I often find myself making and buying boards to fit into IC soctets. Usually these use pin headers, but the standard pin width is too thick to fit into machined pin IC sockets, tends to damage the other (cheap) IC sockets, and can be unreliable in ZIF sockets.
Pin width doesn't seem to be a commonly varied specification of pin headers. Does anyone know where I could buy pin header strips with IC socket compatible pins?
Nothing? I've got some solderable plugs that fit in a DIP16 socket, suitable for wiring resistors between pins. Can you still get them?
Picture coming.
Is this what you are looking for?
Yes! Thanks. Not cheap, but now that I know what I'm looking for I can shop around.
This looks to be the product I was after:
And with a little more hunting around that site, I found the pin header strips that I was after in the first place:
Many thanks.
No worries.
They look interesting, but I'm looking for something where the pins are self-supporting like a pin header, so that wires can be connected directly to them, as well as circuit boards.
It did lead me to this review though:
Which noted that I might be looking for "pin strips", which it turns out, unlike pin headers, do come in a small range of different pin diameters (and spacings). More hunting and I found that the 350 series made by this mob:
They have small enough pins (0.4mm), and the right spacing. However I havent put the time into finding a good supplier yet. RS have these from the 850 series:
They'd work if I cut off every second pin. The price is right, and I getting pretty sick of searching for these (the bloody things all look the same in the pictures), so unless I get more energy or suggestions, I might just go with those.
I tried trimming down the end of one of mine, and even with the plastic right at the end of the metal contacts the fit is still loose. There's even a bit of wiggle room with one chip (the pin widths do seem to vary slightly between ICs).
Even if there are some available with contacts close enough together to work with ICs, I expect they'd get bent back the first time a pin header was inserted, just like the dual-wipe type IC sockets do.
get machined pin headers
chips are shipped with the pins splayed by about 10 degrees total, this could give enougfh spring for short-term reliability if the sockets are parallel,
Thanks, I eventually discovered that they were what I was looking for, now I'm just looking for a good supplier for ones that have the same pin width and spacing of DIP ICs. As I said in another post, I may just buy some I found with half the pin spacing required and snip off every second pin.
That might make for firmer contact to the plastic body but I'm not convinced it would make for reliable electrical contact because the pins themselves are still too narrow and too shallow.
I have explored this before but abandoned the idea and made up some adapters.
Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.
Ask the community — no account required