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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Nice. I have a manual tool for this, with a little squeeze bulb, but it's not reliable.[1] You'd think there would be some $5 tool that runs on an AAA battery, but apparently not.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Vacuum-Sucking-Sucker...

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There's fish tank pumps that can be easily adapted and work great. You use a luer fitting to attach the vacuum tips. From there you can add extras, like pass the tubing through a pen and epoxy the luer to the end of the pen. A foot pedal operated solenoid can be added that opens the line to ambient pressure to release vacuum and drop the part.

We use a three way hose connector and just block or open the 3rd side with a thumb to activate/deactivate the vacuum pressure at the tip.

The pump was $20 and the end is a 5cc syringe. All in, it was under $40 and works great!

I can’t even tell if you’re being sarcastic, but exactly what you describe does exist [1]. They work OK, but they are a little heavy in the hand for fine placement. The vacuum is quite weak, nowhere near as powerful as a basic converted aquarium pump, and that really limits its utility for me. It would only work well if I had just the right tip, and just the right suction cup for larger components.

My aquarium pump setup only needs two tips, one for 0603 sized components, and a slightly larger tip with a small suction cup that handles everything from 0805 to 14x14mm large ICs (when picked on centre of gravity).

[1] https://m.aliexpress.com/i/33005346611.html

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