Helping Third Hands Soldering Magnifier Tool - FEITA Flexible Arms Clamp Clips with 3X Magnifying Glass Station - Magnetic PCB Circuit Board Holder, Heavy Duty Base Plate

It’s perfect! Don’t waste your time or money on those other “Helping Hands.” Brilliantly designed by someone who was probably fed up by how flimsy and easily they tipped over. It’s only a little more money but what a time-saver forever tightening those little wing nuts. Just buy it.

Very durable and helpful i use it often

Simple and efficient to work on small PSB

This product is a must have, for Printed Circuit Board work. Good size, stable base great for use when soldering boards and work under an electronic microscope. I replace the plastic stage on my e-scope with this board and solder surface mount device under the lens. Great third and fourth hand.

Magnifying glass is broken. Rest of it seems OK not greatest but it does ok

Overall this thing is well designed. The quality of the materials is good, doesn't feel cheap, nothing "smells" strongly of chemicals. Everything you need comes included and does not require you to modify anything or supply any fasteners. The baseplate is somewhat heavy, it's weighted on purpose otherwise it would slide around inadvertently if you bumped into the arms or the arms could act as levers and start to tip the baseplate over. I feel like the ideal position for the arms to be in is north of you so that they come south, this way they're not in your way on either west or east or south (you would be sitting south). In this orientation though the baseplate is narrow, I would have preferred if they rotated this 90 degrees or made the baseplate wider, since the narrow width of the baseplate in your configuration directly impacts how wide of a PCB you can put on the little magnetic trees. The baseplate has a fairly durable coating that is gritty, sliding magnetic attachments on it will start to scuff it. As for the attachments, no complaints about the magnetic trees, they work well and have various ridges along their height as well as two that can adjust in height to "clamp" onto PCBs or anything else. The two alligator clipped arms work well and have insulated tips, you get two extra alligator clips (with insulated tips) in case something damages the two you start with. All of the arms can be disassembled with a screwdriver. The alligator clipped arms attach to the baseplate through the slits using supplied wing nuts. The magnifying glass arm also works well and surprisingly the "3x" magnification specifier is accurate, I find magnifiying lamps and glasses usually promise a magnification that is not really accurate (for example: states "5x" but is actually "2x") so being at least close to 3x is refreshing. What's kind of odd is that the magnifying glass is held on by a magnet and not wing nuts like the alligator clipped arms. This makes it easier to accidentally tip this arm off the baseplate or slide it around. I guess they thought people would want it in non-fixed locations (as opposed to the fixed location slits) but I feel like I'd want it where the alligator clipped arms are, coming from north to south. Lastly, the worst part about this thing (and is not really that bad) are the foam feet they include for the baseplate. The foam feet use an extremely weak adhesive tape, combined with the non-smooth texture of the baseplate, these fall off easily. Forget about bringing this thing around for travel without the feet falling off and becoming lost somewhere. Not only do the feet not stay on, either the baseplate has a slight twist to it or the feet are unbalanced, because once I put the feet on the entire thing now has a diagonal wobble (if I push the corners diagonally, it tilts), without the feet it doesn't wobble so go figure. They really need to redesign this part, make the feet permanently attached using screws or rivets and make them balanced so this thing isn't wobbling around. If you plan on never moving this and keeping it stationary you will probably not lose the feet, the weight of the baseplate bearing down will keep them in place. All in all, well designed even with some of the problems and necessary if you solder frequently.

This is a great little helping hands tool - FAR better than the unstable little stand version that's frustrated me for way too long. The old stand types have rigid arms with limited movement only at hard-to-adjust joints, and it all depends on getting it balanced just right on a base that's never heavy or wide enough for most jobs. I hated that little thing, but it was a necessity. This is helping hands station is a game changer though! The base plate is large and heavy. If you manage to tip this thing over you need less coffee...a lot less. The arms are all flexible shafts that can be very easily adjusted to nearly any position you might need, and just stiff enough to stay where they're put. Two of the flexible arms securely attach to slotted holes with easy-to-use wing nuts, and the other is on a strong magnetic base. By default, it comes with the magnifying glass on the magnetic base and insulated alligator clamps on the bolt-on arms. However, they're all held together with a simple phillips head set screw so I swapped the magnifying glass with one of the clips because I'd rather have the magnifier secure from tipping and it provides more adjustability with the clamps. The set includes an extra pair of insulated clamps, and four magnetic stands that can be positioned anywhere on the base. The stands have ridges shaped into them and a threaded top that can help hold things pretty securely. The only problem I had with mine was the "insulation" on the extra clamps. I don't know if the assembly line just ran out that day or something, but they aren't genuinely insulated. The clamps that came preinstalled have nice rubber tips to insulate them (not pushed on all the way, but that was an easy fix). The two extras have heat shrink rather than the regular rubber tips. That wouldn't be a problem except they obviously shrunk the tube and just threw them in the box before they cooled because they were stuck together. I bent one trying to get it open, ended up having to use a screwdriver to pry them apart, and one of them tore a bit because of it. Not a super big deal as I don't always need insulated anyway and I have my own heat shrink if I ever need to fix it, but it definitely should not be like that. That said, this is still a really great tool I'm super pleased to finally have. I personally feel like the current sub-$30 price is totally worth the convenience. I wish I'd got one years ago! I received this as a promotion to review, but I'm not a paid reviewer or employee. This is my honest opinion, and I will update this review if anything changes.

Have you ever soldered trying to hold two separate wires together while holding a hot soldering iron and solder lead. IF the answer is yes, and you still do not have one of these, I would highly recommend picking one up. This tool has two adjustable arms that can hold wires in 3d space so you can focus on the hot soldering iron. It also has a magnetic adjustable magnifying glass so you can see fine details while working with small components. There are four magnetic posts that you can screw onto PCB boards to lift them about 3/4 in off the work surface. The work surface is a thick plastic coated sheet of metal (I would guess it is coated to prevent rust). There are also two spare claws and 4 rubber feet included in the box. The only complain I have is that the magnet at the base of the magnifying glass needs to be stronger because when you try and adjust the position of the magnifying glass the magnetic base will often tip or lift off the work surface. The solution is to use one hand to hold the base while positioning the lens. Which is annoying when you want to reposition the lens with only one hand free. To sum it up: The Good: Great way to make soldering/plastic welding with a hot iron safer. Comes with magnifying glass for close up detailed work. Almost entirely metal. Magnetic and adjustable. Comes with PCB stands. Useful tool for printing with a 3d pen. Includes rubber feet so it won't slide around. The Bad: The magnifying glass base magnet is too weak and it is easy to knock over then trying to adjust the magnifying glass position. Would recommend using two hands to adjust the magnifying glass position. 4 stars My rating methodology: 5 stars - Excellent and exceeds expectations (highly recommend) 4 stars - Good product, meets expectations possibly with a few minor annoyances (would recommend) 3 stars - Ok product, functional but has some problems (ok if you can live with the problems) 2 stars - Poor quality product, functional but with major problems (can't recommend) 1 star - dysfunctional product (DO NOT BUY)