Looking for a part number and source for the pins used on Basic Stamps and PropStick

fliptron

I'm designing some boards and I would really like to use pins like those found on the Basic Stamps and PropStick USB.

Any help with a part number and who sells these would be really appreciated. I have already searched the
usual suspects: Digikey, Mouser, Newark but have not found anything close.

Thanks,
Philip

Peter Jakacki

fliptron wrote: »

I'm designing some boards and I would really like to use pins like those found on the Basic Stamps and PropStick USB.

Any help with a part number and who sells these would be really appreciated. I have already searched the
usual suspects: Digikey, Mouser, Newark but have not found anything close.

Thanks,
Philip

These pins are part of a lead frame that gets broken off after assembly. Try this link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/50x-Batten-and-Allen-BA3760-Dill-Leadframe-DIP-PCB-Edge-Clip-Pins-BASIC-Stamp-/261518387239

fliptron

Thanks Peter,

That looks like exactly what I was asking for. The price works out to 12 cents per pin, so a 40 pin "package" would require $4.80 worth of pins.
I checked the manufacturer's site (now that I know the manufacturer) and apparently they have a Minimum Order Quantity of 500,000 for
these pins. (I guess I was hoping these would be about 1 cent per pin)

If someone from Parallax sees this post, I would like to know what part you use.

Maybe I am not alone, and others might like you adding these to your store.

Philip

WBA Consulting

Try TE Connectivity and search for "leadframe". Lots of options, but unfortunately, most have minimum buys which equal a full reel, so 110,000 or more.

http://www.te.com/catalog/bin/TE.Connect?C=17979&M=FEAT&P=103051,2863,103344,103107&U=&BML=&LG=1

LoopyByteloose

Yeow, never considered the possibility that Parallax has such a larger expense in pins for the BS2.

Of course Parallax may have bought 50000 pins on a reel and gotten down to the 1 cent a pin. I suspect for small quantities, begging Parallax to sell some of their supply might be possible. Those TE has listings, they don't seem to have links to any suppliers.

I haven't seen any of the Basic Stamp clones that actually used the same setup..... the others tend to use header pins that are too fat for easy use with breadboards.

davejames

Loopy Byteloose wrote: »

I haven't seen any of the Basic Stamp clones that actually used the same setup.....

http://www.basicmicro.com/BasicATOM-Pro_c_48.html

RickB

When I was looking at photos of reels of these pins, they appeared to joined to the reel at the insertion end of the pin and looked as if a formed shear or punch was required to separate them from the reel and form the shape of the pin at the same time. Anything else would produce a rough and ragged chisel shape that would damage the socket or breadboard. Ken said he would sell small quantities if I wanted to buy some some, but I don't know if that was before or after separation and forming.

Round machined pins in strip form are the most realistic choice for most of us. The board needs to be a bit wider to mount them, but is not a problem for most apps. The .025" square pin strips will deform ic socket contacts meant for ic pins.

edit: Looking at the ebay photo confirms what I was saying about the cutting and forming.

Peter Jakacki

RickB wrote: »

When I was looking at photos of reels of these pins, they appeared to joined to the reel at the insertion end of the pin and looked as if a formed shear or punch was required to separate them from the reel and form the shape of the pin at the same time. Anything else would produce a rough and ragged chisel shape that would damage the socket or breadboard. Ken said he would sell small quantities if I wanted to buy some some, but I don't know if that was before or after separation and forming.

Round machined pins in strip form are the most realistic choice for most of us. The board needs to be a bit wider to mount them, but is not a problem for most apps. The .025" square pin strips will deform ic socket contacts meant for ic pins.

edit: Looking at the ebay photo confirms what I was saying about the cutting and forming.

These pins are partly punched through so that they break off easily, top and bottom. This is somewhat similar to leadframes used when packaging ICs.
However, the 0.025" pins are designed the same way as IC leadframes and fit IC sockets so that they will not be deformed. The material thickness is around 0.01".

Here is a shot of one type of clip "G" (vs "F")

RickB

The insertion ends of the lead frame pins are cleanly sheared off, not snapped off on my BS2s.
The top is snapped off.
The .025 pin strips I am referring to are .025" SQUARE single row snap apart header strips.

Peter Jakacki

RickB wrote: »

The insertion ends of the lead frame pins are cleanly sheared off, not snapped off on my BS2s.
The top is snapped off.
The .025 pin strips I am referring to are .025" SQUARE single row snap apart header strips.

Sorry, I mistook the 0.025" pin strips you mentioned as referring to the leadframes. Even though the leadframes have TBBO & BBBO break offs it is still convenient to shear these pins to the length required which is what Parallax have done to suit the Stamp.

fliptron

RickB wrote: »

.... Ken said he would sell small quantities if I wanted to buy some some, but I don't know if that was before or after separation and forming.

Who is this Ken, and what parts does he have access to? Thanks.

Mike Green

Ken is Ken Gracey. Ken, his brother Chip, and their father are the founders and owners of Parallax ... very nice people.

fliptron

Status Update.

(mostly presenting my tedious search results, to maybe help some one else in the future)

With your help I am now looking at 3 manufacturers: Batten & Allen , NAS Interplex, and TE Connectivity.

Batten & Allen part number BA3760 , Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) is 500000 , is for .062 PCB, has top and bottom break-off bars.
From the catalog picture, it looks like the bottom of the pins would still need shearing. These would be a good fit to my application.

