Author Topic: My hot air 'workstation'  (Read 834 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline ChrisLX200Topic starter

  • Supporter
  • ****
  • Posts: 458
  • Country: gb
My hot air 'workstation'
« on: September 26, 2017, 07:09:11 pm »
Too grand a title I think :-)  It seems for anything you want to do when working on a PCB you need a minimum of three hands. I have a stand-alone hot air gun which I've had for quite some time and it's a fair bit heavier than the usual gun you get with a proper workstation. Trying to hold it whilst doing other stuff is tricky - and then you need to find someplace to put it down (hot!) to complete another task. Now I've seen holders and wanted to make something similar - but with a bit more flexibility to point the thing where I want, and the ability to move it right out the way instantly when I need to.

I had a DTI holder with magnetic base (similar to this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RDGTOOLS-PRECISION-FLEXIBLE-ARM-MAGNETIC-BASE-FOR-DTI-GAUGE-DIAL-TEST-INDICATOR-/371422935691?epid=1249012998&hash=item567a883a8b:g:0uYAAOSwMmBV3sed ) which was doing nothing useful so decided to adapt just the flexible arm to hold the hot air gun. Not sure if you can buy the arm without the magnetic base (perhaps as a spare part). When tested it easily held the weight of the gun when in locked position, and a quarter-turn on the locking lever allowed it to be pointed anywhere - including straight up out of the way. There is no sag and no flex, point it at your PCB and operate the lock lever and it stays exactly in position.

I have it attached to a gantry (you can see in the photos) at the back of my workbench and just about any part of the work area is accessible to it.

ChrisH

 
The following users thanked this post: Johncanfield


Share me

Digg  Facebook  SlashDot  Delicious  Technorati  Twitter  Google  Yahoo
Smf