Hi, I'm teaching my 9 yo son how to solder for a homeschooling class. We have the soldering iron station, a silicon mat, and some other things. But he needs magnification and some kind of helping hands. I see quite a few helping-hand + magnifying glass combos on Amazon for around 50 USD, but they all look cheap and chinse and was wondering if I should get him some kind of nicer set up. Any suggestions from the grizzled veterans?
Personally I don't usually use helping hands because my cheap ones are bulky and bothersome to work with. Usually I just do other tricks like setting stuff on top of the PCB or whatever. For magnification, I use a lightweight pair of magnifying glasses which works pretty well, though I've heard other people use coin-type magnifying stations and that sounds kind of nice.
We have money available through the program so that spending a few hundred USD is not out of reach. We are very limited though on desk and storage space, and all equipment has to be put away on a small shelf after we are done with the lesson.