Merry Christmas

All the very best to everyone and hope you have a fantastic Christmas. I think Miro and myself will probably be too drunk to post much for the next few days, so if we don't make it, see you all in the new year :o)

Man-cave back up and running!

Not everyone will be interested in this, but this post is for those who are, and the people I've been discussing this with! :o)

OK so I don't have any excuses any more not to start verifying at least some of these myself, I've finally got a load of junk moved and a little workshop built up in the garage so I can leave everything permanently setup so I can work on builds whenever I get a chance without having to dig through all my components, get the soldering iron setup on an office desk etc.  It made builds hard work because I had to be extra motivated just to be bothered hauling everything out!  So hopefully I'll be able to start verifying a few more of my own again! :o)

 (empty unit for axial caps)

Third Hand / Helping Hand Alternative

I get really fed up using the helping hands.  They're really needed sometimes but any pressure and they go sliding off, so I got a PCB vice, but it is a bit big and unwieldy and I often couldn't be bothered messing with it.  Then when I was perusing eBay I saw this great little mini vice.

 

The base is metal and quite heavy and of course much less top heavy than a helping hand, there's rubber feet for added friction, but there's also holes so this could be screwed to a board or table top to keep it really secure. The size would be perfect for just about any effect build.

Place your resistors, put another board over the top so they won't fall out (same height so it wil be held in place by the vice), turn the boards over and clamp into place, then solder all your resistors in one go.

It may not have the range of movement of the helping hand, but it holds the boards much more securely.  So now I can just use the helping hand for the magnifier whilst the board is held firmly in place.

A useful tool and all for a massive ......... wait for it ........

£3.18 including postage!  Look here.

Update: Thanks to Aaron for sending me a link to a US seller of this vice for anyone wanting to buy it in the good ol' US of A.

Who wants to build this?

I think it's a modified Fuzz Face :o)