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Wire Wrap Technology

C

Chuck W.

Jan 1, 1970
0
Is wire wrap dead? I was looking for some 16 pin DIP wire wrap blocks
over at Mouser. Not finding them, I called Mouser and was informed by a
tech there that only academia really uses wire wrap anymore.
Apparently, according to him, after breadboarding you generally go
straight to PCB.

...Chuck..

P.S. Yes, I am aware of Digikey, etc.
 
P

Pooh Bear

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chuck W. said:
Is wire wrap dead? I was looking for some 16 pin DIP wire wrap blocks
over at Mouser. Not finding them, I called Mouser and was informed by a
tech there that only academia really uses wire wrap anymore.
Apparently, according to him, after breadboarding you generally go
straight to PCB.

Yup.

Graham
 
J

Jeff Dege

Jan 1, 1970
0

I use wirewrap with protoboard, instead of soldering lead to lead.

PCB costs too damned much for the sort of hobbyist foolishness I do.
 
C

Chuck W.

Jan 1, 1970
0
Pooh Bear said:

Then how would one prototype something that clearly exceeds the
confines of a breadboard?

What about changes to a prototype? Isn't wire wrap much easier to make
changes to than a PCB?

...Chuck..
 
?

:-)

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chuck said:
Then how would one prototype something that clearly exceeds the
confines of a breadboard?

What about changes to a prototype? Isn't wire wrap much easier to make
changes to than a PCB?

..Chuck..

I find some at Digikey.com catalogue page 326
I was also browsing around for some ...
:)
 
P

Pooh Bear

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chuck W. said:
Then how would one prototype something that clearly exceeds the
confines of a breadboard?

Go directly to pcb. Wirewrap isn't suitable for lots of stuff anyway ( e.g.
power electronics ). Otherwise simulate.
What about changes to a prototype? Isn't wire wrap much easier to make
changes to than a PCB?

If you plan on making lots of mistakes it has that advantage ! ;-)

Graham
 
B

Brian

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chuck W. said:
Is wire wrap dead? I was looking for some 16 pin DIP wire wrap blocks
over at Mouser. Not finding them, I called Mouser and was informed by a
tech there that only academia really uses wire wrap anymore.
Apparently, according to him, after breadboarding you generally go
straight to PCB.

..Chuck..

P.S. Yes, I am aware of Digikey, etc.

I usually use wire wrap for breadboarding, and also if I am only making one
of something for a customer. You can still find lots of wire wrap items at
JDR Microdevices at http://www.jdr.com/ . In their search box, type in wire
wrap. It will display lots of items.

Brian
 
N

neil

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chuck W. said:
Is wire wrap dead? I was looking for some 16 pin DIP wire wrap blocks
over at Mouser. Not finding them, I called Mouser and was informed by a
tech there that only academia really uses wire wrap anymore.
Apparently, according to him, after breadboarding you generally go
straight to PCB.
..Chuck..
P.S. Yes, I am aware of Digikey, etc.
Over her in UK wirewrap is almost gone, but we still use it for some of our
test equipment.
It has the advantage of being able to implement major changes when the
customer (with our help) eventually figures out what he really needs, having
delivered what he asked for "on time, to budget".
I get wire and sockets from RS Components (rswww.com) and Farnell
(partnered/owns Newark in US).
Tools can be obtained from OK Industries, but are expensive - although a
hand wrap tool can make 8000 wraps before wearing out (from personal
experience).
For power, 26awg can be used. If doubled, a few amps can be passed. More
than that - solder a fat wire.
If you're interested, I've developed a program which simplifies the wirelist
generation, and checks for duplicate pins/names, non-existant pins (pin 20
of a 14 pin device), split nets, and produces a reverse view of the card for
inspection. It's not optimised for user friendliness (!) but I find is
useful.
hth
Neil
 
Chuck said:
Is wire wrap dead? I was looking for some 16 pin DIP wire wrap blocks
over at Mouser. Not finding them, I called Mouser and was informed by a
tech there that only academia really uses wire wrap anymore.
Apparently, according to him, after breadboarding you generally go
straight to PCB.

..Chuck..

P.S. Yes, I am aware of Digikey, etc.

It has gone out of fasion but you can still get parts from a few
suppliers. It's still the fastest method of building one off jobs
subject to a few provisos.
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
Is wire wrap dead?

Yes.


I was looking for some 16 pin DIP wire wrap blocks
over at Mouser. Not finding them, I called Mouser and was informed by a
tech there that only academia really uses wire wrap anymore.
Apparently, according to him, after breadboarding you generally go
straight to PCB.


No, breadboarding is dead, too. Think, design, check, pc board.

