Solder Robin

There are many designs of helping hands for soldering.  What makes this stand out are these features:

• Modular design
• Arbitrary number of towers can be moved around a base plate
• Wires can be inserted with one hand
• All 3D printed parts
• Base rails as STL files to design your own base plate

Printing

You may want to use the “STRUCTURAL” preset or anything that is not the “superfast” preset on your slicer for the tower. Also you may want to tweak the supports of the tower a little bit.

The Star Base fits a MINI, it has to be rotated slightly to fit. There are 3 versions with different clearances. First print the parts and the 3 test rails to see which one fits best and then print the corresponding Star Base version.

If you print the Symmetric Base, also print one set of parts as mirrored versions in order to have a left and a right one.

Assembly

Put the swinging paddle into the tower. It slides right in in the fully opened position.

Close the paddle.

Put the spring on the end that sticks out. Then turn the spring counterclockwise for about 90 degrees to secure the paddle.

Load the spring by turning the open end another 90 degrees CCW and snap it into its position.

And you are done!

Designing your own base

Use the provided rail segments to design your own base. I have included a mirrored version of all parts if you want to do a symmetric design.

Fun Fact

Printing the base caused my Prusa MINI to play a little melody: