Soldering Helping Hands

I haven’t done much in the way of projects since the arrival of our son. Life is by no means back to normal (nor will it ever be again), but I have managed to get enough free time while working on the wee one to get some printing done. I haven’t documented any of it for lack of time, but I want to get back to doing that. With my winter break I am going to do another round of printer maintenance and upgrades. This will help in that endeavor.

I will need to do some semi-difficult soldering and don’t have any good helping hands. I could buy a decent set for 30-40 bucks, or I could print them! I picked up adjustable coolant line hose (aka loc-line), alligator clips and a magnet to stick in the base. I stole the idea from Fogl on thingiverse.

I went through a few clips till I found ones that would fit well inside the hose. I liked a smaller clip a little more, but getting it stuck int he nozzle properly was kind of a pain, so I went with the bigger ones. I could still make an adapter to hold different clips in the future.

I pulled off the orange nozzle tips and chamfered the entrance to help insert the clip base. I hammered it in, cross drilled a pilot hole through the hose side, and then screwed a small number 4 screw through to keep it all in place. The clips were pretty secure from the pressure fit, but the screw makes them really solid.

With the clips figured out, I needed a base. I printed a starfish looking pattern with a cavity underneath that holds the magnet. A short wood screw holds it in place. That adds weight to the base and will stick it down to a metal surface if need be. File on PrusaPrinters.

The hose base is some kind of 1/8″ pipe thread. It didn’t match the options I found on thingiverse, thus me making my own version. Instead of trying to match the tiny threads, I just made a slip fit and then screwed sideways through the hose base. Combine that with glue and all should be secure. To give myself little foot pads, I put more glue (E6000) on the bottom and sat it down on a silicone glue mat. Everything peeled right off the mat, and it made perfect little non-skid grippy pads.