SuperHouse #36: 3D printed PCB workstation made with acupuncture needles 

Using acupuncture needles as probes is fruitful idea. It's thin, sharp, resilient and long.

Every Tech lab and every Tech college needs these for their work bench Awesome project and excellent ideas.

This is absolutely brilliant. Thank you for sharing it with us!

This is a genious tool! Actually it resembles the bed-of-nails principle used for automated test probing in factory runs of assembled PCB's. I used to a be programmer on such equipment and had to to build the bed-of-nails fixtures too. Never thought of this idea for a manual workbench tool. Thanks for the video - pretty cool 😃

don't want to build this for now but learnt a few things anyway, you are a really good engineer. thanks for sharing your knowledge and thought process

What an awesome project! Super super clever! Thanks for sharing it in such detail.

Awesome ! Very nice little helper, like it and already printing )) THANKS for sharing!

Hey Jon. This project idea is awesome, as components continue to get smaller. Great video

finally real use case for acupuncture needle

Love this, great video!

This is an exceptionally well designed probing kit. When you assemble this you get the feeling that a lot of work and thought have gone in to this. All parts are open source, so if you want to print it your self, you are free to do so. The probes are made of copper wound accupuncture needles, which you can get for cents on ebay or ali. The print quality is excelent. Everything could be assembled as recieved. No need for sanding or the like. Just follow the assembly video, and all will be smooth.

Also. that is super cool. Anyone who has to test surface mount boards needs something like this.

This looks like a nice little probe station for beginners. But there are at least two major issues. First, if you wan't to test multiple boards you have to move the probes out of the way to change boards, then move them back again. A normal probe station has the probes attached (typically with strong magnets, not wing nuts) to a U-shaped platform. The open end of the 'U' faces front, and a hing on the back couples the platform to the base. So you can just lift it like a toilet seat, change boards, and lower it again. The second problem is poor grounding, which explains why there is so much ringing in your waveforms. For this I would recommend the U-shaped hinged platform be metal, or at least have copper tape covering its top surface. You connect this to the ground in your DUT (perhaps have a few probes that are just for ground) so the platform essentially becomes part of the ground plate. You can then connect your scope ground leads to the platform. But this was a very inspiring video. If I had time (which I never do) I would try to design my own version.

I'm going to have to watch this entire series now I think :)

sensacional! muito obrigado! from Brazil

So simple, so efficient. I need those needles NOW. :P

Very cool! Another option, instead of modeling your own in fusion360 would have been to change the scale of JUST those pieces in your slicer. Setting them to 101% scale or 102 would have probably done the exact same thing, and saved you hours. I'm going to be printing my own tonight.

Wow! I literally just had my first experience with an acupunture needle (my Physio did some "dry needling"). Even having handled a needle in it's tube, I never made the connection with the possibility of using the needle as a fine test probe. Perhaps because I don't like needles? LOL But, what a brilliant idea!

A suggestion: Upgrade the wing nuts to thumb nuts. Thanks for sharing!

i think this looks cool, but might bee a good idea to use shielded cables, like thise super thin and flexible coax cables used in DAB radio antennas :)

Very cool!

very tempted to build something like this for my workshop, but I might redesign it slightly

Perfecto!

Great India! Nice doing. I use orthophosphoric acid to solder steel and copper. Very convenient.

I've just printed out the various parts and found, as you explained, that the crane bases could be loose in the platform. So, before inserting the crane vertical component, I drilled a 2.5mm hole - from the top - using the existing screw hole as a pilot, and tapped the holes to take M3 bolts. Using 20mm dia printed washers (metal would do) and using M3 x 12mm bolts from the underside of the platform screwed up in to the crane bases. Result - total control of the 'stiffness' of the cranes.

Greetings. Thanks for sharing a video about this device. I bought some tweezers with ceramic tips for building coils for my e-cigs. These only cost a few bucks and are heat resistant and non-conductive. godspeed

I suspect that if you had put the screw into the base, then it would have spread the plastic out a bit, making it fit tighter (and keeping you from having to redesign the part).

The first long board could be mounted 45 degrees in the base, then there are a little more space to go with. Nice universal tool.

No one has mentioned it here so far, and it may be obvious, but in addition to testing and data gathering for reverse engineering purposes, the application I was thinking about when I first encountered Giuseppe's design was flashing Tasmota (and the like) on smart devices without headers. Smart light bulbs are a notorious example. Note for the case of a bulb shape some different and custom part holders other than the PCB clamps shown here would be nice to have.

DIY wafer probe. Nice work.

I use Repetier host to print, which has the ability to resize larger or smaller on any or all axis of any stl part that you want to print, would have saved a remodel of the part, looks like an awesome find though.

Great work. I'd like to see if you could use as a precision solder station aswell.

Thanks for the very informative video. During watching I was wondering what type/model/brand of microscope you're using.

You might want to check out PCBite which was a Kickstarter campaign. They are incredibly useful.

Can I suggest using elastics for the base and holders. Might help instead of having to screw the wing nuts.

I'm wondering if the screw is used to fill in the gap by squeezing the sides.. and that's why it wasn't fitting right making you have to resize the part

V2: have the needle harms be pulled down with springs or rubber bands 👌

I suggest changing the winged nuts for the PCB holder to a spring loaded part with same area … :)

As far as the tuning for fit, did you try just increasing the size of the whole part by 1% or so in the slicer?

