wirewrap tool

Wirewrap tool

A wire wrap tools makes creating good electrical connections easier when doing manual wiring. It is not needed, or helpful, when mounting parts onto a PCB, but for the WCRS Blinky Bot kits, a lot of individual wires need to be connected to components. For that, the tool is very helpful. Tweezers, needle nose pliers, even bare fingers, can be used to wrap wire around the post or other item to be connected. However, the small size of the parts, and limited spacing, can make that frustrating. Using the tool can make the connections much more reliable and consistent. Initially, it can be frustrating too. Learning to get the wire feed into the tool, and keeping it there long enough to get the wrap done can take a bit of practice. Experience that will pay back very quickly, if continuing on to other projects that need to be hand wired.

The wire wrap tool is not quite the same as the one we typically use, but this short youtube video shows the basic technique. Older wire wrap boards, ONLY wrapped the wires. Without any soldering. However, those used special square posts, that created a much better connection, both physical and electrically, between the wire and post. The posts and leads that we are mostly using are round, and wire wrap alone is likely to fail fairly quickly.

TODO A written description of using the wire wrap tool, detailed enough to replace (not just supplement) the above video.

• More information about Wire Wrapping, the tools, and some history about its use.
• A longer video showing how wire wrap has really been used. Includes information that still applies to our kits. With a few small changes, because we solder the wires after wrapping them. We do not need the first wrap to include the wire insulation. Without the square corners, the wires are not going to (easily) work against the posts and break. The insulation is not helpful when soldering either. You end up melting the plastic, which makes a mess on the soldering tip, does not conduct well, and can stink.