Flat pin headers vs round

[Darrell Pelan]

Hi,

I bought the flat pin DIP header from Digikey in 1984 but am not able to find a similar 40 pin header today. I found an earlier comment that using the round machined DIP header was bad for vintage sockets. Is the general consensus that round pin headers are a bad idea?

Thanks,

   Darrell

[Douglas Miller]

I seem to recall seeing a discussion here awhile ago on that topic. But I believe the issue depends on what the pins are being mated to. Certain types of sockets were better suited for round pins than others, as I recall.

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[Joseph Travis]

The advantage of the square pins is the increased mating surface area vs. the round pins.  The disadvantage of the square pins is they are much thicker than an IC pin and can bend the socket leaf spring enough that the spring tension is reduced when removed. They can also damage certain double wipe style IC sockets.

The round pin headers often have a larger diameter pin on one side which would be the side that is soldered to a circuit board.  The side with smaller diameter pins would be inserted into the IC socket and less likely to cause damage.

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[Darrell Pelan]

Thanks! I'll breakout the micrometer to measure.

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[smb...@gmail.com]

I think it was Norberto who reported a failure of a socket after using the pin headers on them. I use the pin headers often and have not experienced a problem myself (yet).

The machined sockets I buy these days I believe are of fairly poor quality. I get the cheap ones from eBay sellers in China. The type that show up in a baggie with 5% of them having bent pins and 1% of them having other defects. I think these sockets may also be less tolerant of repeated insertion -- they do feel "looser" over time. So it may not be just the pin headers, but may also be your choice of socket.

Scott

[smb...@gmail.com]

Also, maybe worth a look are flip pins: https://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/855

I've never tried, but I've been tempted to. Curiously, they mention incompatibility with machined sockets, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me as it seems like the whole idea of these flip pins is to be as dimensionally close to a DIP IC as practical.

Scott

[Darrell Pelan]

The flip pins are interesting. I'll keep the link in my toolkit.

  Darrell

[Peter Higgins]

In addition to "flip pins" another option to look at is something called a leadframe:

https://www.digikey.ca/en/products/filter/contacts/leadframe/416

[Norby]

I like the flip pins and will order a few to try out. Thank you for the informatuion.