Today I received what I thought was a super deal - 4 sets of tweezers from aHappyDeal: http://www.ahappydeal.com/product-36675.html . They are so cheap I thought I would just buy them for the locking tweezers, as I have enough of the other kinds already.
They are utter rubbish. Very soft metal, the non-locking tweezers are so soft that exerting any but the weakest power makes them bend outwards at the tips, and the locking ones are so weak they can't hold a sheet of paper.
Completely useless, and to add insult to injury some of them arrived corroded or with signs of use. I asked aHappayDeal for a refund, I hope they'll agree though I don't have too much hope about it. Never mind, it's just 6$.
I thought about it but I'm not sure it fits my needs.
I use the tweezers to hold a wire to a PCB while soldering, or as a mini vise where I can't use my other vises.
I think the hemostats would either be too tight or too loose in these situations. Are they "infinitely" adjustable? Or do they close only on specific places?
And anyway, I think they cost more than tweezers...
The hemostats I have are cheap ($4.99 for a pair on Ebay, straight & curved tip) and have three locking positions. I would say they are tight enough.
Here is a picture of the mark they leave on a 1.35mm wire (the type that is usually included with drivers) when used in the first locking position. The picture is taken approximately one minute after the wire was released from the hemostat. Note: the indentation in the picture might look deeper than it really is due to the light source being on the side of the wire. I took another look at the wire 20+ minutes after the wire was released from the hemostat and the indentation is barely visible, the wire just shows some minor marks.
I might point out, that these go over your budget over two times. But still: I have opened a _glued_ tailcap ring with these, without them breaking up.
They are REALLY rigid!
I honestly had to use about all force I could get out of my nerdy hands and still, the retaining ring was turning only 1/6 of a turn at a time with a loud POP! :)
Wow, it only took a week and too many back and forth messages, but they refunded my money!
WTG aHappaDeal, although it was exhausting.
In short: at first they offered 6% discount coupon for my next purchase; I refused; then they to resend and that I pay 2$ shipping costs; I refused; then they agreed to a full refund; then it took a week to do so, since they thought they refunded (several times) but they didn't and I needed to ask PayPal if they refunded and show them the answer that they didn't before they actually refunded, they claimed there was some problem with the system.
Ah well, I honestly didn't believe they'll refund, but they did, so maybe they're not so awful after all...
