boof it

Nah it’s good for ya! Builds character!

Holy crap, I had no idea 😱 thanks! 🥰

Ohm's Law is for direct current. Alternating current works differently.

Happy to help!

It might be interesting to know that the cable insulation would melt way before you saw any noticeable voltage drop in the cable due to external heat. And even then, it's just one of the elements in the device, depending on the type of cooker (induction, resistance) it could be few orders of magnitude less resistance than what's in the device itself.

It did! The copper was exposed, albeit barely. So current then flowed between any of the conductors... Thanks! 😊

If the insulation melted, it may have short circuited.

Asking for a friend

Arf, i remember being really happy to see that i could just get rid of the battery and everything worked fine. Sad to learn that it's not that easy anymore !

Oh it’s a no-brainer then, stick with the laptop. You’re lucky, a lot of them won’t even power on without the battery connected these days.

Oh, that's a great point. I didnt think of it cuz the battery inflated and i removed it years ago, so issue cleared in my case, but i'll keep this in mind.

I'd stay with the laptop. More powerful, less power consumption. the only thing I would be concerned about is the laptop fan. Those things are not designed to run 24x7 like pc fans so taking a look into modification options to extend it's lifetime.

The only reason to not use the laptop is because there is some concern that the battery in a laptop plugged in for years on end with constant operation might swell up and explode/catch fire. This is possible, but extremely rare. I’ve had a 10-year-old laptop plugged in exclusively for the last 6 and it’s been fine. YMMV. That aside, the Pentium-D was intel’s least efficient series by a large margin, which is part of the reason your idle is high.

Not much of anything. It's more about the texture, perfectly smooth except for the part where it touched the surface it was on when it solidified where it's like a little back scratcher but for your tongue.

So your saying I shouldn't be holding the solder in my mouth as I hold the iron in one hand and the component in place with the tweezers in the other hand? Interesting

Those brain cells just made life complicated.

Hi! I have a Masters in electrical engineering, I have more experience soldering than probably most people here.

Flux is not that dangerous as long as you don't get it IN your body. Your computer fan + carbon filter is perfect, because the flux fumes are highly irritating if you breathe them in or get them in your eyes. But flux is mostly just pine rosin mixed with solvents. (To be clear, rubbing alcohol will also damage your nervous system if you ingest or breathe a lot of it. Flux isn't particularly unique).

The risk of lead fumes is incredibly overstated. Lead doesn't even start to vaporize until well into the thousands of degrees, you will never be soldering anywhere near that temperature. You're at higher risk of getting small specks of lead stuck to your hands and then accidentally in your mouth, which is why I always recommend washing your hands immediately after soldering or just touching the equipment.

Just FYI this is a hugely overstated risk. You can melt leaded solder with a Zippo (~350F) while lead only begins to produce a tiny amount of point vaporization at ~900F, so the safe range for your iron's temperature is large.

You're doing the right thing setting your iron to match the solder. Beyond that, just thoroughly clean your station and wash your hands after you're done.

Separately, I don't think rosin is all that harmful, but it's certainly very irritating if the fumes get in your eyes. Your basic fume hood should be more than sufficient.

Thanks! Great input on the glasses! I wear prescription glasses daily, but I'll grab a pair of protective ones tomorrow. 😊

Plenty of solder wire is flux core these days. It's basically a metal tube with flux inside. Back in the day this wasn't the case so you had to add the flux yourself. Nowadays it's typically not needed so long as you size your solder gauge correctly. Super fine solder doesn't have much or any flux, and if you're trying to solder huge pads or vias you're gonna have a hard time.

Flux helps heat transfer. Think of it like oil in a frying pan. It conducts the heat from the iron to the solder joint better than just bear contact. For non-delicate components it doesn't matter too much, but if you're working on ICs you don't wanna cook them before all the joints are good. There are also some oxidation inhibiting properties. Ya don't want oxidation on your joints!

As you mention, use a small fan filter to draw away the fumes. If you can smell the flux vapors, you don't have enough ventilation (although most people won't care). Unless you do long sessions I rarely see people wearing masks or gloves but if you are confortable doing so then yes that's a good idea.

One thing is glasses. Especially when inexperienced, it can happen that you can fling around small solder blobs by accident. You don't want that in your eyes.

I would suggest not avoiding flux. It's basically easy mode compared to without. Even if you use flux core solder.

I don't have numbers to back this up, but I have medium doubts that most solder used in electronics is lead based these days. There are plenty of lead free options available, and electronics as a whole are moving that way. Anything with an RoHS label will be lead free for example. If products in these categories are sold in the EU they have to meet the standard.

Edit: This is not an argument against ventilation though! You should still have some kind of air handling on account of the flux fumes, and also any other metal fumes that may not be good. Better than lead doesn't always mean completely harmless.

How'd they taste?

Thanks for the valuable input! I might just leave the flux pen rest until really needed.