Concrete Solder Squid Heavy Enough to Stay Put

Whether you love it or hate it, soldering is a necessary part of hacking electronics. Personally, I'd rather avoid the task, but after getting a $10> soldering iron, it's become much easier. Another item that has improved my technique is a so-called solder squid, with coolant hose used to hold whatever you're working on via alligator clips. I previously built one from a slab of wood, which worked OK, but wasn't heavy enough to keep it from sliding around.

The solution — of course — was to make the base out of a block of concrete, formed in a 3D-printed mold that I designed, available on GitHub. Concrete was poured into this mold with four sections of coolant hose embedded inside, permanently securing them in the block. When cured, the rest of the hose sections were popped on, adding a large clamp, alligator clips (see the heat-punch-cool process outlined at around the 5:00 mark in the video below), and a PC fan to take care of solder smoke.

The result is a device that's about twice as heavy as the original wooden piece — a good thing here — yet somewhat smaller. It's non-conductive and non-flammable, though I'm not certain of how the sealer used on it would react to excessive heat, so best to avoid that if possible. After having used it in a few projects, I'm looking forward to this being my little 'helper squid' for some time to come!