Soft Rubber Jaws for Panavise

SummaryThe Panavise is one of the indispensible must-haves of any electronics lab, right up there with 'scope, power supply, soldering iron and tweezers. After having used them for, oh, 30 years or so, I realized that they'd be more useful for my purposes with soft rubber jaws instead of the hard ones they come with. The soft jaws make it possible to clamp directly over components that would be damaged by hard jaws, and to hold two objects of differing thicknesses at the same time, which is impossible with the hard jaws. They're also a little "grippier" when you need to hold onto a narrow edge of a PCB, a fine wire, etc. Printed with Form Futura Flex EcoPLA rubber-like material, see the Instructions tab for details.InstructionsForm Futura Flex EcoPLA http://www.formfutura.com/175mm-filaments/specialty/flexible-pla/ is a rubber-like material that's pretty easy to print with. The Up/Afinia printer is somewhat limited in control of printing parameters, but even so, it's not difficult to get good results with this material, as long as you have a temperature-lowering mod installed. I printed these at 210C. You must use a slow head speed, which on the Up means selecting "Fine" mode. I used 0.3mm layer height, 3-layer surfaces, and the second-loosest fill setting. If you set the support angle to 30 degrees no support will be generated if printed in the orientation shown. You can vary the hardness of the final part somewhat via the fill and surface layer parameters. It will work with or without a raft; raft removal is not difficult. The material adheres well to glue stick or hairspray. It doesn't warp during printing, but these parts did bow after they cooled, but it's not a problem here since they're fastened to the vise with screws.