Wire

[TerraHertz]

I don't have an issue with perf-boarding.  I do almost nothing but that.

just the single color that drives me nuts, that's all   you have to admit that colors help you trace out things when you get to that point.  my vision is bad enough as it is, I need the color diffs to help pick one wire out from the rest.  I simply would not be able to do any work with a monocolor wiring job like that.  I'd give up with frustration, to be honest.

But why would you need to 'trace out' wires? You should have a complete schematic, and the wires should exactly match the schematic. So you only need to locate endpoints. (Highlighter pens FTW!)
Back in the wire wrap days I'd come to the conclusion that using multiple wire colors was pointless. It just made initial wiring more tedious (having to swap colors often) and didn't add anything to functionality.

[echen1024]

For us youngsters...


What is wire wrap?

[nanofrog]

For us youngsters...


What is wire wrap?

Wiki page.

[linux-works]

if a wire breaks or a connection was working 'mostly' but went high-z later on, a repair would be needed.  if a part blew (that was not in a socket) the wires to that part have to be unsoldered and redone with the new part.

part of product building - to me - is about support.  not just 'does it work now' but 'can it be fixed by someone else, later on'.

even things I build for myself might end up being owned by someone else later on.  I would not want someone to have to debug that.  but that's just me and my style.  I try to make things supportable, if at all possible.

[Richard Crowley]

For us youngsters...
What is wire wrap?

Assuming you aren't kidding....
Wire-wrap is the method of terminating wires on square (or rectangular) pins by wrapping under tension.  The sharp corners of the pins actually make multiple gas-tight connections with the bare wire.  Most methods also wrap a few turns of the insulated part of the wire for additional mechanical stability.

[SeanB]

That looks so familiar, I worked on it for years. Having the circuit diagram, along with another set with the wiring layouts with pin numbers ( and nicely a back drawing with the pin numbers for ease of reference) in large format made working there relatively easy. This was on a product that was mass produced, at least in the aviation market. They made 50, and a test station, all wire wraped. Test station was different, no wiring diagram but they did have the circuit diagram and a per card diagram as well. Fun was the ATE side, a 400 pin connector with 300 wires, all white.

[linux-works]

here, have some more colors.

[linux-works]

since we're on the topic of wiring styles, here's a Power Designs interior with an 'interesting' method of wiring:







(no mono-colored wiring, there, either.  lol)

quite a piece of work, those old PDI supplies.  never saw that construction technique used before.  I think this model is from the early 60's.

[SArepairman]

I have to admit, I'm a color snob

Then you'd hate my wiring style:

chirst man you need to etch your own PCBs if you are gonna go through all that trouble

[nanofrog]

quite a piece of work, those old PDI supplies.  never saw that construction technique used before.  I think this model is from the early 60's.

It's a form of point to point construction.

[MLXXXp]

I have to admit, I'm a color snob

Then you'd hate my wiring style:

Your style is similar to what I used for an S100 I/O board I built in the late 1970's, including the technique of sliding measured insulation along bare wire. I used colour, though, and tried to avoid slack on the wires.

[SeanB]

Turret tags on that PDI supply. Lovely things, even though you need good metalworking skills to attach them to the board neatly. You could cheat and use a press and dies, but just using a single mandrel to hold the tag and a hammer to peen over the back worked quite well. I still have a big bottle of assorted solid rivets, and the mandrel I made to set them, as often you were in a confined space and using a small ball peen hammer would not fit.

[linux-works]

this is probably why they say that a PDI supply can be thrown from a moving truck and still work to factory specs

that wiring style sure does look bullet proof, almost literally

labor intensive, as hell, to build, though!

[ajb]

In case anyone hasn't seen ChaN's work before:

http://elm-chan.org/docs/wire/wiring_e.html

Also: http://elm-chan.org/docs/wire/wcd.jpeg

this is probably why they say that a PDI supply can be thrown from a moving truck and still work to factory specs

that wiring style sure does look bullet proof, almost literally

labor intensive, as hell, to build, though!

That big slug of metal also requires quite a bit of heat to solder.  I have a couple of PD supplies that need a bit of TLC, and they require a nice hot iron and a bit of patience to repair.

[linux-works]

never saw chan's work.  beautiful stuff!  I love it.

[nanofrog]

In case anyone hasn't seen ChaN's work before:

http://elm-chan.org/docs/wire/wiring_e.html

Also: http://elm-chan.org/docs/wire/wcd.jpeg

Definitely beautiful work. 

Would certainly require plenty of patience and good eyesight.

[linux-works]

I drink way too much coffee to be able to keep steady enough hands for that work..

"It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
 it is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
 the hands acquire shaking,
 the shaking becomes a warning;
 it is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."

[nanofrog]

I drink way too much coffee to be able to keep steady enough hands for that work..

"It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion,
 it is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
 the hands acquire shaking,
 the shaking becomes a warning;
 it is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion."

How could I forget steady hands (particularly as mine shake like mad)?   

BTW like the Piter De Vries reference from Dune. 

[TerraHertz]

For us youngsters...
What is wire wrap?

Already answered, I know. But a good excuse to post this - a little signal generator project I built around 1976 (approx). Since it has a wire wrapped board in it.    The front panel lettering is getting a bit patchy by now.

[TerraHertz]

Your style is similar to what I used for an S100 I/O board I built in the late 1970's, including the technique of sliding measured insulation along bare wire. I used colour, though, and tried to avoid slack on the wires.

Neat!
I seem to recall I did one or two that way (tight wires between points) but discovered it resulted in unpredictable bunching, and also made it difficult to get at pins that happened to be underneath piles of wire. So switched to the 'loosely routed' style.

Heh. You brought 8255 IO pins directly out, off the board? Have any problems with chips dying?


Getting back to the original thread topic, I find I never have to buy hookup wire. Just pick up a street-tossed photocopier or printer or such every now and then. Electronics products with a bit of electromechanical stuff tend to have quite a lot of different kinds of wire in their looms. More than anyone would need for a few hobby projects.
I just pulled another one apart yesterday, going to post a quickie thread on it.

Edit: Oh, and I remembered now another reason I switched to single color wiring. It meant I could buy one bulk roll of wire, which made it much cheaper per foot, and was less hassle to store.

[MLXXXp]

Heh. You brought 8255 IO pins directly out, off the board? Have any problems with chips dying?

Most of the 8255 I/O went via ribbon cable to DB 25 connectors on the back of the PC. Many were intended to go to a control unit containing an ASCII keyboard, A/D, D/A, interrupt buttons, joy sticks, slide pots, etc. However, I never actually built the keyboard unit, so the I/O never got much use, except to drive a dot matrix printer. I still have the system, a Poly 88, but I haven't powered it up in well over 20 years.

[bingo600]

I have to admit, I'm a color snob

Is that a DAC ?
If so what chip have you used ?

I'd like to build a 192Khz Audio Dac for my Pi

/Bingo

[linux-works]

not a dac, just a simple level converter for 5v ttl to 3.3v, for the raspi console connection.