Besides a professional level soldering station, neat and clean soldering requires a few extra tools. Among these different extra tools, the soldering helping hands are very important as they give you the ability to solder at your own convenience and angle.
Soldering helping hands or arms as the name suggests are mechanical arms that help us hold the circuit boards at our convenient height and length so that we can solder a circuit with our best possible effectiveness.
As a new person, choosing the best soldering helping hands may be confusing. You may not have the right questions to research, don’t know about the proven brands, and perhaps many other questions.
If this short introduction got your attention then I am sure you will enjoy the rest of this article.
Hay! I am Abbas. And in this article I will share what makes helping hands best for soldering, a list of proven helping arms, and much more.
I am not perfect, nor this article is going to be. This is just my limited knownledge try to help you somehow.
I hope you will enjoy it.
Best Soldering Helping Hands
You know, if the soldering connections are not perfect. This will cause a lot of issues in your circuit boards. Your circuit may not actually work fine.
These bad connections radiate and if you are making this circuit for commercial purposes then it may fail the CE and FCC radiation regulations.
Also, bad soldering leads to bad results, and you may have a bad looking PCB at the end which no one will appreciate even yourself.
Furthermore, a bad or loose connection may also cause additional noise in your circuit board and may overheat your overall circuit.
I can go on about how bad it is to have a bad soldered board. I guess you got my point. To avoid these loose connections we need to have proper pieces of equipment in our lab.
Soldering helping hands are among those pieces of equipment. It is not the game changer but adds so much value to our soldering outputs.
Now let’s see what to look for in these best soldering helping hands.
Choosing the best soldering helping hands
These devices are very simple there is not that much to look at. But if you miss these few things about these guys you will not like the end results, so pay close attention.
1. Base
The base is the lower portion of the helping hands. The base holds firmly the arms of soldering helping hands together.
It must be sturdy and prone to any vibrations. By this, I mean that your soldering hands should have a base of high quality and should be heavy. It should not be like something happens on the next corner of your table and your soldering hands start shaking making you bad connections.
2. Holding clips
These are the parts that hold the circuit board which you want to solder. They may come in different sizes and shapes. But it should have a soft covering on them to prevent PCBs from getting scratched.
3. Flexibility
This is the most important thing to consider when buying any helping arms for soldering. Your soldering arms must be flexible enough so that you can adjust your circuit boards at any angle convenient for soldering.
4. Arms quality
Of course, the quality of arms must be high. If you buy low quality hands you will have no better results. In fact, they will make your soldering output much worse in some cases.
List of some best helping hands for soldering
The above criteria are applied to each and every below helping hand. I am not to repeat it for every model listed below.
Keep in mind, that the following are the best models because they come from the well known trusted brands, have a proven track record, are used by thousands of people, are reliable, are high quality, and come with a decent price tag that most of you will afford.
We will start from the basic model and then will continue talking about professional level helping arms.
01. KOTTO soldering helping hands
The first helping hands that I have for you are from the Kotto brand. This is a very basic one and can handle all the needs of DIY and entry level people.
Important features:
- 4 adjustable metal gooseneck arms
- Stainless steel precision alligator clamp tips
- 360-degree rotation so that you can adjust the circuit in the way most convenient to you
- Weighted base and anti-slip rubber feet
In a short summary, KOTTO Soldering Helping Hands (Amazon link) are very suited for circuit board holding and soldering. It has a very decent price tag for such high quality.
02. QuadHands flexible arms
The second soldering helping arms are from the QuadHands brand. These are quite the same as the above one but with a better base design and overall quality.
Important features:
- Stainless steel rotating alligator clamps that come with removable silicone covers for protection
- Heavy powder coated steel base
- The base has rubber feet that won’t slip, tip over, slide or move an inch while you work on your project at your desk or bench.
- Easy adjustment alligator clamps
- Sturdy, flexible, steel gooseneck arms
In a short summary, QuadHands flexible arms (Amazon link) is an amazing helping arms tool from engineers of the USA to all other engineers. It is engineered to last and designed to provide a third hand right where you require it.
03. Magnetic helping hands
The above helping hands have the arms fixed to their base, i.e., the arms are screwed to the base portion. Which limits our flexibility in some cases. To avoid this there are magnetic helping hands for soldering whose arms are magnets and can be attached to the base anywhere your circuit requires.
Important features:
- Powder coated steel base with a weight of over 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg) which makes it extremely sturdy to ensure your workstation doesn’t tip over or move an inch.