John
 
P

Pooh Bear

Jan 1, 1970
0
John said:
Yes.

I was looking for some 16 pin DIP wire wrap blocks

No, breadboarding is dead, too. Think, design, check, pc board.

The last project I genuinely breadboarded was in 1990. It's more useful with
power electronics ( which that was ).

A couple of guys I work with were quite surprised when I first suggested
prototyping on a pcb. I reckon they still think it's cheating slightly !

Graham
 
C

Charles Schuler

Jan 1, 1970
0
Chuck W. said:
Is wire wrap dead? I was looking for some 16 pin DIP wire wrap blocks
over at Mouser. Not finding them, I called Mouser and was informed by a
tech there that only academia really uses wire wrap anymore.
Apparently, according to him, after breadboarding you generally go
straight to PCB.

Wire wrap is dead and so is breadboarding (well, almost) and so is hobby
electronics (meaning that an individual cannot nowadays come up with
something at least mildly interesting to friends and family).

SURFACE MOUNT TECHNOLOGY has taken over. Try to get some late model
semiconductors and ICs with leads that one can work with and you will see
what I mean.
 
C

Chuck W.

Jan 1, 1970
0
Wire wrap is dead and so is breadboarding (well, almost) and so is hobby
electronics (meaning that an individual cannot nowadays come up with
something at least mildly interesting to friends and family).

How profoundly depressing... That is, if I were to believe you, it
would be depressing. Saying that an individual cannot nowadays come up
with something interesting says something about your imagination ;)

SURFACE MOUNT TECHNOLOGY has taken over. Try to get some late model
semiconductors and ICs with leads that one can work with and you will see
what I mean.

Perhaps that is true, but not with the chips I'm using. I'm currently
laboring under the delusion that I can create a 16bit CPU using only
TTL chips that will boot the Linux Elks kernel. I haven't had any
problem finding 74ACTXX chips. I plan to do it all with wire wrap. Why?

1. A CPU is a very complicated thing and will require changes after
creation no matter how carefully it is designed.

2. It's a one-off project. Printing a PCB would be a waste of time and
money.

3. The only way to truly understand something is to dig into it a
deeply as possible.

...Chuck..
 
G

Gordon reeder

Jan 1, 1970
0
Then how would one prototype something that clearly exceeds the
confines of a breadboard?

What about changes to a prototype? Isn't wire wrap much easier to make
changes to than a PCB?

..Chuck..
Nobody really breadboards either. It used to be that you made
a wirewrap board to test your design. But now with simulation,
DRC, peer reviews, etc, it is tough for a design flaw to get
very far. With all the programable logic that is used these
days, many design changes are done by reprograming a chip.
 
R

Rodney

Jan 1, 1970
0
Charles Schuler said:
Wire wrap is dead and so is breadboarding (well, almost) and so is hobby
electronics (meaning that an individual cannot nowadays come up with
something at least mildly interesting to friends and family).

SURFACE MOUNT TECHNOLOGY has taken over. Try to get some late model
semiconductors and ICs with leads that one can work with and you will see
what I mean.

Some questions,
I'm wondering what small electronics manufacturers will do with only surface
mount technology. There must be a lot of companies who now assemble circuit
boards manually with workers on an assembly line. I don't know much about
surface mount but isn't surface mount done with expensive robots or
something similar? Can the small manufacturers afford automatic equipment?
I can't really see people installing surface mount components manually, at
least not very well. And as long as there are small manufacturers won't
there be a market for conventional style components? And as long as there
is a market won't component manufacturers supply the conventional parts?
What do students do in the lab if there is no breadboarding? Will
oscilloscopes in the lab be obsolete when only simulators are used?

Thanks
Rod
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
Some questions,
I'm wondering what small electronics manufacturers will do with only surface
mount technology. There must be a lot of companies who now assemble circuit
boards manually with workers on an assembly line. I don't know much about
surface mount but isn't surface mount done with expensive robots or
something similar?

Small runs, you can do with tweezers. A few more, and a solder stencil
and a manual (pantographic) pick-and-place aren't too expensive. We
have power stencils and two semi-automatic p-n-p machines, where an
operator places parts guided by a computer; they cost about $25K each.
Full automatic p-n-p machines (some place 8 parts a second!) cost a
good fraction of a megabuck and setup is complex enough that they only
make sense for very large batches.

John
 
A

Alan B

Jan 1, 1970
0
Is wire wrap dead?

Absolutely not. Much depends on your application; it sounds like you
are doing low-level breadboard design, which I can't speak to. But in
various applications of the telecommunications industry, wire wrap is
used almost exclusively for large scale interconnections between
equipment.
 
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