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Helping hand jaws available to download
05/25/2015 at 19:29 • 0 commentsMy 3D printable helping hand system is tested and works great for holding wires / cables when soldering. I just officially added all of the STL files to the Stickvise website. Here are a couple pictures of the fully assembled system.
This is a worthwhile upgrade even if you already have a third hand or helping hand setup because these stay with the vise, making it easier to move your project around.
Head over to http://stickvise.com/hacks/stl-downloads for more instructions and to download the STL files!
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Hot air test 1
06/03/2015 at 21:25 • 2 commentsThere have been questions about how the nylon Stickvise jaws will hold up to hot air rework. I did a quick test today and found they hold up fairly well. I set my hot air station to 800 F and installed a neck-down attachment. I clamped in a PCB that was lying around and attempted to desolder a crystal right next to one of the jaws. I held heat on the part for about 10-20 seconds and could clearly see the solder liquefy. I picked the part up with tweezers, turned off the heat gun and...
...the jaws were perfectly fine. See the desoldered crystal on the top right of the board.
close up shot of the jaws with PCB removed, I circled the affected area. Not too bad. I ran out of time today but may try to remove some of the bigger ICs next and see if I damage the jaws.
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prototype zero
06/05/2015 at 14:05 • 0 commentsfound this today and had a chuckle, the design has come a long way from this first hack design I made last year!
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versatile new jaw design
06/06/2015 at 01:24 • 2 commentsThis is probably the most versatile jaw design I have come up with so far. There is more than meets the eye in this shot.... scroll down to see how this works!
The jaws are made up of a row of alternating fingers:
The fingers are interlocking so the jaws can close past one another:
Letting you hold small stuff...
Medium stuff...
and Large stuff, this motor is about 1" in diameter:
The best part is, you can still hold a PCB:
These will be available to download for 3d printing at http://www.stickvise.com/hacks/stl-downloads
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Testing cables
07/15/2015 at 18:55 • 0 commentsToday I made a ribbon cable and wanted to test continuity between the two connectors using a multimeter. When holding multimeter probes in each hand it is nearly impossible to keep the cable still for testing. That's when I realized I could hold the connectors side by side in a Stickvise and the rest was a snap!
Check it out below.
A few weeks ago @haydn jones sent me a picture of his Stickvise clamped to a table edge as a quick wire spool holder - great idea! If you have used Stickvise for anything unusual, leave a comment - I would love to see more pictures!
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Great review from EEVBlog!!!
08/04/2015 at 16:25 • 2 commentsJust got a great review from Dave over at EEVBlog! Starts at 19:41
https://youtu.be/bOE89yPxmGs?t=19m41s
I sent Stickvise in for his mailbag segment like 3-4 months ago, he has quite a backlog of packages!
One of the things I did was mill out a custom PCB with the EEVBlog logo on it to show him that his review really means a lot to me, I think he liked it. He gave a nice thorough overview of how it works and why it is useful, even went as far as to say that he thinks everyone should have something like this! What a complement!
Thanks again for taking the time Dave!
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PCB milling with Stickvise
09/08/2015 at 00:57 • 2 commentsAfter some brainstorming with Matt Berggren (@technolomaniac) I decided to try developing a set of attachments for Stickvise that would allow it to be used for PCB milling. Some of the new features are:
1. Magnetic feet - to attach to the steel base plates used by some light duty milling machines such as the Othermill. Also turns Stickvise into an expensive refrigerator magnet!
2. Special support jaws - By default, Stickvise does not support a PCB in the middle - it was designed for soldering. For milling, I designed a set of jaws that span the length of the vise to support flat stock all the way across. This prevents flexing even on very long and narrow PCBs as shown below.
Here is the prototype:
As you can see I milled a jolly wrencher without much problem. Here is a closeup:
The biggest challenge is going to be routing a board outline, the fine trace milling works great, but I did not get a chance to test full through board milling. It will be interesting to see if the magnets slip against the steel plate, or if the board slips in the vise jaws. I think it will greatly depend on how aggressive I am with the cutter, will definitely test this soon and post an update.
So far the results are promising though!
More details:
-Milled using a Tormach PCNC770, using a 1/8" carbide 60 degree v-groove cutter at .005" depth, 10,000 RPM and 10 IPM feed rate.
-Held in place using only the magnetic feet against the work table
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Martijn's Stickvise build
09/18/2015 at 01:29 • 0 commentsThis is just awesome, a fellow hacker built his own Stickvise from scratch and posted a video of his build along with a time lapse video showing how he used it to solder a Geiger counter project together!
https://hackaday.io/project/6931/log/25360-some-thoughts-about-my-version-of-the-stickvise
If you are following Stickvise, please go over and skull his project!
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Wooden Stickvise Build
11/04/2015 at 21:26 • 3 commentsJust stumbled upon this today, a guy in London named Matt built a Stickvise out of wood after hearing about it on EEVBlog. It appears to be working well for him. He used a long piece of threaded rod, some springs, bolts and a bunch of scrap wood that he had lying around. Yet another example of someone taking inspiration and building their own version, nice to see!
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Mini-hacks (many involving Stickvise)
12/04/2015 at 22:21 • 0 commentsCheck out this project by @RoGeorge : #The Devil is in the Details
He shows a bunch of helpful and unusual tips for soldering, and he is using his Stickvise all over the place!