Zhengyu (Toney) Tang is an electronics engineer with a passion for making, and a desire to build tools for making. After two successful product launches of his Zero Ruler tool for developing project footprints, he's back on Kickstarter with the LEDTwee - Tweezers for LED projects.
Two 1000 Ohm resistors are connected in parallel and powered by a disc battery inside the tweezers to let the user test LEDs anywhere in a project's progression. LEDs can be tested as a single unit, while bulk packed in a case, on a reel, or while installed on a project board.
Units can be shipped assembled (without the battery due to shipping regulations) or as components, where the user can put the tweezers together using an assembly video. A short ninety second video on the campaign page shows a full assembly of a set of tweezers from components to functional assembly.
Toney says that choosing the right battery size and finding the ideal area for hand hold were the design decisions took the longest time to develop. After that sizing was developed, sourcing the components was easy work.
LEDTwee is a great example of a tool so simple and with such a useful function that it's surprising we don't already have the tools available. A quick google search found several similar products on the market but most seemed more expensive or complex than the LEDTwee's simple build. The campaign video definitely has the feel of one man, in his workspace, pushing the information without flash or polish. Demonstrations show the tweezers being used on a reel, in a case of bulk packed LEDs, and on a single component. The crowdfunding for LEDTwee ends on November 24, 2017 and if successful first units are expected to ship in January 2018.