I did a quick hack previous week, when i wanted to measure current through a circuit as the load varied naturally. The current was measured as a drop through a 3W resistor. It was hard to hold those tiny pointed probes at the right point over the circuit for a long time. So, i thought of making something that can ease me of the labor of holding the probes and do something useful like watching TV and waking up in ad breaks to take the reading.

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Step 1: Stuff You Need

I made what i call – Alligator Probes. You can attach them to the wire while making long term single point measurements and also measurements that can be hazardous like measuring AC voltage in non-isolated environments. They come pretty handy and can be built with little effort.

So, all you need is this:

2x Alligator Clips (Black and Red)

Solder

Soldering Iron

Sand Paper

Heat Shrinks

Old/New Probes

Wire Cutter

Matchstick/Lighter

I had an old pair of pointed probes lying around as a friend of mine tried to measure voltage of a 48V Battery Pack while in continuity mode. The ground electrode almost melted. So, they were of no use, but with a habit of not throwing things away just like that, i kept them in my drawer. They came handy for this hack.

Step 2: Rub It, Solder It, Pull It and You Are Done

Take out the clip from the alligator clips, sand it from the part, where you need to solder the wire for probes.

Cut out the part of the ‘original’ probe that you don`t need and then slide down the part of heat-shrink before you solder it. Then, solder the clip and slide up the insulation sleeve and pull up the heat shrink from the other side and heat it to firm up the joint between the probes and the clip.

This instructable is also covered in my blog post Here
You are done! Hope you like it, Please share the pictures of your build too. You can comment here.