Helping Hands With Led Tester.

Very useful when working with microchips and handling small parts
Has a white led to light up a specific area or there were light is needed.

Here is all you will need:
- Some malleable wire
- 1 led (colour is optional)
- 6 alligator clips
- 2 AAA battery holder
- Soldering iron & solder
- Piece of wood
- Glue or epoxy
- Bread board (the +- part)
- Shrink tubing (optional)
- Switch

Step 1: How to Make an Arm.

To make this arm out of you materials you will need:
- Some wire that can bend into shape
- 6 alligator clips
- Soldering iron & solder
- Shrink tubing (optional)
Step 1
Strip the end of the wire (about 1 cm will do)

Step 2
Bend the striped wire in the middle and back onto it self

Step 3
Put the wire in the slot of the alligator clips, which looks like a U, and bend it around the striped end.

Step 4
Solder it in place for added strength and put on some shrink tubing.

Step 5
Make 6 of these.

Step 2: Now for the Base

The base I made out of pure wood (it is stronger and is heavier). I drilled 6 holes for the arms and 3 holes for the wiring and also1 hole for the light rod.

Here is what you need for this part:
- 2 AAA battery holder
- piece of wood
- glue or epoxy
- bread board (the +- part)
- switch

Part 1
First pencil out the spots were you are going to put the holes then drill all the holes you need.

Part 2
Take of the protective film and place it on the board.

Part 3
Now solder the switch to two wires and put shrink tubing around the soldered parts.

Part 4
Put the battery holder with double sided tape on too the board and guide the wires through the whole to the bottom.

Step 3: Building the Light Rod.

The light rod is a led on a malleable wire. It is very useful for when soldering microchips and you need to see which component is on the other side you do not need to flip over the microchip.

Here are the materials needed for this step:
- some wire that can bend into shape
- 1 led (colour is optional)
- soldering iron & solder
- shrink tubing (optional)

Follow the instructions on the pictures:

Step 4: Puting It All Together

Just glue the arms in to the holes and attach the wiring together and you are done.

Please give feedback this is my first Instructable. How can I improve?

Comments

[jaimealmeida]

Greetings for your helping hands with led tester. But it could be improved: the breadboard could be replaced by a real 24pin female connector, and you could add a LED to test another kind of devices too, such as resistors. You can check the small test bench that I've constructed: https://www.instructables.com/id/Small-Test-Bench/

[Saitu]

This is awesome!!!! I was looking for a good, easy, quick 'ible on making a set of helping hands myself. This works perfectly!

[tylerjbolin13]

Nice instructable, how did you make that drawing for the circuit, what program was it.

[the_don125]

That tester needs resistors! At least one!
It probably works fine for white, blue, and green LEDs, because of their high forward voltage drop, but when you start getting to red and amber LEDs, you are going to pop them!

Your average 5mm red LED has a current rating of 20mA and a voltage drop of 1.8V. 2 fresh alkaline AAA batteries have a voltage of 3.2V. Assuming a series resistance of about 500miliOhms, we see with V=IR:
(3.2V - 1.8V) / 0.5 Ohms = 700mA!
That can potentially fry a red LED instantly! Certainly if you leave it in the tester for more than a few seconds, it will not likely leave the tester fully functional.

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

i plan on doing this but with a variable power supply

[Cartermarquis]

Great 'ible, the LED tester is a nice touch. I know i've put LEDs in that didn't work and was really frustrated about it. You should really go over this with a spell checker because there are more than a few misspelled words, but otherwise I think this is a good idea.

[forte1994]

Better?

[Cartermarquis]

Yeah some of the comments on the pictures are still misspelled, but much better.

[forte1994]

Thank you! I will get right to the spell check!