i need wire-wrap help

[Ken Farmer]

Kevin Newcomb <knew...@swva.net> wrote in article
<63lnj8$d...@news1.infoave.net>...
> does anyone know of a good text or web site with discussion of proper
methods
> for wire-wrapping circuit boards? i'm about to undergo a major
soldering job
> and i want to do it right. thanks for the help!

For basics, all you need is a perfboard, some wire wrap sockets, a spool of
wire, and a wire wrap tool. I have wire wrapped a zillion circuits in the
last 20 years and I still use that same basic list. Radio Shack has the
stuff but you can get it a lot cheaper from Jameco (and other places). A
tool is anywhere from $5 to $20. A proto or perfboard from $2 to $30,
depending on size. 1000 ft of wire is 20 bucks - 100ft is $2.50. The main
expense is sockets. They are much more expensive than solder tail sockets.
However, you can reuse them again and again if you glue them to the board
with silicone cement rather than soldering them to the board. That allows
you to peel them off for the next project. I have some sockets that I
bought in the middle 1970s that I still use.

BGMicro in Dallas (bgmicro.com) has really cheap wirewrap sockets. If
anyone comes up with a good deal on WW sockets somewhere else please Email
me.

If you really get into it, you can get an electric wire wrap gun and a pair
of stripper pliers.

It doesn't take long to get good at it. You can really wrap fast if you
pre-strip a bunch of different length wires while you are watching TV.

ken+f...@technologist.com
remove the antispam + for a valid address