a while back there was a discussion about using solderless proto breadboard for permant circuity
Frankly, I think that is a disaster waiting to happen. If the form factor and layout are important, there are plater perf boards laid out exactly the same as soldeless breadboard, with the linked sets of holes and even the power rails, so you can take a design both physically and electrically from a breadboard and make it permanent.
I know you said the guy’s an MIT PhD and all that, but solderless breadboards just were not designed for permanent circuits. A solderless solution for permanent circuits is wire wrapping.
If it works, great, but it’s all too easy to lift a wire or a passive from a breadboard by accident. The ICs are probably fine, they aren’t goign to fall out any time soon.
–Randy
not a PhD, but a switch designer who understands issues involving electrical contacts. He has reliable operating sessions every week.
knowlegable modelers are successful at pushing the limits.
I strongly disagree.
Knowledgable modelers are successful because they don’t push the limits. They are where ideas like “best practices” come from.
i don’t feel this would be a permanent solution, temporary only …
it doesn’t have the stability of a permanent [read soldered] solution, it’s too easy to pull wires out of the breadboard …
just my opinion …
here’s another example. a combination of custom PCB that is used in multiple locations elsewhere on the layout, and a breadboard for some unique circuity.
yet another example is i’m helping someone put together about a dozen “simple” detection circuits (3 components) for panel display. the owner has used solderless breadboards to mount relays and diodes for single button switch machine control in yard ladders.
while i’ve made custom PCB for more complicated circuits and have soldered up custom circuits on partially etched prototyping boards, using solderless proto boards seems like a reasonable approach for the typical modeler who it willing to build such circuits.
Using these proto board removes a huge impediment to building your own circuits for your layout.
The way he has these oriented, like tiny versions of patch bays, it would be comparatively unlikely that something would snag components in a way that would irrecoverably damage them, or pull out connections in a way that damages the contacts in the ‘sockets’. You could, of course, strain-relieve or clamp the wiring in any appropriate way, or use a small dot of adhesive or sealant to secure the wire more firmly when it has been inserted.
I don’t remember the number of ‘cycles’ of wire insertion and removal that these things are rated for, but it is certainly orders of magnitude more than typical ‘experimentation’ or periodic rewiring or changes to connections at appropriate wattage for this relatively small size. Supposedly the socket connection is long enough to give good long-term contact to the stripped periphery of the wire when insulation is stripped ‘to gage’ keeping the wire straight and unnicked and the straight end is then carefully inserted. At least in theory the sockets can be made ‘comparable’ to those used in ordinary push-to-lock connectors or headers, and the individual wires provided with soldered or crimped-on contact pins … and I don’t remember anyone claiming those have particularly limited utility or lifetime in normal modeling work.
A comparable board made with wirewrap pins would suffer much more from casual impact, as bent pins will be highly likely to short, and fractured pins may not be cost-effectively or even functionally repairable. It’s certainly a technology with greater mechanical reliability for nonsoldered connections. You’ll need very special tools, though, to get the connection density out of wirewrap that one of these solderless breadboards affords at small permissible pitch size.
Perhaps I am misreading something here.
May I suggest that though a particular un-soldered board is not likely to be snagged or bumped does not guarantee that its connections are permanently secure. By his very nature, Murphy shows up without warning. The frame to which the board is attached could be bumped, jarred or vibrated unexpectedly - from a distance. Frankly, aging itself affects joints and contact surfaces as well: think of the possibilities of dust or surface changes from tarnish, dissimilar material contact, arcing and pitting, even variations in rates of expansion and contraction. The possibilities, though perhaps very minor, are endless.
Why propose that electrical contact for the applications that are being considered here NOT be soldered? Surely the tools and materials are readily at hand to do so. And surely a person in this hobby should be capable of at least modest (if not expert) soldering technique and results.
There are, indeed, places where successful hobbyists “stretch the envelope”. But this isn’t one of them. Theoretically, someone might want to suggest that we dismiss bolts and welds and begin to glue our cars largely together with space-age adhesives. To my notion, it’s just uncalled for. Carl425 (above) is correct.
Oh, one more thing: soldering connections is virtually as “low-tech” as doing without. IMO, of course. Rant is over.
John
His rant is over, but mine is just getting under way…
Nobody is talking about ‘permanently secure’ like nature’s way of eliminating embryonic DNA: the idea is that, even if you have to use some kind of spring tool to release the deep contacts holding the ‘patch’ wires in the board, the connection is reversible and ‘re-makable’ in the field, at will, without special tools, materials, access to electricity or fuel, etc.
Are you of the opinion that all connectors with pins, or headers, should be carefully soldered on their ‘open’ sides to assure that they stay forever conductive? I doubt you will find many who’d agree, or wouldn’t use something like conductive grease to assure continued conductivity in corrosive or ‘weather’ conditions rather than introducing heat-flowed metallurgical connection.
