If you are working with surface mount electronics and don’t have the handy heritage of a pulp-comic superhero to give you super-high-resolution eyesight, then you will quickly find yourself needing a magnifying glass. And since you’ll be using both hands doing the soldering, you’ll need some way to hold it.

There are multiple solutions to this problem on the market, from headband magnifiers and inspection magnifiers on arms to cheap “Helping hands”. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but none of them appealed to our reader [Anil], who wanted an illuminated magnifier to fit the Hobby Creek arm on his Pana-Vise.

His solution was to 3D print a surround for a lens from a set of helping hands. This is no simple print though, it’s made of three layers. There is a translucent diffuser, a layer that holds a set of LEDs and attaches to the arm, and a cover to hold the lens in place. Power for the LEDs comes via USB.

The print itself was a bit tricky, his diffuser used T-glase translucent filament, and was fused to the PLA LED ring in a single print from his dual-extruder printer. He takes us through the various steps he needed to get it right, and shows us a few of his failed prototypes. The resulting magnifier looks to be a useful addition to his bench, he’s made the STL files available towards the bottom of his post so you can have a go at making one for yourself.

This is the kind of simple hack that can make life so much easier for the SMD constructor. We’ve had  another set of augmented helping hands featured here in the past, and of course there’s the ultimate portable SMT station. If SMD soldering is new to you, please also read our SMD guide for the nervous.