Stickvise - low profile soldering vise

Just 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!

Today 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!

This 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

found this today and had a chuckle, the design has come a long way from this first hack design I made last year!

There 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.

My 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!

***Edit: I have the kinks worked out, the ball and socket system works great now***

I have been hard at work on what I think is a killer accessory for Stickvise, a 3d printable gooseneck helping hand arm. The design is not 100% ready for public consumption, more in beta test phase. Currently the ball and socket fit together flawlessly, but the locking nut on each joint is a bit difficult to turn. This is the piece that prevents the joint from pulling apart. The fit is something I should be able to sort out in the next week, just need some time to iterate the design a few times. In initial testing, this gooseneck has over 5 lbs pullout strength, so it will not come apart unexpectedly. Feel free to try printing it out, STL files are available on the gooseneck project page:

https://hackaday.io/project/5739-locking-ball-and-socket-gooseneck-system

Ok it's officially available on the hackaday store today, very excited! Stickvise went from random hackaday.io project to actual product with the help of the folks at Hackaday! I can't thank them enough for helping me get off the ground!

http://store.hackaday.com/products/stickvise

The new Stickvise website went live last week and I thought I would post here to see if it makes sense to people other than me.

www.stickvise.com

I designed the site more or less from scratch in my spare time (minus using Bootstrap to handle the basic CSS framework). I particularly tried to emphasize modifying and customizing Stickvise. I have a tutorial for designing vise jaws using OpenSCAD and a bunch of other ideas to get the thought process going on how the vise can be used. Please leave a comment if you think anything needs clarification or improvement.

P.S. Production had a few hiccups but should be complete this week, Stickvise will be available within a month!