- Rubber Feet
- 5 adjustable metal gooseneck arms with a strong magnetic base so that it can be magnetically repositioned throughout the base to suit any size circuit
- Clips are stainless steel and have a strong spring
In a short summary, Magnetic Helping Hands (Amazon link) from the Noevsbig brand are incredible that will completely free your hands up, and you will work easier than ever before.
04. KOTTO Lighted magnifying third hand
Let’s include some advance helping arms as well. By advance, I mean the one that has a magnification option as well. Such a helping hand is designed by the Kotto brand.
Important features:
- 3x magnifying glass with LED which makes your soldering much easier and effective
- Weighted base
- 4 flexible arms for holding circuit boards
- High quality alligator clips
In a short summary, KOTTO Lighted Magnifying Third Hand (Amazon link) is a complete set for soldering work. It has LED and a magnifying glass that makes the chances of soldering errors very low.
The best alternative to this model is the following which you should also check out.
05. NEWACALOX third hand soldering tool
Newacalox is a very famous brand for making all kinds of soldering arms for beginner to professional level use. The following helping arms from this brand is unique from the above as it has a solid stand for soldering iron which makes it a little more useful and efficient.
Important features of this helping hand:
- Solid weighted steel construction
- Industrial grade rubber feet to ensure a stable base that does not move
- Rubber feet also protect your work surface from scratches and scuffs
- Comes with alligator clips that can rotate a full 360 degrees for you to hold your circuit board exactly how you need it
In a short summary, NEWACALOX third hand soldering tool (Amazon link) is another good option for you to consider based on its quality, construction, and low price tag.
06. Magnetic soldering arms for SMDs
The unique thing about this soldering helping arms is it comes with a hot air rework holder. Which makes it perfect for SMDs component soldering.
Let’s look at it’s some fine features:
- It is magnetic means you can place the arms on base anywhere you require
- 360 hot air gun holder
- Extra large and heavy duty baseplate (over 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg))
- Rubber Feet of the base ensure stability and protect your worktop
- 4 adjustable metal gooseneck arms with a strong magnetic base
In a short summary, Magnetic soldering arms for SMDs (Amazon link) from the Noevsbig brand is perfect if you have some SMDs to solder.
07. Soldering helping hands from Toolour
The last best soldering helping hands is from the Toolour brand. The helping hand from this brand is unique from the above models as it has the magnification and LED features, as well as has a holder for SMDs hot air rework – thus making it a complete package.
Important features:
- 360° hot air gun holder
- 3X Magnifier lamp
- The lamp has 3 brightness colors and 10 dimmer levels
- Heavy duty baseplate
- 4 adjustable metal gooseneck arms and holders with a strong magnetic base
In a short summary, Soldering helping hands from Toolour (Amazon link) is a professional level helping hands. It comes with the detachable heat gun bracket magic arm with a desk clamp.
Conclusion
You know, in electronics soldering is very important. It helps us make a circuit more effectively and save us a lot of valuable resources.
Soldering is really fun. And some DIY electronics lovers enjoy it way too more than some other electronics hobbyists.
But no matter if you are doing soldering as a DIY beginner or as a professional. You may have noticed that no one like a bad finished PCB even if the circuit works fine the way it supposes to.
Bad soldering does not just result in a bad finish product. But if care is not taken during soldering you may have some loose connection, short, or open joint in your circuit board. And these will lead to some serious problems.
You may face noise in your circuits, fail the CE testing, or even end up in a totally null working prototype.
Well, there are many ways you can prevent this from happening. One is to equip your lab with the right soldering tools. Such as professional soldering stations, desoldering stations, fans, and much more.
Among those soldering tools, one is called soldering helping hands. This is not the game changer, but it will make your soldering experience much better and more effective.
In this article, we talk about these helping hands, how to choose the best soldering helping hands for your lab, and much more.
In a short summary, soldering helping hands are some mechanical arms (number may vary, but typically there are four arms) that help us hold the circuit boards at our convenient height and length so that we can solder any electronics circuit board with our best possible effectiveness.
To pick a good one consider the following things:
- Strong base
- Soft clips
- Flexible arms
- High quality
So that is it guys. This is all I have to share about some best helping hands for soldering. I hope you enjoyed it and the article was helpful.
Thank you so much and have a grateful life.
Other useful posts:
- 7 Best Digital Soldering Microscopes for Electronics
- 20 Best soldering stations [beginners to professionals]
- 11 Best desoldering stations and guns to buy
- Do I need helping hands for soldering?
- #12 tools needed to solder a circuit board
- 7 Best soldering fume extractor
