IC Insertion Tool

[eloso]

Hi,

I am developing a PCB electronics project to be assembled by groups of young people aged between 10 and 12 years.   This is not a commercial venture and these kits will be built under my supervision.  I already have experience with this age range building a kit containing an 8 pin DIP IC and we used IC sockets to protect chips against over-enthusiatic soldering.  Inserting the chips into the sockets was a nightmare. Many of the youngsters bent the pins and we finished by having experienced adults doing this part for them.

Since the idea is that they get a sense of satisfaction by doing the assembly themselves, I am looking for a solution that will allow them to easily get those ICs in the sockets without bending anything. To complicate things, I want to use an ATTiny2313 which is 20 pins. More pins ready for bending !

Can anyone recommend a tool for this purpose ? Google, Digikey and all the other usual suspects reveal a range of things available but few that are specified for 20 pin ICs and there is little review info available for any of them.


Thanks

Eloso

[Benta]

Tools are available, eg: https://www.amazon.com/Electronix-Express-IC-Insertion-Tool/dp/B0195MDEDS
but 20-pin is difficult. IIRC DIP-20 exists in two widths, 3/10" and 4/10". which makes it even more difficult.

You could consider making your own with a piece of suitable aluminium or brass U-extrusion. I did that back then.

[TonyBe]

Hi,

I've had the problem myself when I started with electronics back then.
I "solved" the issue (or at least make it less critical) by using a simple block of wood which was a little bit narrower than the Chip itself. I placed the chip up side down on the table, inserted the wood between the rows of pins, and then used to other pieces of wood to squeeze the pins to the wood piece from both sides.
I hope it was described clear enough,..  Maybe this ASCII Art gives you a better idea?

           | |    |    NARROW WOOD |      |   |
WOOD |  |______________________|    | WOOD
______|   |   IC LAYING ON TABLE   |      |_______

You can also easily make a simple 3D design and print it on a 3D printer (or order it from a 3D print manufacturer).

Kind regards
Tony

[Ian.M]

Inserting ICs in sockets is much easier if you first use a Pin Straightener tool.

Shown is its 0.6" side in use.  Flip it over for its 0.3" side that you need.
https://www.jameco.com/z/ICS-01-R-Jameco-Benchpro-IC-Pin-Straightener-Tool_99363.html
The cheapest type that's any good is the one above.  Its available from lots of places including major distributors, electronics specialists, Amazon, Ebay and the usual far east eBazars.

Beware of 3D printed clones of it as they wont be ESD safe.  Its not worth printing yourself, unless you've either got conductive (resistive) filament or a can of conductive metal screening spray on the go to make it ESD safe + all the shoulder bolts, springs etc. already at hand.

[jmelson]

Put the chip on a table, with one row of leads layng flat on the table.  Press down on the body of the chip to bend the leads more square to the chip.  Flip over and repeat.  I'm not sure this can be described well in words, but if you get the concept here, it could be demonstrated to the kids.  The idea is the leads of production chips are splayed outward to make them stay inserted in production boards for wave soldering.  You want to bend the rows of pins so they are parallel to the other row.  I think the kids could do it if shown the technique.
Jon

[Martian Tech]

Use ZIF sockets?

https://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/269

[Ian.M]

Put the chip on a table, with one row of leads layng flat on the table.  Press down on the body of the chip to bend the leads more square to the chip.  Flip over and repeat.  I'm not sure this can be described well in words, but if you get the concept here, it could be demonstrated to the kids.  The idea is the leads of production chips are splayed outward to make them stay inserted in production boards for wave soldering.  You want to bend the rows of pins so they are parallel to the other row.  I think the kids could do it if shown the technique.
Jon

The kids *CAN* lean to straighten pins themselves on the tabletop and if keen, will as they cant take the class tool home!  So its definitely worth demonstrating the technique and letting those that want to practice it. However *MOST* of them, especially those less physically coordinated, will get better results and fewer curled pins on insertion if they use the tool.

[eloso]

Thanks everyone - all answers are gratefully received  (and I particularly love the ASCII art !)   

I've ordered one the of lead bending jigs and will evaluate it - if pins line up nicely and they are reasonably careful (not a given!) this might be enough. I don't mind the odd bit of wastage.  As a back up plan I like the idea of ZIF sockets - wasteful, but they are very cheap these days and they would be just the job.  As a bit of further background these young people will never have touched a soldering iron before and will have no tools of their own at home. They have 2 hours to make these PCBs up, including safety briefings (soldering irons have one end that is, ahem, hot!) a little bit of soldering practice and some sketchy theory. The idea is to enthuse them and hopefully at least some will get bitten by the bug and it would be cool to think that they might be the engineers of tomorrow.  Absolutely key is that at the end of the session they can proudly take something home that works.   Based on previous experience many struggle the first time or two that they insert DIP chips (which reminds me that another option is a bag of extremely cheap sacrificial chips for practice).


We have done this before with 8 year olds who make up a board just comprising some flashing LEDs and the smiles at the end of the evening are just  great to see.

Thanks again for your input .


Cheers


Eloso

[donlisms]

Just to reinforce earlier comments...  it's really not at all difficult to bend the entire row of pins on one side of the chip into a nice right angle by laying the pins on the table and pushing on the body of the chip.  Eyeball estimates are perfectly sufficient.  Takes but a few seconds.  If you pre-bent all the IC's, you would succeed without making a small problem bigger! 

I would only hesitate if you had, say, hundreds of these things to do. Even then... I'd consider it.  A jig to help with mass production should be an easy thing, without costing tens, hundreds or thousands of dollars.

But... hey... I thought this was about learning to do it yourself? 

[SmallCog]

I've got one of those squeeze tools and it works when I can find it (I don't solder IC's that often)

At the local tech college they have them bend them against the table top and this is what I do when I can't find my tool

A further option may be to pre insert the IC's in the holders.