
   *The ability to disconnect the hot air tube and electric from the base station so it dosent have to stick out at all times when im not using it.
   
10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?
   *limited use due to the fine attention needed for repair work.

[free_electron]

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)
Weller mt1500, wrs3000, hap1, tweezers, wmd80, peritronic
Copper foil using lead/tin/ silver alloys. Sometimes bismuth

2.   What do you solder and how often?
Circuit boards, shielding cans. Daily

3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?
No. This is irellevant. Soldering is the process of joining parts using a second metal. This works with copper , tin and lead. Sometimes aluminum. Other metals need too high temperatures.

4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?
Yes. I want a nice stand

5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)
A few times. But not in the last 20 years. Once in a while you get a drop of hot flux that spatters.

6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?
No. Then again, the wmd , mt1500 and peritronic are very light. I dont use heavy soldering irons

7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?
Yes. I need precise control. Not only weight but also the thickness of the handle , the shape of the handle and the length of the handle and the hot area are important. I dont want handles that are too long , or hot areas that are too long or too short. This may be an area for improvement. Figure out a way to make the hot area telescopic. Sometimes you need to getthe iron ina difficult to reach spot. If the handle could have an outer tube and inner tube you could change the relative distance of the tip from the handle. This may be worth investigating.

8.   What is your average time duration of usage?
A few minutes to the entire day. Depends.

9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
No gimmicks. I dont need blinkenlights, bargraphs, graphicl displays. A means to set its temperature and an indicator it is ready. Make it dial back tempersture when you put it in its stand and go to sleep after a while to save the element and tip. So basically a snesor on the stand. The moment you put it back it goes to a lower temperature. If it is in the stand longer than 15 minutes : sleep. Pick it up and go back to set temperature. Fast thermal cycling is important. Give that sucker some thermal mass and a good heater.

10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?
No. This doesnt work . Especially with fine pitch smd parts.

Take a long hard look at the weller peritronic. It is an oddball amongst all irons out there, but it is damn handy. Since i got mine i use that very frequently. My main iron is still the mt1500

The cartridge system allows fast switching of soldering tips, even when hot. There is no such thing ase one-tip-fits-all. So different tips and easy switching are key.

The peritronic avoids weird hand psotions when dealing with difficult to reach parts. Simply spin the handle and you can get around obstacles without having to reposition your hand , or bend your wrist. You cant always move the piece you are working on , so its either flex the human or flex the iron. That is what the peritronic does. It flexes the iron

[ivan747]

Soldering Iron Interview

1.   What kind of soldering iron do you own? (What are its uses and materials you solder)
Hakko FX-888, an electic-powered soldering station. That means I can change the temperature with a dial. Its use is soldering (of course) and I solder copper with leaded solder wire, 60/40 or 63/37 type. (1mm thickness).



2.   What do you solder and how often?
Its main use is PCB soldering, occasionally, stranded wires. I solder every time I have a project, and the intervals between projects vary a lot.
3.   Can you or do you solder multiple materials with your iron?
My soldering iron is only for soldering metals, melting plastics is a no-no, it ruins my tips, which can cost 7 to 15 dollars. Some people keep cheap, low quality irons just for poking holes in plastic and melting hot glue.
I mostly use it on copper. Some metals are very hard to solder, you need a larger tip and more temperature, but the industry has already solved these problems with either higher powered soldering tools or welders.
4.   Do you leave your iron out once you have completed your work?
No, I instinctively place it in its stand. However, I sometimes forget to turn it off (*hint*).
5.   Is safety a concern while soldering? (Have you burnt yourself)
I haven't have any mayor issues with burning. I don't like the handle of my soldering iron to get too hot, though. Soldering multiple wires can be a safety problem, though. They are very hard to keep in place, you sometimes have to move where the wires are (ex. in a fixed installation), some come combined with more wires as a cable and are therefore heavy. Some are just thick, heavy and hard to flex, some are too tiny to handle easily. Some sort of very very versatile holder would be absolutely fantastic, like the "third hand" thing but much more improved.
6.   Do you feel any stresses or dis-relief in your hand or wrist during operation?
No, tropical heat and back pain caused by bad positions while working are worse. Sometimes you can't avoid it if you solder tricky stuff like wires or some though hole PCBs. I should get a Panavise to hold PCBs...
7.   Is weight an issue for your soldering?
Yes. A *lot*, specially soldering though hole PCBs as I said. Components fall off unless you bend the legs carefully. Cables are a pain most of the time. Electrical wire like the ones you find inside your hose are not really the issue, it's cables like CAT5, the cable used in 3.5mm and enamel coated headphone wire.

In regards to actual soldering iron weight, I have no idea, but you can research how weight affects shaking of the hand when holding the iron. Maybe it's already known somewhere.
8.   What is your average time duration of usage?
Depends on the situation, but it is hardly ever less than 15 minutes with the iron on, typically up to 2 hours. It's not continuous use, as you mess with wires and PCBs (placing components, inspecting), then solder, then mess around again.
9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
I would have an On indicator! This soldering station only lights its LED when the iron is being heated. I would have an IEC plug, like the one you find in computer power supplies.

I actually have a design for the digital version of this soldering iron. To give you some context, Hakko decided to make a digital version of this iron and discontinue the analog version I use. They completely ruined the beautiful design and has an absolutely horrid user interface, everybody says so:

Here is their design:



Here is my take on a digital FX888:


Here is the original post, with an explanation of how it works:
Here
10.   Would a single handed soldering iron benefit you?
It would help me hold wires with my other hand, but I would not use it on PCBs, only on tricky wires. Maybe an electrician would make more use out of it. You could also have a battery option where the battery clips to your belt. The battery would be aimed at the electricians market. If you decide to do this, remember how you're supposed to solder: you heat the surface first, then you apply solder on that surface, not on the iron. You could practice soldering to understand how it works and the issues you can find with your proposed design and how to solve them.

Good luck with your project!
Iván E. Veloz Guerrero

[ivan747]

9.   If you could add or subtract anything from your iron, what would it be?
   Not exactly at the iron though, I'm thinking of the solder stand, maybe a very clever design that able to clean + wet the tip evenly and automatically once its placed at stand. This, a free & fresh idea for you. 

A brass sponge like this does just that. Drop some solder on the tip, insert the tip in the brass sponge and voila. When you pull it out, a tiny bit of solder stays in the tip, flattened, and all the junk and excess solder stuck to your tip falls down.

You just have to integrate it into the stand so that it cleans the tip and stores the iron in one operation. But I'm afraid the iron could solder itself to the sponge until it is turned on again  It's something you need to research.

The FX-888 I showed has a brass sponge in its holder.