A Cordless Soldering Iron With A Difference Jenny List | usagoldmines.com

Many decades ago, when soldering was an activity more often associted with copper fabrication than with electronics, a soldering iron would have been a large lump of copper on a shaft, with a wooden handle. You would heat it in a gas flame, and use its pointed end for your soldering. Electric irons have made this a thing of the past, but the basic idea is still one with some merit. [Shake the Future] is here with a modern take on such an iron, one that is heated in the microwave oven.

The business end of the iron is a normal soldering iron bit, but behind it is a piece of sintered silicon carbide, wrapped in ceramic fibre and covered with Kapton tape and a high-teperature-resin 3D printed shield. On the back of that is a 3D printed handle. The whole thing is put in the microwave oven for a few tens of seconds to heat to temperature, and thereafter you have however long the thermal mass of the silicon carbide holds the temperature, in which to do your soldering.