How to solder with only one hand

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I very recently became paralyzed in my left (and dominant) arm, fingers and foot, which believe it or not, was not planned for.

The timing was pretty bad, as I’ve just purchased a couple of ESP3266-boards, a soldering kit and two pressure mats with the the end goal of making a basic bad sensor (one mat for my girlfriend and my side). (Here’s the guide I intend to follow: Make your own bed sensor)

The obvious issue is how one, as easily as possible, can accomplish this? Main issues right now are that I can’t hold the board, the wires or anything in my hand.

Any and all tips are greatly appreciated.

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Well I hate to hear that, but I appreciate your optimism on it.

https://www.instructables.com/Build-a-One-Handed-Soldering-Tool-20-Effortless-So/

I’ve seen a sort of equivalent for welding with just a feed wire, maybe something like this could work. I’m guessing if not, some fancy clamps that can be held in many orientations would do it, something like this

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I’ve had some success using a solder gun as above.

You load a spool on the back and it feeds it through to the tip when you pull the trigger. It’s one less thing to position in the helper grips others have suggested.

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Am blind, can solder (badly). Afraid I can’t help but best of luck.

https://lemmy.world/post/45525365

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How the hell? I hope that’s not offensive. But that’s incredible.

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Blind != No Sight. It’s possible they have low vision. They do mention an assistive magnifier in a comment on that post. Still more challenging than a fully-sighted individual, and would take a lot of practice. All too often though people assume blind means no sight at all.

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Most blind people (> 90%) can point to the sun. In the US legally blind means glasses can’t correct your vision to 20/200 (which is really bad). Depending on exactly how that works with your eyes, for some close work like soldering would be no problem, while others it would.

Sort of like everyone thinks that because I’m colorblind I couldn’t pass a kindergarten color exam.

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Somehow as a society we’ve come up with a real black and white view of disability. You’re either able-bodied or completely disabled, no in between. This does not match reality. Many wheelchair users can stand and walk in a limited capacity, for example.

Unfortunately this leads to misinformed people casting moral judgments upon disabled individuals who don’t act “disabled enough”. Hopefully we get over that misconception some day.

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Yes, that’s what I assumed, thanks for clarifying.

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I only have limited advice, but maybe a few helpful tips.

Background: do lots of soldering, had a left radial nerve injury that left my arm frequently unusable for a couple of years.

  • Get a soldering iron with some sort of base that allows you to properly insert your iron. You don’t want one that you set the iron down on a stand. If you’re anything like me, you’ll one day have your attention yanked away from whatever you’re inspecting because you smell your skin burning.
  • Static-free silicone mats are your friend. They’ll provide the friction for you to tilt and then grab pesky boards and shit.
  • Get a very stable but easy to manipulate magnifying lamp with a large window. Numerous studies have seen almost unbelievable fine motor improvement when using a magnifying glass.
  • Get various comfy tweezers/grippers. If they’re comfy, you’re less likely to slip. Different materials to interact with different things, so you don’t accidentally scrape off contacts and shit.
  • Storage and organization will be your salvation. Something that you can easily get components out from using the tweezers, and onto a silicone mat.
  • I’m probably going to get some pushback on this, but get a magnetizer/demagnetizer. Magnetize all of your screwdrivers and shit by default. You can always demagnetize things later, but it’s better than fighting one-handed with screws and such.
  • Get a set of helping hands, but not the ones with a small area and small arms. Something like this where the arms are super-flexible but didn’t require loosening and tightening, they have comically long reach, and they attach magnetically to a plate so that you can:
  1. Take the arm off the plate
  2. Use the clip to grab your part
  3. Put the arm back on the plate
  4. Position the arm
  5. Clip the part with at least one more arm to secure it
  6. Position your incoming component, maybe even secure it with another arm
  7. Use one more arm to hold your solder
  • It’s not the best technique, but you gotta work with what you got: learn to solder to your iron to your part. (Rather than only heating the part and component and then applying solder) Your results won’t be as pretty, but they’ll be functional.
  • Desoldering is going to be a pain. When I had my rough days, I’d hold a wick with another clip, get it to absorb the solder, and then VERY quickly LIFT it with either the soldering iron, or usually my pinky. They also have electric solder suckers, but I’ve never tried one.
  • Finally, get a comfy chair that lets you move and lean without falling over.

