Through hole socket connector?

Is this
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8506?

The same as this?
http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/288

I need the through hole for some home brew.

no it is not.

the Sparkfun one is .1" centres, the Gadgeteer one is .05".

If you need through hole equivalent of the samtec headers, then you should visit Samtec’s site and order a sample (they’ll send you 10). http://www.tinyclr.com/forum/topic?id=4533 is the previous thread on some of this.

The surface mount isn’t that hard to solder on yourself - personally, I think fine tolerance drilling will probably be a bigger issue for your DIY endeavours !

Ditto what Brett said. I’ve tried both through hole and surface mount. Stick with SM. They may look small, but are fairly easy to solder.

Hmm, it’s hard even with a good drill press?

Never mind, I looked at the Eagle files for the Gadgeteer socket. Damn small. I’ll go the SM route. Thanks.

It would be a real pain to drill yourself, but a board house could. Soldering the SM ones isn’t horrible, though.

I haven’t tried, but I can tell you I have enough trouble trying to drill a 0.8mm hole accurately in position for a row of 0.1" headers, with a half decent drill press. I assume you might need to be at 0.5mm drill, or less, for those Samtec parts so the tolerances across a row of 5 holes is not very big. If you were going to do the whole board on a CNC (at the local hackerspace or if you have one at home) then you certainly can get the accuracy, but eyeball mk 1 is probably not going to work that well :stuck_out_tongue:

@ twospoons - You can do it! The SMT ones are easy.

@ twospoons - To echo what ianlee74 said, soldering the surface-mount Gadgeteer Sockets (Shrouded IDC Male Headers with 0.05 pitch in both directions) is very doable.

I personally find the through-hole headers to be less intimidating and easier to solder, as long as you use thinner solder. It’s largely a personal preference.

A while ago I special-ordered a few thousand of these in THT format (compatible PN: FCI 20021511-00010T1LF). If someone here would like to offer them as a community offer, I can help you get a small quantity of them in a few weeks. We’re breaking them into 10-packs, but out of respect for GHI I won’t post the order link without Gus’s approval.

Chris

I’d be willing to offer them, if there’s a demand for them.

I ended up doing SM for the header and mounted the RJ45 on the under side and used top layer for the copper. Seems doable to solder. I made the pads for the header a little longer to make it easier to solder.

Drilling the RJ45s are not that easy either because if you’re not really careful you damage the copper around the holes. The SM for the header looked even tinier, so I’m not going to struggle with a through hole for it.

Anyone else using the UV sensitive PCBs? I’ve had great results with them.

Waiting for parts…

UV no, press-n-peel blue paper yes…

I’d like to learn more about your process (because all of my attempts at home-brew PCBs have sucked…). Maybe we could get together next time you brew up a batch?

How about this method?

the blue paper I use is toner transfer method. Not overly hard to do, IMHO, and yes you can get good results from other glossy paper

http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_2121017_-1
(or just buy the stuff individually, that’s what I do)

It’s really simple. Don’t need any UV lights, a fluorescent bulb is all you need.

This is one old one I made. I lot less work than toner transfer.

Yeah, I’ll let you know when I get ready to do these boards and you can come over and take a look.

Found the video of the exact process I use.

That is a nice process. No irons or laminators. Only downside is it is a bit pricier than the other methods but I think I’ll give it a try next time. The quality certainly is better than any results I’ve gotten with toner transfer. I suppose you could also reuse your printouts as many times as you like with this method. That’s a plus also.

Yep, I keep all the printouts. The process is a little more expensive, but if I need more than 10x of something I would just use batchpcb.

I also use the same Pyrex dishes he has, works great for storing the chemicals so you can reuse them.

It is pretty magical when you take the pcb after exposure and put it in the first solution and the print shows up within seconds. You get really crisp traces with this method.
The only reason I use a little thicker traces now is for drilling. Easer to mess up thinner holes.