If you've hand-soldered a through-hole board, you know the drill. Insert a part, flip the board, hold it down with one hand, solder with the other, flip back, do it again for the next part. Helping hands and tape kind of work but they're slow, and once a board is fully populated things start shifting around. I got tired of bending leads just to keep parts from falling out mid-solder.
Instead of holding one part at a time, I wanted something that could hold all of them at once. That's what the Conforming SolderJaw does. It's a jig with a high-temp silicone sponge membrane that presses down around every populated component at the same time. Load the whole board, clamp it, flip it over, and solder everything in one pass.
How it's builtThe frame is anodized aluminum. The slide and jaws are carbon fiber reinforced ASA to for its high-temp and strength. The part that actually makes it work is the membrane itself, a high-temp silicone sponge that deforms around whatever's poking out of the board (resistors, caps, headers, connectors) and holds it tight enough that nothing shifts when you flip it. The membranes are also reversible and replaceable, so wear from repeated clamping isn't a dead end.
- Populate the board with all your through-hole parts, nothing soldered yet
- Set the board in the jaw
- Close and clamp it down, the membrane conforms around everything
- Flip it over
- Solder everything in one pass
- Unclamp and you're done
- Board size: up to 4.75" x 2.75"
- Frame: anodized aluminum
- Slide & Jaws: carbon fiber reinforced ASA
- Membrane: high-temp silicone sponge, reversible and replaceable
- Cost: $49.99
Up on Amazon and SolderJaw.com.
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