Hopefully some of these tips are helpful! It’s been about 20 years since I’ve had to solder one-handed. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

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Jigs are going to be your friend. I’d also recommend a good articulated PCB vice. I’ve seen some 3D printed ones, or you can buy a Panavise if you’re a millionaire.

An easy-ish way to solder one-handed would be to use stencils and solder paste. The paste can hold components in place (weakly tho) and you can melt the solder either with a standard iron, hot air reflow iron, or even a soldering hotplate or oven. The hotplate and oven will be limiting though because it will reflow the entire board and will more or less limit you to single sided component layouts.

Alternatively I have used this goofy grip in the past. It takes a lot of dexterity though!

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Never used it before but there is solder paste which uses a heat gun instead of an iron.

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I second solder paste, and it can be used with a regular soldering iron in addition to with a hot air rework tool! Solder paste with very conservative use of a soldering iron is actually my favorite way to solder, mainly because (a) it gives you tons of flux on each joint, and (b) I have one fewer thing (the solder) that I need to hold steady.

With solder paste, the main thing is being careful with how much heat you apply and for how long. As I mentioned, solder paste contains a LOT of flux. That liquid/gel flux winds up with way more surface area in contact with the solder particles in the paste than the flux core of wire-type solder, so the heat distributes in it much quicker. And since so much flux is involved, I find that solder paste gives me better joints and even better coverage when tinning stranded wire than with wire solder!

Best wishes for your project! You got this!

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This particular project you might be able to get away without soldering if you use a breakout / expansion board like shown and just screw terminal down the wires. If you are feeling a bit more ambitious, you could design a PCB and have it fabricated for you by a service such as jlcpcb or pcbway

Should you still require soldering:

There are soldering stations, irons and guns that have automatic or trigger pull solder feed which can help with single handed operation - the cheaper feed solder guns will do well for something larger like through hole for simple projects like this. Id get some heavy weights, some kind of board stand/clamps, and kapton tape in a heavy / mounted to desk holder do you can pull tape off and use it to put on the board to hold things down / together / insulate other parts from slipping with the iron tip.

If you are just doing wire to wire joints, there are some heat shrink solder couplings that you can put on like its heat shrink over twisted wires and heating it over 150C with a heat gun will solder it together (e.g. electriduct).

I haven’t personally had much luck with helping hands but ymmv. Soldering mat is good for spilled solder drops or if you accidentally hit the tip on the table. Solder flux (get in a syringe or squeeze bottle) helps a ton with getting a good joint. Also, some isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs / a rag / a toothbrush are good for cleaning the flux off once you are done - if you dont do this, the joint can corrode down the line. You will also want a fume extractor; basically a fan with a carbon filter, similar to an air purifier. This will keep the flux fumes out of your face and lungs.

A hotplate and some tweezers could also help with surface mount stuff since you can just use the weights to hold it down and poke at stuff while letting the hotplate do the heating /soldering

To sum it up

Things you WILL need to solder:

  • solder (leaded probably better; just wash hands)
  • flux (syringe or squeeze bottle)
  • soldering iron/ gun (perhaps with wire feed)
  • some kind of stand/weights for holding the boards / wires
  • tweezers
  • fume extractor

Things I think would really help:

  • silicone mat
  • isopropyl alcohol and swabs / rag / tissues
  • kapton tape (or other polyamide tape, the orangey stuff) and a dispenser / holder
  • normal heatshrink tubing/insulation

Nice to have but might not be necessary:

  • hotplate
  • heatshrink solder couplings
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I don’t have a good suggestion for holding the solder and iron in one hand, but if you search for “soldering helping hands” you’ll find a variety of tools for positioning the board you’re working on.

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have a custom stand for the iron 3d printed so you can use your working hand to control the wire

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