Fix aquarium tongs
- Thread starter Fishinwall
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MarsRover
Well-Known Member
I don’t have the Eheim but I have a very similar knockoff product.
Somewhere in your product there is a spring. Was the failure sudden? Or just over time the tweezers stopped opening back up on their own?
I bet in the handle or the tip there is a spring that needs replacing. See if you can find a plastic tab that holds the handle and the tip sheaths in place on the main shaft. Sometimes it’s as simple to take these things apart as pressing the tab and sliding the sheath off. If you post some close up photos I can probably walk you through it.
Once we remove the spring, we can order you a new one of similar dimensions to replace
Somewhere in your product there is a spring. Was the failure sudden? Or just over time the tweezers stopped opening back up on their own?
I bet in the handle or the tip there is a spring that needs replacing. See if you can find a plastic tab that holds the handle and the tip sheaths in place on the main shaft. Sometimes it’s as simple to take these things apart as pressing the tab and sliding the sheath off. If you post some close up photos I can probably walk you through it.
Once we remove the spring, we can order you a new one of similar dimensions to replace
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Fishinwall
Well-Known Member
Ok I’ll look closer. I was using it trying to move around a big piece that did it in.
MarsRover
Well-Known Member
Haha your thumb is covering the location I’m looking for! It’s the “wrist” of the jaws that is likely to have it. The jaws shroud would likely slide down the shaft of the tongs. Show me where the jaws meet the shaft of the grabber please?
MarsRover
Well-Known Member
Hrmmmm none of these pictures are really showing anything that jumps out at me. The later pictures are precisely what I was asking for and I’m not seeing the thing I’m looking for. Maybe the handle Portion?
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Fishinwall
Well-Known Member
MarsRover
Well-Known Member
It's not what is missing. It is the spring in it that provides the restoration force to reopen the jaws.
two of the photos you sent me have features that i was looking for. I have annotated them below.
Try either of these: press on the button (indicated in red below) while trying to slide the handle (has the finger hooks) in the direction of the green arrows. Hopefully this reveals the spring in that handle.
if you take a look at how mine comes apart (again, it is not the same brand but i'm sure it is just a rip off of yours....which is why i'm hoping yours has a spring and isn't exactly like mine...)
Handle:
End effector:
on the handle, there is a tab. On mine, you have to lift the tab <in red> which i of course broke off because it's old and cheap plastic.... so that the handle can slide down the shaft <green arrows> over the handle locks <orange arrows>:
once you do that, you can slide the cam'd shaft down as well <cyan box below shows the cam, the cyan line shows that there is a shaft attached to that cam that rests in the recess in the main shaft of the tool>. You can see in this picture <red box> that I broke that tab off the handle, ruining my tool (which was ruined anyway....since it was no longer actuating...just like yours is):
When you push the cyan cam'd shaft down, this is what happens to the end-effector of the gripper. I marked the tip of the cam'd shaft in cyan again. The purple arrow points to the "spring" the designer used. Instead of a standard spring, they opt'ed to use the elasticity of the plastic as the "spring". So the way mine works is that when you press the button on the handle, the cam'd shaft <cyan> forces the plastic of the gripper tip to bend at this (now broken) location <pink/purple arrow> and when the button is released, the plastic springs back, reopening the jaws of the gripper:
so like i said before, hopefully yours, being a nice "name" brand, will use a spring that we can replace, instead of using plastic which will fail due to creep/embrittlement/crack propagation over time after being stressed and exposed to the brutal marine environment.
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Fishinwall
Well-Known Member
It's not what is missing. It is the spring in it that provides the restoration force to reopen the jaws.
two of the photos you sent me have features that i was looking for. I have annotated them below.
Try either of these: press on the button (indicated in red below) while trying to slide the handle (has the finger hooks) in the direction of the green arrows. Hopefully this reveals the spring in that handle.
if you take a look at how mine comes apart (again, it is not the same brand but i'm sure it is just a rip off of yours....which is why i'm hoping yours has a spring and isn't exactly like mine...)
Handle:
End effector:
on the handle, there is a tab. On mine, you have to lift the tab <in red> which i of course broke off because it's old and cheap plastic.... so that the handle can slide down the shaft <green arrows> over the handle locks <orange arrows>:
once you do that, you can slide the cam'd shaft down as well <cyan box below shows the cam, the cyan line shows that there is a shaft attached to that cam that rests in the recess in the main shaft of the tool>. You can see in this picture <red box> that I broke that tab off the handle, ruining my tool (which was ruined anyway....since it was no longer actuating...just like yours is):
When you push the cyan cam'd shaft down, this is what happens to the end-effector of the gripper. I marked the tip of the cam'd shaft in cyan again. The purple arrow points to the "spring" the designer used. Instead of a standard spring, they opt'ed to use the elasticity of the plastic as the "spring". So the way mine works is that when you press the button on the handle, the cam'd shaft <cyan> forces the plastic of the gripper tip to bend at this (now broken) location <pink/purple arrow> and when the button is released, the plastic springs back, reopening the jaws of the gripper:
so like i said before, hopefully yours, being a nice "name" brand, will use a spring that we can replace, instead of using plastic which will fail due to creep/embrittlement/crack propagation over time after being stressed and exposed to the brutal marine environment.
And maybe being the name brand it is will provide a lifetime replacement of the broken part!! One can wish.
Thanks I'll take it apart now that I see how it is done. Looks identical to yours.
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