Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Cheap homemade test points
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gibbled:
I found "Glass seed beads" at the local dollar store a few days ago.  $3 for three or four ounces of the little things.

intabits:
Neat!
Do they solder easily?
tautech:
And it's a lot less hassle to use off the shelf SMD ones and you can easily remove them from prototypes when testing is done to replace them with a zero ohm resistor. Lower profile too so to act less as an antenna.  :scared:
Scope probes can easy get onto 0805 SMD, no problem.
I split 100 with a buddy and just recycle those I've used.
https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/keystone-electronics/5015/36-5015CT-ND/278886
gibbled:
I forgot to mention that I formed the wire loops in #24 solid from old cat3 cable.
Doctorandus_P:
Did I understand correctly that you made these yourself from glass beads and stripped CAT5 wire?
Oops, you used cat3.
I bought a bag of 100 for EUR2.20 from ali.
Pre-made and they look gold plated, or at least yellow shiny instead of red copper which will probably oxidize more readily.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=pcb+board+bead+test+point

Another tip:
Sometimes I use a small resistor as a shunt for current measurement and I solder them directly on the target (vero board) PCB while designing. I also solder  a 2 pin header with 0.71mm square pins parralell to that resistor.
Those are an easy attachment for "dupont" style cables (easy for breadboard, make an adapter for your multimeter).
This makes for a reliable connection, with no chance of temporarily opening the circuit because of a bad test clip.
And when not in use, or when there is doubt the shunt resistor may influence your circit you can put a standard jumper over it to short it.

Another tip:
On a lot of the experimental designs I make I make a large ground loop from standard 2.5qmm copper stripped installation wire.
Those are very easily recognized as a GND connecton to connect your oscilloscope GND probe and various GND clips for other measurement equipment.
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