• When soldering electronic circuits and repair of electronic devices are often not enough, as they say, the third hand, you need to hold something or highlight, etc. The holder "third hand" is a tripod with clamps for the printed circuit board, can be equipped with a magnifying glass and the backlight of the working area. Designed to increase convenience and safety during soldering work with printed circuit boards. This device allows you to fix the board and place it at any angle necessary and necessary in this case. If desired, you can use the backlight and lens for a detailed overview of the electronic board.
• For a long time I was going to get this device to improve the soldering process. I looked at the price on different sites and realized that such a device with a backlight and a magnifying glass would cost more than a thousand rubles. I decided to make this device on my own. In the manufacture of the third hand, I wanted to do without significant metalwork, so instead of metal tripods, I used flexible racks from a metal sleeve from the fixtures from the Fice price store for fifty rubles as holders of the circuit board, a lamp and a magnifying glass. These paws can be bent in all directions and they are quite rigidly held in space.
In this article I will tell you how to make a third-hand holder for soldering electronic circuit boards.
See the entire manufacturing process in the video:
The donors in the assembly of the third hand were two LED lights.
The list of tools and materials
-screwdriver;
-knife or scissors;
soldering iron;
-tester;
-glue thermal gun;
Cambridge;
-LED lights with a flexible leg-2 pieces;
-clips crocodile-2 pieces;
-Charger from a cell phone;
-magnifying glass;
- a bottle of deodorant.
Step one. Dismantling of fixtures.
The basis of the device is a lamp with seven LEDs. Our task is to install additional paws for crocodiles on it (to hold the printed circuit board itself) and a paw for a magnifying glass.
We disassemble the lamp with one LED. The lamp itself is useful as a keychain or a flashlight. The flexible tripod from it is cut into three parts.
Second step. Making a third hand for soldering.
We put crocodile clamps on two tripod sections, squeeze them with pliers and close the junction with a piece of cambric or heat shrink.
Then we drill three holes in the lamp housing with seven LEDs for installing additional tripods (we select the diameter of the drill so that the legs fit tightly into the hole).
We insert the paws into the lamp housing and glue it on the inside with a glue gun.
I made a frame for a magnifying glass from a ring of cut out aluminum deodorant spray can. The ring is screwed to the foot. Glass with hot glue is fixed in the frame.
After we solder the wire from the phone’s charger to the button and output to the LEDs considering the polarity. Thus, the backlight can be powered by either batteries or a charger.
I use this device in stationary conditions, so I removed the batteries from the case. But in order for the card holder to be stable, instead of the batteries, he placed a piece of lead wrapped in electrical tape.
Step three. Testing fixtures.
Testing the holder for soldering printed circuit boards showed that it is possible to mount boards of both small and large sizes. Flexible paws allow you to conveniently position the board, highlight the desired area and, if necessary, consider using a magnifying glass. And so it resembles a four-legged little dragon. In my opinion, the device looks more poetical unlike brutal metal counterparts.
The whole remaking took about an hour of free time and 110 rubles (lamps 2x50 = 100 rubles and crocodile clips 2x5 rubles). The charger is free of charge - in each house from old telephones, a magnifying glass from an old filmoscope.