26 Apr
2010
26 Apr
'10
2:49 p.m.
On 26 Apr 2010 at 22:32, Philip Pemberton wrote:
I've got the tools to do wire-wrap, but none of
the boards, sockets or
hardware (it seems WW IC sockets have become rather difficult to
source). The long pins also tend to get in the way IMO...
I use one-sided 0.060" PCB blank stock, drill the holes and then use
push-in wirewrap pins. The underside copper is cleaned from around
the hole by using a hand-held 3/16" drill bit (a turn or so, and the
copper around the hole is gone). If I need solder pads on the
bottom, a diamond core bit in a Foredom handset works well.
It looks good and gives me a great ground plane. I run 20 AWG bare
copper wire between rows on the top of the board, using a pin both to
solder the wire to and to hold one leg of a decoupling capacitor. For
those components requiring a little help in attaching to the board, a
drop or so of polyurethane glue does the trick.
In terms of effort, it's probably a wash with etching your own PCB,
but is lots easier to modify. I can wrap pretty fast using pre-cut
and stripped wire and an electric wrapping tool.
When I'm done, I push the whole affair into a sheet of styrofoam
insulation, which keeps the pins from coming into contact with
anything they shouldn't.
--Chuck