High End Helping Hands, Finally A Better Product!

[ben_r_]

Okay first off let me start by saying I have no affiliation with this product, the seller, the maker, nor the company in any way shape or form. I merely ran across a thread in two other forums while searching for a better "helping hands" solution and stumbled upon others looking for the same and then suggestions to this product. I then contacted the make (very nice guy named Ross) and asked if I could have a customized one made. He was more than happy to do it and my customized one is what you see on this webpage link.

Soo glad I found this product! FINALLY something better than those stupid $3 chinese crap helping hands that we've all been using for years! This setup is sooo much better and even further customizable if you want it to be. Little on the pricey side, but its a hand built, extremely solid, much better solution. What do you expect? I even tried sourcing all the parts and tools myself and it would have cost me WAY more and way too much time to have built the setup myself.

LINK


Or the original: LINK


I cant find the link ATM but there is a tutorial he wrote up in a forum post that details how and what to use to build these yourself, but honestly if you arent buying in bulk the cost of getting all the needed parts is more than just buying it already built.

EDIT: Here is the link to the tutorial with parts list: LINK

Anyway, hope this helps someone else out there as much as it helped me. Happy to be rid of junk helping hands for good!

[Yaksaredabomb]

Wow, very nice.  A little out of my price range, but very nice.  Maybe there is some intermediate solution between $3 and $55?  Haha.  In any case thanks for sharing - I'd never seen a set like that before.

[ben_r_]

Yea nor had I! I did quite a bit of research looking for something better and was very happy to see SOMEONE had finally given it a go!

[Fsck]

There's an instructable on how to do it. You use coolant piping. If I remember correctly, about 50$ of piping (in canada) gets you enough to make like 12 hands.

[ben_r_]

Yep! That's where I saw it! Cept $50 only gets you the tubing stuff. The solid aluminum base, cork bottom, banana jacks and alligator clips are all extra. Not to mention the drill and bit to drill the hole and tap it.

[Paul Price]

So many nice ones to choose from, some very good <$10 US.

The one in the picture costs $17 with shipping.

[uprightsquire]

So many nice ones to choose from, some very good <$10 US.

The one in the picture costs $17 with shipping.

With the tractor beam included?!

[GeoffS]

So many nice ones to choose from, some very good <$10 US.

The one in the picture costs $17 with shipping.

Hell of a price range on that item on eBay. I found one, without the LED for only $160.
Mind you, it is labelled as 'precision' 

[saturation]

Its clearly more refined and durable looking.  But in my mind, I can get the original Taiwanese HH for $5 each, or the Chinese copy for $3 each which is most cheaply made, one can buy 10 of them for one of these then mod them to make it better, if you'd like.  Having 20 little hands that are not tied together and can scamper around, instead of 4 stuck in one place gives one a lot of flexibility in placement.  Over the years I've collected 7 of them and tend to use 3-4 at a time.

[Christe4nM]

Wow! My first thought was "now that's the way to do that". Shame that they cost quite a lot more. Curious how they hold up in practice; the price may be justified if they are as nice to work with as they seem to be.

[ben_r_]

So many nice ones to choose from, some very good <$10 US.

The one in the picture costs $17 with shipping.

Hell of a price range on that item on eBay. I found one, without the LED for only $160.
Mind you, it is labelled as 'precision' 

Ha ha, yea those eBay scams are so funny sometimes.

Anyway, yes I know its a bit expensive, def more than I thought I would ever spend on such a product. However I like the idea that its a guy in his garage type feel and product and I prefer to support that than chinese slave labor and junk products. Even if that means I could have 12 $5 junk helping hands for the same price.

[saturation]

It certainly has lots of competition.  A Panavise Jr is $26, cheaper if used on eBay.



Without helping hands but working with Panavises I'd use 4-10 AWG solid copper wire crimped to big alligator clips on both ends as extra hands.  Then you clip one end to the vise and the other to your work, like this but without the ring lug, or you can bolt it on the ring lug for removeability; many options, all cheap, all DIY.  One reason all metal is better is to keep it from melting when you use hot air.

[ben_r_]

Personally I dont feel the Panavise products fill the same tool "hole". I have several Panavise setups (including the one you pictured) and they are great for working on larger boards, but thats about all I use then for. Anything small (less than say 4" x 4") I like to work with something that has alligator clips to grip the board and components.

[saturation]

Yes, that's the DIY hands with wire and clips I wrote off, so now the Panavise has more versatility.

Personally I dont feel the Panavise products fill the same tool "hole". I have several Panavise setups (including the one you pictured) and they are great for working on larger boards, but thats about all I use then for. Anything small (less than say 4" x 4") I like to work with something that has alligator clips to grip the board and components.

[ben_r_]

Found the link I was referring to in the first post that has a parts list and tutorial to try and build one of these yourself. Here it is: LINK

[ftransform]

I have not really worked on bigger things but I found my wood + two 14 guage alligator clip wires works good.

I am however interested in building a helping hand, simply because it could hold a oscilloscope probe with the bayonet attachment to a circuit board. You can make your own PCB's to have a ground connection pad near pins which you need to test...

That hydraulic tubing hand is more then capable of firmly pressing a oscilloscope probe against a PCB. When you use a multimeter its easy enough to solder something on so you can clip an alligator clip to it, but with a oscope you don't really have that option for precise measurements, as the hook and the ground lead effect the measurement significantly. *

*unless you are working on a fine pitch board where you can't really solder anything down, and there is no test pads, in that case having a helping hand for your DMM probe is useful.

I saw some pictures on instructables demonstrating it holding an oscope probe, but I never built one.