A nice addition would be a litte bit of spring pressure so that you can have close to a defined needle pressure. in the past i've used harden nails, not sure what they were called but they were black with no heads and very hard. sandpaper to remove the black coating on each end and they could be soldered to ok. been trying to find a supply of them as i've lost my last ones. thank for the idea that I can replace them with needles.

Building this project... what size acupuncture needles do you recommend?

You could have just enlarged the part a bit or set horizontal expansion to a positive number in Cura if that's the slicer you use with that little part that was loosey goosey. Typically +/- 0.05 - 0.1mm is enough to fix any clearance/tolerance problems I have with my printer. Transcribing the whole part into CAD is something I do anyway sometimes though to have control over a design if i'm gonna be using it, so I understand going that route.

wire is going to snap near ferrule so fast.. you need at least to secure some wire length with insulation to limit bend radius.

What about using pogo pins instead of acupuncture needles?

What's your microscope model and setup?

Upgrade time! Shielded probes? (I saw a bit of resonance on your oscilloscope.) Maybe put your own shielding over the steel acupuncture needles? Or use something different?

wonder if you can 3d print a noga mount ?

You just demonstrated how computer chips came to be tested. Alot further along now .... but betcha something very very similar was used for a period of time.

I'd suggest getting a Dupont crimper and a set of ends instead of having to solder to a pin header 👍

Unlisted bonus... solder joints have access to Chi energy after getting acupuncture.

Please share link to this tool stl's. Thanks

Please take care if you put super glue in the bottom of a closed slot or hole to attach whatever goes in it. When you insert the mating part, if you add even little too much glue, it can squeeze _or even spray_ out!!! Best to point it away from you and especially your face while assmbling the parts.

You can silver solder to stainless

Please put the link to the Thingiverse project on description. Let's give people credit for their work! Thank you.

hmm make a kit with the needles and ferrule kit and heat shrink?

I guess, this will reduce any pains that the board is experiencing.

What 3d printer did you use? Bc quality is good :)

These test fixtures, seem to run about $80 or more (That I can find). Do you know of one that is a lot more basic / cheap to build? I really just need something that can handle 5 pins in line with each other. (Trying to access JTAG circuit). I might just get this one built but, I'm not sure of the total cost.

I'll print it and ill modify and add few springs to hold

Hi great tutroial, are needles sizes 0.25x25mm ?

i think if he made the files parametric you could modify sizes and the object would scale up or down to the new sizes

This is awesome Jon, but I do have one “odd” question: I see you handling those acupuncture needles in a very “hasty” way, and I was actually wondering how many times you ended up “sticking” yourself with them while shooting the video (or while you were building it)

HI, EHERE CAN I BUY THIS PLEASE?

Where can I buy Thai kit in the US?

I would’ve redesigned the needle holders for ease of printing

Hi! Will ferrite sleeves on both ends of the wire help against noise? Or is it better to wrap the wire in foil and heat-shrink tube? Ferrite sleeves like this have Ф1.5mm i.imgur.com/OMSJrH5.png

Why not use pogo pins ?`

No real reason for the needle holder to be rounded off. Redesign it squared off for easier printing (and strength). Add a spot for the suggested rubber band tensioner at the same time.

6:14: You could have printed the STL but scaled it by a few percents, no need to redesign

Hey google, press enter on my keyboard

Great stuff as usual Jonathan. Hey, what’s the issue with my order ( #11482 ) from your freetronics website? It’s been almost 3 weeks but my serial adaptor has not arrived. My payment has been made successfully. And, I have repeated made inquiries and asked for updates via the freetronics site with absolutely zero responses. I would really appreciate an update. Better yet, my serial adaptor so I can finish following your great tutorial.

Warning : at 12.38 do not rotate when you place a "cable end" that create a hot sport when it have a hit intensity

This link points to a video about dimensionally accurate 3 d Printing, I suspect that if you saw this video before you printed, you would have not had to redesign. As a bonus this guy does a brilliant job of making a test jig for the circuit board using pogo pins. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0dFThbwAx2Y.html enjoy, regards Steve W

I’ve tried to buy one of these from the guys website but it’s almost impossible. It’s the worst website I’ve ever seen. Can’t look at the pictures up close, can’t jump around to see what’s in your cart or look through options or anything like that. I simply don’t have time to 3D print it and it’s definitely worth his asking price just to buy it out right. Sure beats the $400 I spent building the last one… With aluminum T-slot base and aluminum articulating arms meant for holding dial indicators. Even buying the cheapest stuff I could find it still cost quite a bit. So I would love to buy the 3-D printed version if only his website was usable.

Not to split hairs here, but perhaps if you would have followed his rather explicit directions for printing the needle holders, you night not have had so many issues... RTFM rears its ugly head, LOL even so, I somewhat agree with the swingarm assembly fix but I would have changed it two two tapered tabs to insure the less wobbly grip. I also like the many call outs for a knurled knob rather than the rather annoying wing nuts. I liked the review overall as it pointed out some potential issues and possible "upgrades". Thanks for posting this!