Interplex NAS PN: 08AA style O , 25BB, 26BB, and 26BC all look like possible candidates, but do not seemed to be handled by any distributor.
Order increment seems to be 30000 to 50000 (reel) for standard parts. I thought I saw somewhere that they also have a MOQ of 250000

TE Connectivity: many part numbers, found some in stock at Digikey, Mouser, and Allied:

TE's website is really difficult to navigate, for these products for 2 reasons:
1) The pictures for all products is the same picture
2) The descriptions with each part number are missing most relevant data, so you have to download the data sheet for each one and then look for differences
C) If you use partial part numbers (leave off trailing digit), then you get multiple part numbers, and if you do a "compare" of two parts, it shows more data and isolates the differences.
i.e. search for 1544443 and do a compare of 1544443-1 and 1544443-2

This is what I found for DIL pins:

TE Connectivity

( this looks really nice when I typed it in, but the forum sw strips out all the spaces messing up the columns.)

PN Pitch" Lead Length Board Thickness Comment
Inch mm Inch mm
1544143-1 0.1 9.1 .025 0.5 Pins bend back in
1544146-1 0.1 8.4 .025 0.5 -1 is pre-tinned 2 mm standoff
1544146-2 0.1 8.4 .025 0.5 -2 is tinned
1544146-3 0.1 8.4 .025 0.5 -3 is opposite winding direction to -1
1544146-4 0.1 8.4 .025 0.5 -4 is opposite winding direction to -2
1544169-1 0.1 8.4 .039 1.0 -1 is pre-tinned
1544169-2 0.1 8.4 .039 1.0 -2 is Tin over Nickel
1544169-3 0.1 8.4 .039 1.0 -3 is opposite winding direction to -1
1544169-4 0.1 8.4 .039 1.0 -4 is opposite winding direction to -2
1544179-1 0.1 8.9 .025 0.5 similar to 146-1 but slightly longer pin and no standoff section
1544179-2 0.1 8.9 .025 0.5 similar to 146-2 but slightly longer pin and no standoff section
1544187-1 0.1 5.4 .025 0.5 5.0 mm standoff section, otherwise similar to 146
1544187-2 0.1 5.4 .025 0.5 -2 is opposite winding direction to -1
1544200-1 0.1 6.3 .025 0.52 similar to 146-1 but 4.1 mm standoff height
1544377-1 0.05 ---- .025 0.5 J-Lead SMT pins
1544377-2 0.05 ---- .025 0.5 -2 is opposite winding direction to -1
1544443-1 0.1 9.1 .039 1.0 Pins bend back in
1544443-2 0.1 9.1 .039 1.0 -2 is tinned

So nothing for standard .062" PCBs or .032". The Parallax boards are .053"

Digikey search "1544 TE connectivity". Finds 3 part numbers in stock, but all are for single in line (SIL) packages, where the pin is co-planar with the PCB. Sigh
SIL parts are available with MOQ of 1, prices are higher (double) than those below, but not unworkable.

Mouser search "1544" then select TE Connectivity gets about 138 matches, 12 of which are lead frames. Most are for SIL packages, but the
1544443-1 and -2 (DIL) are available (but not normally stocked), Sad MOQ though. For example 1544443-2, 792,000 available, MOQ 792,000, $0.031 each = $24552.00

Among the SIL pins there are a few that are in stock and have a MOQ of 1
1544425-2 $0.10 in small quantities dropping to $0.023 for a 1000 pins, so $23 for enough pins for 20+ proto boards (except they are SIL)
1544445-1 , 1544210-2 , 1544242-1 also.

Allied Electronics search "lead frame 1544" returns 5 matches:
1544425-2 (SIL) MOQ 100 at $0.016 per pin, 1000 pins = $16

Summary: no one has DIL pins in stock with reasonable MOQ. Several SIL pin options.

Crazy idea: The SIL pins (1544425-2) are 1.35 mm wide, so if I had mounting holes in PCB of this diameter, and close enough to the edge of
the board (0.6mm ?), then if I broke off the top break-off bar, these could be inserted into the holes, and middle finger of this end of the pin
would press against the side of the PCB. After soldering, it wouldn't matter. Still need to shear the bottom ends of the pins.
Does this sound too crazy, or a reasonable solution considering the constraints?

================================
Update: I found this thread where the manufacturer is identified as Batten & Allen in the UK.

http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/74282-Stamp-replacement-pins?p=511475&viewfull=1#post511475

frank freedman

Almost anything can be doable, question becomes is it reasonable and maybe practical. Your crazy idea may work well enough to be a reasonable solution for a few one-offs, but completely impractical (or perhaps irrational) to attempt a production run over some count of your widgets......

I usually run into this on some older imaging systems a department wants to keep going beyond EOL; they are unwilling to part with capital $$$. As parts become scarce the extraordinary means become more practical. One room is now of legal drinking age. To keep it going the original harness, all of it was stripped out and replaced. Took 2+ days to do the job and final testing. $5000 for the harness plus 2+ days labor. Avoiding a new lab costing $750,000 and up..... oh,plus planners/architects, demo/construction, permitting........

How bad do you want to make something work/happen? Heck, try it. if it doesn't work, well you know it doesn't work. otherwise you got what ya wanted, I guess .....

fliptron

Status update November 1 2016

After facing the very high NRE and MOQ described in my post of November 2014, I went off on a journey of discovery, that included making pins using wire EDM first (way too expensive, and does not scale) and then photo-chemical etching.
You can see the result of the photo-chemical etched pins here: oshchip.org/products/OSHChip_V1.0_Product.html

While the per pin price is high, the MOQ was somewhat lower (about 10000 pins). Unfortunately these pins require a special fixture to hold them in alignment while being inserted and soldered. Sort of like threading 16 needles at once.

I now have a better solution, and I am making it available as a product so other people can use these pins.
The latest version of this adventure can be seen here oshchip.org/products/Flip-Pins_Product.html