Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com!R_Tim_Coslet
From: R_Tim_Coslet@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Vero Wire Circuit Prototyping System
Message-ID: <7222@cup.portal.com>
Date: 9 Jul 88 17:27:10 GMT
References: <188@lithium.kcl-cs.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 46
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.4086

In article <188@lithium.kcl-cs.UUCP> andrew@kcl-cs.UUCP (Andrew B Smith) Writes:
>I am looking into the use of the 'Vero Wire' prototyping system for the
>construction of a small micro board. For those of you who do not know
>what 'Vero Wire' is (it may have a different name in your country) I shall
>explain. Vero Wire is a wiring system for creating prototype circuit
Yes, I know it...  It was called "Wiring Pencil" here when I bought it.

>
>This prototyping system has the advantage over wire-wrap in that the boards
>are much thinner (the same as a PCB).
And cheaper, as you don't have to buy wire wrap sockets that often cost more
than alot of the parts (MSI TTL & CMOS ICs).
>
>I would like to hear from people who have had experience with this system
>and the problems they have encountered (reliability, and types of circuit
>it is suitable for). I am interested in the effects of noise and crosstalk 
>on the wires, and the sorts of speed of micro you can build.
I have used it alot (though never for very high speed stuff, so I don't
know its performance above about 1MHz). My experience and recommendations
are as follows.

	1) The insulation can be difficult to burn off. So, Use a higher
	wattage Iron (>40W) to burn the insulation off quickly, a 25W Iron
	will take >10 seconds per pin and may thermally stress the ICs
	(In addition to producing intermitent connections). The last board
	I made with it I used a 100W soldering gun and had no bad joints.
	I also recommend using an Ohm Meter to check ALL connections on
	any board wired this way.

	2) Be carefull with routing, don't let wires run randomly over other
	IC pins. The insulation can be stripped when you don't want to strip
	it, and cause shorts.

	3) If you assemble with this system and solder directly to the IC
	pins (the cheapest way to do it) and find an IC is bad; don't try
	to unsolder it to replace it! The wires are VERY springy and will
	be almost impossible to keep in order. Just cut off the pins close
	to the package and solder the new part to the pins of the old one.

Good Luck. I like the Wiring Pencil system. It is much quicker than doing
a PC board and cheaper than wire wrap. But it does require a few different
methods than other systems.

					R. Tim Coslet

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