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Soldering to the on-board prototype area question

M

mBird

Jan 1, 1970
0
I have a board that has an on-board prototyping area (an array of holes).
http://www.digilentinc.com/Data/Products/XC2/XC2-brochure.pdf
I am trying to think of the neatest, most practical way to solder on it. I
want to put a couple of 16pin sockets (that I can plug buffer into) and 8 or
16 LEDs comming off them. I don't want a mess of wires eveywhere. It would
be great if there was a supplier that sold wires with tiny loops connectors
on each end so I could lay a connector loop over each pin or LED wire and
solder it in place ( a wire like this: 0===0 ). I tried using small wire and
making my own loops on each end but it still does not come out well :<

Any ideas greatly appretiated!

p.s. I was thinking of buying a simple wire-wrap tool and just
wire-wrapping -- I like wirewrap for hobby stuff but I thought I saw an
article that suggested it is not in-vogue anymore -- is that considered OK
for small stuff like I will have (less than 50 wired connections)?

Thanks!
 
S

Sjouke Burry

Jan 1, 1970
0
mBird said:
I have a board that has an on-board prototyping area (an array of holes).
http://www.digilentinc.com/Data/Products/XC2/XC2-brochure.pdf
I am trying to think of the neatest, most practical way to solder on it. I
want to put a couple of 16pin sockets (that I can plug buffer into) and 8 or
16 LEDs comming off them. I don't want a mess of wires eveywhere. It would
be great if there was a supplier that sold wires with tiny loops connectors
on each end so I could lay a connector loop over each pin or LED wire and
solder it in place ( a wire like this: 0===0 ). I tried using small wire and
making my own loops on each end but it still does not come out well :<

Any ideas greatly appretiated!

p.s. I was thinking of buying a simple wire-wrap tool and just
wire-wrapping -- I like wirewrap for hobby stuff but I thought I saw an
article that suggested it is not in-vogue anymore -- is that considered OK
for small stuff like I will have (less than 50 wired connections)?

Thanks!
Wirewrap has a small coil at each connection,which is not a
nice thing in a fast cicuit.
I have used wirewrap wire however to make solder connections
at the bottom of the board .
That works very wel, the ww wire is heat resistant, it does
not crimp while you solder , and the silver coating on the
wire makes very clean solder contacts,even with part of the
isolation inside the solder blob.
Also the wiring can stand quite a little moving around without
breaking.
For a one or two unit production ,or development board,
it works for me.
 
R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
I have a board that has an on-board prototyping area (an array of holes).
http://www.digilentinc.com/Data/Products/XC2/XC2-brochure.pdf
I am trying to think of the neatest, most practical way to solder on it.

Pretty much the same way that you solder to an ordinary PCB. :)
I
want to put a couple of 16pin sockets (that I can plug buffer into) and 8 or
16 LEDs comming off them. I don't want a mess of wires eveywhere. It would
be great if there was a supplier that sold wires with tiny loops connectors
on each end so I could lay a connector loop over each pin or LED wire and
solder it in place ( a wire like this: 0===0 ). I tried using small wire and
making my own loops on each end but it still does not come out well :<

What I did was get a WSU-30 wire wrap tool:
http://www.jdr.com/interact/item.asp?itemno=gr-wsu-30
and filed off the rivet that holds the little stripper blade that you
can see in the middle of the tool. I set the rest of it aside, and clamped
the stripper blade in an X-acto handle. Works a treat, and with a little
practice, you can daisy-chain them; get a good, substantial tweezer; I
use this one:
http://www.abiengr.com/~sysop/images/Tweezers.jpg

This is about the worst example I can think of of what you can do with
this:
http://www.abiengr.com/~sysop/images/Perfboard-556-6.jpg

It's something I did many, many years ago, and just saw it knocking
around in my junque box. It'd probably look much better if I'd cleaned
off the flux!
p.s. I was thinking of buying a simple wire-wrap tool and just
wire-wrapping -- I like wirewrap for hobby stuff but I thought I saw an
article that suggested it is not in-vogue anymore -- is that considered OK
for small stuff like I will have (less than 50 wired connections)?

If you really want to avoid a rat's-nest of wires, avoid wire wrap like
the plague. :)

Have Fun!
Rich
 
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