The movable jaw can slide to any position along the shaft.
To grab a circuit board, gently squeeze the jaws against board edges.
Tighten wing nut to fix the movable jaw
Easily take circuit board in and out of spring loaded jaws
For larger jaw opening or PCB clearance, easily upgrade your vise.
I work at a small electronics company where we have every PCB holder you can imagine, from swiveling vises to helping hands. Despite that, I found myself constantly making custom fixtures to perform the simple task of holding a PCB near table level. These flat PCB holders were great because your hands could rest directly on the table for fine soldering and probing. They also fit easily under a microscope and kept the PCB consistently in focus. After years of custom "one off" designs, I decided it was time to come up with a universal solution. I wanted to design a simple, flat PCB vise.
I went through many design iterations before arriving at my final design. Every part was carefully examined and the question was asked: Is this necessary? Why have two shafts when you only need one? Why have a base plate when the vise always sits on a table? Why use heavy duty clamps just to hold a PCB?
Another big design goal was affordability, so I used standard parts wherever possible. I opted for the lowly wing nut over a fancy lever or knob because it works better and can be found at any hardware store. I liked the wing nut so much I built it into the logo! Finally I wanted to eliminate confusing features, even if they might be useful. I wanted people to look at Stickvise and immediately understand how it works and what it is for. It is easy to dream up add-ons, so I thought I would encourage people to upgrade or modify their vise and add complexity as needed. This was the inspiration behind Stickvise.
Alex Rich
[email protected]