Soldering Unconnected PCB Pads

Harry Stoner

I have a PCB development board that has a 40 pin socket on it for a processor (such as a Parallax BS2p or the new 60% faster BS2px). I want easy access to the processor I/O pins to a breadboard or other PCB prototype later on. The development board has .1" spaced holes in a grid, each with pads, but the pads are unconnected.

I can't figure out exactly what is the best way to connect the 40 pin socket pins/pads to adjacent or close pads. I probably will install header pins there to make it easy to run connectors for the I/O pins to a breadboard or other board.

Should I just blob solder from the soldered pin pad to the adjacent pad? Run a tiny piece of wire and solder? Neither of these solutions is optimal.

I'm not sure why they wouldn't just put header pins on the development board in the first place and run proper PCB traces to them, but it wasn't expensive ...

Thanks.

Harry

Dave Paton

I've had good luck putting the header way out on the edge and using wire wrap wire to get it back to the processor socket pins.I route mine like I would PCB traces, and it's worked great for me. For you, I'd suggest small bits of wire. Try WW wires, and give the end on the header a turn or two around the header pin on the bottom of the board to help secure it.

-dave

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stamptrol

For years we have used the wire-wrap version of the processor socket on our EnT boards. The long leads give lots of room to wire wrap 'extra' circuitry onto the processor pins on th bottom side of the board.

In your case, just unsolder the present 40-pin socket, clean up the holes with a solder-sucker and install the wire-wrap 40-pin socket.

Cheers,

Tom Sisk