Building Custom Helping Hands

RE: Building Custom Helping Hands

jw0752 — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 05:46:40 GMT

Hi Shabaz,

Thank you for taking the time to share with us another one of your good ideas and awesome builds. I have never been able to totally solve the problem of having a universal holder. It seems my applications are not consistent enough and I always end up having to jury rig something. The original helping hands are definitely too light weight for many applications.

John

RE: Building Custom Helping Hands

luislabmo — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 00:22:52 GMT

Nice build [mention:b0bc65b9ecdc4307bd967592f00e340a:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]!. I think this kind of project fits a wide spectrum of users, not only the ones working with electronics.

Luis

RE: Building Custom Helping Hands

three-phase — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 18:26:27 GMT

Awesome idea and great write up. I do particularly like the assembly diagram, you do seem very good at producing those types of drawings.

The clamps you are using are for mounting extras onto camera tripods. You could also consider using a friction arm, sometimes called a magic arm. Loosening the one nut at the elbow joint allows all the pivots and joint to move and rotate and then just the one nut tightens it all back up again.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=friction+arms&i=electronics&ref=nb_sb_noss

Below is my camera tripod, camera not present as it was taking the picture!

[View:/resized-image/__size/257x171/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bafa0339-d21b-4b4a-a10f-46c2dea34775/1524.contentimage_5F00_190428.jpg:257:171][View:/resized-image/__size/259x172/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bafa0339-d21b-4b4a-a10f-46c2dea34775/2185.contentimage_5F00_190429.jpg:259:172]

The only thing that I have found if that they tend to unscrew at the clamp sometimes due to the weight of accessory. A little loctite is called for I think.

Anything from the big players such as Manfrotto is going to cost a lot, but there are plenty of options at a lower cost that are still good quality. The accessories in the pictures come from Moman and Camvate.

I agree with Jan, the more you record and play with the editing software, the more comfortable and better you get at the videos, but in all honesty, I do not find anything wrong with the content you produce, same goes for a lot of the others on here.

One tip I was given is, if you are on a tripod, you can turn the camera focus to manual and lens stability off, depending on type of camera used. Manually adjust the focus to your object and then when you move your hands around doing things, the camera won't focus in on them instead of what you want people to see. Although I still forget to do this now, and forget to switch it back to autofocus when needed.

Kind regards

RE: Building Custom Helping Hands

genebren — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:40:16 GMT

shabaz,

What a great idea (or series of ideas). The video was very good, I feel that you are quite good at capturing your ideas/explaining your process in your videos (far more comfortable than I feel anywhere near a camera). I am going to have to start searching (amazon/ebay) for ball swivels and arms to build something like this.

Some great ideas out there in response to your post:

I was thinking that instead of concrete, you could make weighed bases using lead beads (or ball bearing/BBs/etc), filling a box (3D printed/wooden/plastic/etc) with an attachment point (1/4 - 20) affixed.

I have been thinking about building an X/Y/rotate stage (not quite a robot arm) to go under my microscope to position my PCB under the field of view and positioned for the best soldering orientation (right-handed solderer). It could run through a series of learned positions and orientations to speed up the process of building a board (sort of a pick and place but backwards idea), with a simple button press (foot pedal) to advance to the next position.

Well done!

Gene

RE: Building Custom Helping Hands

neilk — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 08:57:49 GMT

Nice build, Shabaz and what a superb video.!

You must spend ages filming and editing, as well as building [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bafa0339-d21b-4b4a-a10f-46c2dea34775/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

Neil

RE: Building Custom Helping Hands

ntewinkel — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 01:29:20 GMT

That's a REALLY nice design, Shabaz!

I might have to try that for myself. I can likely get a chunk of heavy metal from my father-in-law. Nice how yours is perfectly shaped like that.

I was about to order some of those coolant pipes (only about $1 each) to try that method. That would probably be alright, except that the usual alligator clips kinda suck. I like your use of the rubber gripper.

[View:/resized-image/__size/235x177/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bafa0339-d21b-4b4a-a10f-46c2dea34775/contentimage_5F00_190426.png:235:177]

Or given what we do, maybe we should consider using robot arms!! [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bafa0339-d21b-4b4a-a10f-46c2dea34775/contentimage_5F00_2516.png:16:16] I'm only half kidding, as this one on eBay is only $15 USD...

[View:/resized-image/__size/294x252/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bafa0339-d21b-4b4a-a10f-46c2dea34775/contentimage_5F00_190427.png:294:252]

Of course then it gets all complicated needing joystick controls and the like [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-bafa0339-d21b-4b4a-a10f-46c2dea34775/contentimage_5F00_2516.png:16:16]

So then the obvious easiest solution is to implement the AI needed for it to position itself automatically in the most helpful way possible.

-Nico

RE: Building Custom Helping Hands

14rhb — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 23:07:55 GMT

Hi Shabaz,

This is a great build and looks so much better than the standard croc-clip helping hands, well done.

I bought myself some 1/4" UNC tap/die set years ago (so that I could make customised tripod mounts). It looks like I could dig them out again. I guess the main requirements are the heavy base, tight couplings and rigid arms. For anyone who cannot get a decent piece of steel then perhaps casting some concrete would be a suitable alternative - just recess the bottom when casting so a large washer can be added to spread the loading.

Rod