PCB holder - for microscopic SMT soldering

A simple-to-build kit for SMT component assembly.

As an electronics engineer, I've always believed that a good technician builds their own workshop and tools for the job, if necessary.

My kit is a response to this principle. I've seen many devices offering a solution for home soldering SMD components with a microscope.

They were expensive, and if not faulty, their performance was terrible.

So I decided to use a single component, a simple and inexpensive microscope with quite good parameters, and build an arm attached to a stand on which I could place my PCBs. That's what I did, and you can see the results in the photos.

This is the microscope: https://pl.aliexpress.com/item/1005009722938140.html

(Select USB A from the options)

Below, I'll share a program for displaying a magnified image from this camera. The program is written in Python and uses the OpenCV library (installed via pip cv2: https://pypi.org/project/opencv-python/)

import numpy as np

import cv2 as cv

cap = cv.VideoCapture(0)

if not cap.isOpened():

print("Cannot open camera")

exit()

while True:

ret, frame = cap.read()

if not ret:

print("Can't receive frame (stream end?). Exiting ...")

break

zoomed_frame = cv.resize(frame, None, fx=2, fy=2, interpolation=cv.INTER_CUBIC)

cv.imshow('powiekszony', zoomed_frame)

if cv.waitKey(1) == ord('q'):

break

cap.release()

cv.destroyAllWindows()

I am running this program on a PC without any built-in cameras, if you are running it on a laptop or you get an error, change cv.VideoCapture(0) from zero to one, if it still doesn't work, then still +1.