I’ve just got myself a new toy. PCBite, from Sensepeek, is system of spring loaded board holders that magnetically mount on a sheet of steel, and a series of probes that mount to the same base plate with flexible arms. Looking at the product photos you would think the flexible arms are typical goosenecks, with all their stiffness and jerky adjustment, but these arms are surprisingly loose. The trick is in the weight at the probe end of the arm, and the surprisingly sharp pogo pin for contact. Indeed, if I hadn’t seen them at work, I might have dismissed the idea based on the photos alone, but this really does do the job, and does it well.
Previous gooseneck arms that I have used were on weighted base, and relied on the stiffness of the arm. There was no mechanical connection between the probe holder and the board holder, so I was always knocking the board sideways, best case loosing my connection, worse case making a critical short.
$150 for the started kit (4003) seems a bit steep at first, but this is all solid feeling metal, and will make debug much swifter, setting a probe once and forgetting about it, not searching for the pad every time I re-arm my LA.
Upcoming test, will the probes cope with conformal coating? I will try that out soon.
Glorified Plumbing 