PCB-Vise

thingiverse

This project has 2 components. A magnetic PCB vise for holding PCB boards during construction or rework and magnetic probes for holding surface mount parts in place during soldering. The probes can also be used for metering a circuit during debugging. This design uses 3mm x 20mm socket head cap screws. The black rods were 5mm carbon fiber tubing I had left over from model airplane projects. The magnets are 12mm diameter magnetic latch magnets. The probes are 150mm pieces of 1.5mm piano wire sharpened to a point on a bench grinder. The adjustment knob center holes are threaded with a 3mm tap and the adjustment knobs are glued onto the head of the cap screws. The springs are not critical and are used to provide some compression on the PCB to hold it in place. The base plate is an off cut of some 3mm rack panel steel.