Homebrew PCBs

On 6/04/2011 2:47 AM, DJ Delorie wrote:
> Chris Kleeschulte <laconia@... <mailto:laconia%40gmail.com>> writes:
>
> > I think for now, I am going to stick to old school soldering small
> > wires into my vias.
>
> This is what I do. I've found that a 28 gauge brass wire (standard
> hardware store size) in a #80 hole is a snug fit - you can push the wire
> through, but it doesn't move when soldering. So I can quickly
> push/solder/cut from one side, then flip the board over and solder/cut
> all the other sides.
>
I've got a slightly different technique that works well. If I've got a 
lot of holes to do, I'll start with 8 resister pigtails. I'll often 
sacrifice a strip of new resisters for this, as I don't use through hole 
anymore. Hold all 8 side by side tight in fingers, and then grip them 
with all with needle nose pliers about 1mm from end. Fold them all at 
once. then use a good pair of shears or wide enough side cutters to cut 
all 8 off a couple of mm below the fold. Be careful if using side 
cutters as they can go flying. I've got some slightly serrated shears 
that works great for this.
Grip again with needle nose pliers, fold, and repeat. I find I can get 
at least 5/6 batches of pins (40/48 vias) that way from one lot of 
pigtails, really quite quickly.
The local shop sells resisters in packs of 8 for about 40c, so I get 
almost 100 vias from that one pack. Or you pick up a bargain bag of 
resisters and never run out of vias again.

Then once you've got a pile of them use tweezers to drop them in vias 
quickly and easily, solder all the folded sides at once, flip board and 
do them all that side.

Andrew


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