Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Dave:

Just happened to read your inquiry re "PTH pins", and I haven't read further,
yet, to see if one or many more "in here" have already responded, but here's
MY 2¢ worth: I bought a quantity of tiny gold-plated "swageable eyelets", aka
"rivets", which are a lot of bother, but if you just MUST have a PTH or two,
but can't go to the expense of having a board plated through after drilling
(for only a few PTHoles), then the bright solderable eyelets are the way to go.
I turned my own "swage tool" which spreads the "insert-end" so it is tight,
and then one must solder BOTH sides of the rivet before installing components.
If the I.D. gets filled with solder, I heat it again and tap one edge of the
board on the bench, the inertia "shooting" the molten solder out fine.

For a "PTH" for an IC-pin or two, and you don't want to solder BOTH sides of
the pin (fear of overheating the IC, so close, for example), try installing a
tiny piece of #28 (or #30) silver-plated wire-wrap wire, solder it carefully
on top before inserting the IC. OR, IC-socket, which would preclude ANY
soldering on top after installation! the flat IC (or socket) pins will allow
inserting both the IC "leg" AND the small-dia. wire in same hole.

Sad PTH is such a difficult "professional fab-house" job, isn't it!

Jan Rowland


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]