Hakko Omnivise PCB Holder (C1390C)

This is a hefty little tool that was very well designed. The product picture made me think I was going to get a pretty big unwieldy tool to hold PCBs to solder. But, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasnt at all as big as I thought it was going to be. Although this is small, it packs just the right amount of weight to it to hold most anything needed. Upon receiving and just looking at it, I was trying to figure out how it actually worked. Once I unscrewed the top and saw how it held the boards, the only word that came to mind was genius. I have used all sorts of holding tools, from those that are spring loaded and clamp the ends of a PCB, to simple helping hands type tools. This picks up all of the short comings and packs it into a simple, but powerful tool. Now it is much easier to hold those odd shaped boards that were just impractical in most other holders. You can even pair this up with another Omnivise if you need to get that extra support for the much larger boards. So far, this holds up well to a reflow heat gun and a decently high wattage soldering iron. It has settings to elevate the board, but I rarely have a need for that. It also holds the board low enough that I can still get it under a microscope for inspection. Overall, I wouldnt hesitate to buy another one of these shall the need arise. Would highly recommend!

expensive but works great

Worth the money to know youre getting a solid product. dont settle for one of those cheap $20 plastic holders that will break. save yourself the trouble. Nice to finally have a board holder instead of just laying the PCB on my desk. and yes you will need at Minimum TWO of these if you plan on doing bigger sized boards.

Very versatile and capable holder. Might buy another for larger boards.

These things are wonderful for working on electronics. It hurts to spend $250 for 4 of them though, considering they are made in china and not very expensive to manufacture. They do work remarkably well. Even at the price, I highly recommend these. Depending on size PCBs you are working on, you will probably need between two to 4 of them. They hold the board stable enough above my convection preheater to do QFN and BGA rework just as well as a board holder that costs $1k. Height is adjustable too which is nice. This is one of those items you never realized how much you needed it until you own one (just like a video magnifier for working on small electronics). My ONLY complaint about these are the price. The product is top notch.

These are really terrific! They function extremely well while being, well, cute :) They have a really solid heft; you definitely dont want to drop one on your foot. That means they stay where you put them, along with whatever PCB you have clamped in them. They work extremely well for preheating a PCB for surface-mount rework. Use in pairs for boards over say 25cm long. You can definitely see a master designers work in these; the simplest thing that could possibly work really well. The top even pulls up the top clamping disk when turned a little further counter-clockwise. This is handy as any little flux residue on the edge of the board tends to make the firm rubber pads stick to the board a little. I find these really satisfying to use for some reason; they just make me feel good having them on the bench :)

I have used this vise at work for over 12 years. I decided to get one for home recently. Unfortunately, they cheapened the design such that it is no longer a vise, but pliers. For me the critical thing was that both clamping plates are parallel to each other no matter the the thickness of the material being clamped. The old design had a nut on the main bolt which held the top plate with the rubbery material in place. Even though it was loose, but not too much. The new design removed the nut and replaced it with just a small E-clip retaining washer. There is about 5 mm play in between the washer and the top plate. The top plate is so loose, that you get a wide swinging of the top plate. If you want to clamp material even as 10 mm think this really become pliers, one edge of the top round plate sitting on the edge of the bottom cylinder while the other edge of the top plate is clamping your material at an angle, like pliers. Since I liked the style, I decided to modify it to actually create a vise. Here are the steps: 1. I replaced the top washer in between the top plate and knob with one with much bigger diameter. I used SAE washers and enlarged the center holes to make them snug 8 mm in diameter. 2. Placed two washers at the bottom of the top plate. Second one is not visible in the picture since it fills the hole in the rubberized material. The other one is there to fill the space to reach the M8 x 1.25 thread since the thread ends early to accommodate the E-clip. The second washer must be made less than 15 mm in outer diameter to drop into the hole in the bottom cylinder. 3. That was not enough to reach the bottom nut, but instead of adding another washer I backed drilled the M8 nylon locking M8 nut for about 0.8 mm to make it all work. The M8 x 1.25 nylon locking nut replaced the E-clip and I was able to fine tune the play of the top plate. After lubricating the whole thing with PTFE there is no side wobble play in the upper plate while it still freely rotates and I have an actual vise. It took about 1.5 hours to modify two of them. Not worth the price without modification.