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Good Helping Hands? Do they exist?


Les_Garten

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I have a pair of "Cheap" helping hands with magnifier. These things you have to have but are never quite right. I also have a Panavise that I use them in conjunction with.

They end up breaking and the hinges and clamps for the clips are dodgy at best.

Are there any "Good" or "excellent" ones out there? I have to have the magnifier. I can't pay $300 for a set, but I would be willing to invest more than the $5.95 you pay now to get junk.

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Yeah, the helping hands that you normally buy suck. So does the magnifying lens. I still use my helping hands thingy occasionally, but normally just use my panavise circuit board holder (ebay). I also use an Optivisor:

Amazon.com: Donegan OptiVisor Headband Magnifier 2 1/2X Magnification: Industrial & Scientific

Mine is the highest magnification, which while fine for looking soldering joints over, etc., puts me too close into the work when soldering so I really should buy another lens for it (you can buy them separately). Good thing I like soldering fumes :palm:

Edited by Pars
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My wife and her jewelry-designing friends all swear by the Optivisor.

Personally, I have one of those desk lamp magnifier (with the fluorescent ring) and a Panavise with a couple different jaws.

Panavise is great for boards, but diffcicult for things like cable ends for me. Like terminating a connector with 24 GA wire stuff. The hands help with that. Those links I posted are giving me ideas for building then "proper" set of hands. Might even add a beer holder!

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My wife and her jewelry-designing friends all swear by the Optivisor.

Personally, I have one of those desk lamp magnifier (with the fluorescent ring) and a Panavise with a couple different jaws.

Thanx! I doing this setup here.

OPTIVISOR DA5 2.5 x W/EXTRA MAGNIFIER & LIGHT DONEGAN - eBay (item 370278662668 end time Jan-20-10 04:48:23 PST)

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Just ordered a similar setup from the exact same place myself. I was going to order a magnifying lamp until I saw this thread. I do my tinkering near a window, and in the past, the evening sun through that window toasted a piece of bread as it passed through a pitcher of water that became a magnifying glass. :o

So, no magnifying lenses is preferable :D

Back to the original post, I was able to clamp on part of my original Radio Shack helping hands (not too bad, really, as helping hands go) to my Panavise. I run a spool of solder on one of the arms and use the two clips to hold wires and component parts.

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