VacPen Is a Vacuum Assembly Pen

sjm4306's built his own vacuum tweezer/pickup tool using an ATtiny84 for control and a 9V battery power supply.

Jeremy Cook
2 years ago

Placing a few surface-mount parts with tweezers is fine, but, as noted in sjm4306’s VacPen video below, once you get to a certain point (e.g. an LED matrix) it can become a bit of a nightmare. Rather than continue to suffer – or simply buy one off-the-shelf – he decided to build his own, using a small vacuum pump and a vacuum manipulator recycled from a piece of test equipment.

His new VacPen device features a custom PCB along with an ATtiny84 for control, stuffed into a custom 3D-printed case. A small motor creates the vacuum, while a solenoid valve opens the tube to the atmosphere, quickly releasing components to their PCB resting place.

The 3D-printed case has a nicely integrated external 9V battery adapter, allowing for easy swaps, and it could potentially accommodate a custom DC power supply adapter. It also includes a green/orange/red LED to show the battery state. This should come in handy as it’s meant to take advantage of not-quite-dead fire alarm batteries, which sjm4306 tends to change out quite proactively. Better safe than sorry, one might say, but why not get the last little bit of juice out in a non-critical application?

User interface via a single touch surface, which can be set up to create a vacuum when pressed, or cycle on/off with instead. There’s also a socket for a 3.5mm audio-style jack for foot switch input, and a mono or stereo plug can be used depending on what’s convenient. While such switches are available for purchase, sjm4360 mentions potentially making a 3D-printed pedal, which would be a nice secondary project.

Jeremy Cook
Engineer, maker of random contraptions, love learning about tech. Write for various publications, including Hackster!
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