April 24, 2020
When you do enough of one thing, you begin to find that some tools work better than others. When soldering together circuits I find a pair of spring loaded needle-nose pliers necessary. The needle nose helps grab and place wires and components. Having a spring-loaded pair allows you to grab and release small parts with one hand while operating the soldering iron with the other. Unfortunately, the pliers dedicated to my lab are not spring loaded. As an overconfident engineer I figured I’d just modify my regular needle-nose pliers to be spring loaded. I tried to design a solution using a rubber band or spring with no feasible luck. I needed a device to hold the lever-arms open. What I came up with is arguably the silliest thing I’ve ever made. I zip-tied a the handles of a binder-clip to the inside of the pliers lever arms. Though silly, it was a quick fix, and 5 months later it still works like a charm.