Sparkfun sells a digital multimeter tweezer product for $300. That is out of the price range for most non-professionals. How about a SOLIDLY built tweezer probe? just a normal pair of tweezers with some sort of electrical isolation between the tips and either a place to solder our own terminals or wires. Function before style here. I would bet a LOT of people who like to use SMT components and don’t want to blow $300 would appreciate this. Other models cost ~$25 but It stands to reason it could be made for less.
Hi,
You can make one yourself easily enough…I have a ATLAS LCR meter but I lost the probes.
Fortunately the wires were still there.
All I did was find some solid core wire thick enough to fit where the probes used to go, then got some of those plastic pellets that you put in boiling water to turn malleable, making the tweezers out of those, connecting up the wires from the LCR meter to the other end. Took about 10 minutes.
You could probably scavenge old multimeter probe wires or use some banana plugs to connect to a multimeter.
As a second pass I’ll probably find some suitable flat metallic core (the solid core wire is too round and the SMD devices skip around. Possible a pair of cheap actual tweezers and split them apart. If I have time this week I’ll put up an instructable.
Alternatively you might be able to substitute the plastic pellet stuff with simple heatshrink and a split pair of tweezers connected to banana plugs. In any case it’s not a major effort.
Phil
If you’ve ever tried to repair a split pair of tweezers, it’s harder than it looks. Somehow, you’ve got to insulate one side from the other and yet still make a strong enough mechanical bond so that they don’t fall apart in the middle of trying to use them. There’s too much stress on the attachment point to use any kind of glue, in my experience. Nylon fasteners may work, if you are willing to put up with a little added bulk, but otherwise I don’t see many options for putting them back together, assuming they are metal tweezers.
Also, you’ll need to insulate the handles from your body - which is thankfully pretty easy with some heat-shrink.
When I was reading the hack-a-day article I was thinking the exact same thing.
You might be able to DIY something up with some anti-static tweezers. You’d have to replace the plastic tips with metal contacts, but at least they come with the ability to connect something to the ends.
Something like this: