Replacement Jaws Now Available

On Monday I'm shipping out Stickvise replacement jaws to the Hackaday Store! They should be available in the next week or so. For those who have damaged their jaws and want some spares, check them out. For starters there will be two options:

1. standard nylon
2. high temperature PTFE

Stickvise featured on Tech3dge

Andrei, a moderator at Tech3dge, contacted me recently about featuring Stickvise - how cool!  They posted a short piece about us today: http://www.tech3dge.com/stickvise/  thanks Andrei!

Tech3dge offers technology news and particularly likes to share about interesting products that are up and coming (like Stickvise).

Andrei is also a moderator at EEWeb's new European website: Elektronik Forum EEWeb

He is currently trying to get the word out about it, so check it out if you're interested.  As he described it:

EEWEb Germany is an online community for electronics and electrical engineers and hobbyist. It offers electrical engineering and electronics forum. It also has electrical and electronic design articles, and resources in the area of RF design, analog design, embedded design, PCB design, test and measure.

 

Stickvise back in stock and other updates

First and foremost - Stickvise is back in stock at Hackaday, thanks to all who have waited!

http://store.hackaday.com/products/stickvise

Has been a while since I have posted to the blog, so here are some of the latest Stickvise developments:

Full Metal Stickvise Build

There have been a couple of neat custom Stickvise builds, first a fellow hacker in the Netherlands named Martijn built his own Stickvise from scratch and posted a video of his build along with a time lapse video showing how he used it to solder a Geiger counter project together!

https://hackaday.io/project/6931/log/25360-some-thoughts-about-my-version-of-the-stickvise

For details on his build, see his project on hackaday.io:

https://hackaday.io/project/6931-full-metal-stickvise



Wooden Stickvise Build

Another hacker, Matt from the UK, took a completely different approach, instead of the over the top machined metal build, he threw together a fully functional Stickvise from wood scraps and other hardware he had lying around!  It's cool to see people building my design from scratch using what they have on hand.  Honestly it means more than if they bought it because of the thought and time that goes into building this from scratch.

https://keepdevelopingprojects.wordpress.com/2015/08/16/mini-project-home-made-stick-vise/



Stickvise Crossbow

I'm working on a bunch of 3d printed parts that will (hopefully) turn a stock Stickvise into an office crossbow.  Stay tuned for more updates on that:

https://hackaday.io/project/8669-stickvise-crossbow

Thanks EEVBlog!

Just got a great review from Dave over at EEVBlog!


https://youtu.be/bOE89yPxmGs?t=19m41s

I sent Stickvise in for his mailbag segment like 3-4 months ago, he has quite a backlog of packages!

One of the things I did was mill out a custom PCB with the EEVBlog logo on it to show him that his review really means a lot to me, I think he liked it.  He gave a nice thorough overview of how it works and why it is useful, even went as far as to say that he thinks everyone should have something like this!  What a complement!


Thanks again for taking the time Dave!

Testing cables with the help of Stickvise

Today I made a ribbon cable and wanted to test continuity between the two connectors using a multimeter. When holding multimeter probes in each hand it is nearly impossible to keep the cable still for testing. That's when I realized I could hold the connectors side by side in a Stickvise and the rest was a snap!

Check it out below.

A few weeks ago @haydn jones sent me a picture of his Stickvise clamped to a table edge as a quick wire spool holder - great idea! If you have used Stickvise for anything unusual, email me or leave a comment - I would love to see more pictures!

Versatile New Jaws

This is probably the most versatile jaw design I have come up with so far. There is more than meets the eye in this shot.... scroll down to see how this works!

 

 The jaws are made up of a row of alternating fingers:

The fingers are interlocking so the jaws can close past one another:

Letting you hold small stuff...

Medium stuff...

and Large stuff, this motor is about 1" in diameter:

The best part is, you can still hold a PCB: 

 

These are available to download for 3d printing at http://www.stickvise.com/hacks/stl-downloads

3D printed helping hands

I just added a cool new accessory to the Stickvise website.  It is a 3D printable helping hand system, tested and works great for holding wires / cables when soldering.  Here are a couple pictures of the fully assembled system.

This is a worthwhile upgrade even if you already have a third hand or helping hand setup because these stay with the vise, making it easier to move your project around.

Details:
 
Special quarter turn nuts attach to each socket as shown below.  With nuts installed, the socket cannot expand and the ball joint will not separate unexpectedly.  To disassemble, simply twist off the nut and the ball and socket pop apart fairly easily.

The arm ends with a special attachment designed to hold an off the shelf alligator clip, Mouser part number 835-501784.  To attach the clip, wrap one turn of electrical tape around the banana jack and press it into the end of the 3D printed holder.

Each arm mounts to a special Stickvise jaw plate that has two ball attachment points.

Head over to http://stickvise.com/hacks/stl-downloads for more instructions and to download the STL files!