On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, PicDude wrote:

*>Yep -- the $15 is no problem, just that I was looking for a way to slow down
*>and especially *control* the airflow.  But I found out that there are small
*>aquarium valves available that would let me control the airflow anyway.  So
*>air pump it is.

You can control the airflow of any aquarium pump with a $1 air faucet.

I am surprised that you go with the solder pump method, I tried this
before switching to the pencil I made out of a Weller WTCP iron. The
solder pump did not have enough power to melt solder on anything larger
than a single resistor and it took ages to do it.

I did not use steel wool in my pencil, I put the heater spiral directly
inside the tube. It ran at about 50W, with dull red color. Heat transfer
was directly from the air running through the spiral. I used an aquarium
pump. There is a message in the archives with (small) pictures.

Peter

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