Bantam Tools Blog

Solder fumes can be dangerous to breathe, especially over a long period. That’s why, here at the OMC factory, we’ve spent a lot of time using and developing solutions for extracting nasty solder fumes while we work.

Months ago, when we began developing wiring harnesses and the board assemblies that make every Othermill run smoothly, we invested in a benchtop fume extractor. We quickly added an LED bar to the top of the extractor to improve the soldering experience. It worked great, as long as the soldering happened close to the extractor, but if we wanted to solder a batch of boards in one go, we quickly moved out of its range, rendering it useless.

Welcome to Factory Friday! As in the last installment, I’ll give you a behind-the-scenes look from the factory floor by describing one of the ways we’re streamlining the process we use to assemble each Othermill here at the OMC Factory.

The Emergency Stop switch on the right side of the Othermill is a critical component. Although we hope our users don’t need to resort to it very often, its ability to immediately halt all motion inside the mill can be extremely useful, especially when experimenting or attempting a heavy cut through metal.