You must not be familiar with the contact system in these prototyping ‘breadboards’. It is possible that a really good bang, or just the wrong sort of acyclic vibration or shock, could knock something like a transistor with a big floating heat sink out of contact ‘inertially.’ The number of Gs needed to do that to a small-gauge wire run is almost unthinkable; damage to ‘other things’ would be far more significant long before you’d reach such a point. And if pulling wires out accidentally is, in fact, a concern, a few strategic dabs of silicone or acrylic caulk, or perhaps even something like blue-tac poster adhesive, would keep the wires ‘enough’ in place. And still removable and reconfigurable without tools…
[quote]
Frankly, aging itsel
Overmod,
Thanks for your extensive, point-by-point reply. And for throwing me a bone or two. I have been properly schooled.
On the other hand, I am not unaware of the wide variety of applications for making unsoldered connections and the means of doing so. I employ them where called for (I’ll leave a discussion of suitcase connectors for others). It’s just that, for the type of work displayed above - if the circuitry is settled and its installation is intended to be permanent - I strongly lean to soldered connections. I have at hand the necessary tools and materials. It is one of the things that I do best, reaching back to my Navy days and then having built specialized test equipment from scratch for a major defense contractor. Old school has served me well and, at my age, I am surely not as technologically adventuresome as some in the hobby.
Perhaps I might have gotten off a bit easier with you had I toned down my post and added the “your mileage may vary” caveat. Thanks again.
John
have you ever soldered up so many circuit boards not using an etched PCB for the circuit?
Greg,
Virtually all my boards were etched, and primarily carried components, wires that went elsewhere, and occasional jumpers. But I also had to hand wire multiple complex switches (triple pole rotaries with up to 24 positions) on the front panels of the gear.
John
5-10 years ago, I’d be right there. But it is now so cheap to get a PCB made, it’s almost pointless not to. At least not after you’ve proven the circuit to work on a breadboard.
I just drew up a board to mount my pushbuttons, and I till probably do another to be the ‘panel’ part that you see. Because the buttons I have chosen are panel mount, so I can;t attach the wires to them before putting them in the panel, and they are small enough that trying to attach the wires behind the panel, under the layout, is more of a challenge with my vision issues than I want to deal with. It was hard enough making up a test cable on the workbench. So, PCB mount them, with an RJ45 connector, and I can use the cheapest patch cables I can find to connect each button set to my controller board.
Since you can get all sorts of colors of solder mask now, I can make the actual panel part as a PCB too, just plain non-plated holes of the correct diameter, and some lines silkscreened on, and I have a very neat panel.
Given the size these come out to, the 10 boards for $2 price nets me - a whole lot, I haven’t finalized them to see just how many can be panelized on a single sheet of the maximum size allowed for the low price - but it’s goign to be a dozen or more.
My actual controlelr boards are much bigger, but still, in quantities of 10, they are $1 per board, les sif I order more. You can;t buy the nasty chemicals to etch a board yourself for that price, the laser toner transfer method is less than ideal, and in both cases you have to still drill out the holes and neither method makes plated through holes, so you have to solder jumpers and/or both sides of a component to link both sides of a double sided board. Drilling is the worst - FR4 is tough on drill bits, and you want good ventilation and a dust mask when doing it. It’s just not worth it any more.
&nb
of course we all need to solder wires to various types of switches and connectors.
i don’t think it’s fair to compare soldering a circuit on a non-etched board to an etched board, much less to various switches or other wired connectors.
I’m just giving you the gears a bit (it’s that New Jersey in me). I know how good and competent you are.
For almost every kind of connection other than the right kind and gauge of wire into the right kind of socket – it’s hard to beat a good solder connection or a good braze. That goes double for any sort of “3D” connection to things like multiple-pole multiple-throw or rotary switches.
Of course there are also places where you need a little more than just canonical ‘soldering’ knowledge (as from those YouTube videos where the perps continually pronounce the “L” in the word). One of them is the joyful sort of situation I had with the windshield-washer control on my mid-Nineties diesel Suburban – this had three real stout pins from a component, I believe a relay, that made absolute, positive contact via huge solder blobs with the pads on the corresponding board. The problem, as it developed, was that vibration and shock would break the perhaps Friday-afternoon or Monday-morning GM fabrication quality, so the pins would come away from the solder blob, and subsequent road vibration would beat the stiff pins against the softer solder until they had ‘peened’ it away all the way around. At which point the wipers would abruptly quit, until perhaps some chance bang re-established contact for a while. This was completely invisible if you took the component out and eyeballed it, unless you had good light and knew exactly what to look for – after which a very quick proper flux and reflow would solve your problem (and lower your Rain-X bill substantially)
There is also the joy of implementing Parylene on your circuit boards post-fabrication. That stuff is a wonder material … if yo
That was probably endemic in cars in the late 80’s/early 90’s - I got an 87 RX7 cheap because the clock and display module in the center of the dash was completely dead. Clearly it wasn;t something liek the computer or sensors, because the clock wouldn;t use any of that. I took it apart, and saw the problem pretty quickly - the pins for the docket that the wire harness plugged in to were for the most part all broken joints. Reheat, reflow, add some fresh solder - it worked perfectly until the car died 5 years later.
–Randy