Spacer Tool for PCB Link/Jumper Wire

Hi All,

Few weeks back I designed a small simple tool for making nice bends for jumper/link wires used on PCB's.

If you do a lot of soldering then this item can come in quite handy. Basically you just cut a length of link wire (I use 0.71mm diameter wire), line up the wire with the grooves and fold each end. Works better if you use a small pair of needle nose pliers too. Results in a nice neat jumper wires (SEE ATTACHMENTS). You can make links between 2/10inch (5.1mm) up to 8/10inch (20.3mm), in increments of 1/10inch (2.54mm) - which is standard size for most basic pcb/eletronics.

No doubt similar tools exist for this, although I couldn't find any. I had to get the part laser cut in 2mm Stainless Steel. If you've ever dealt with Laser cutting suppliers, they usually charge a minimum amount and don't like small orders. So I got a couple of extra cut up if anyone wants them. Price $5 + $2 P/H (for AUSTRALIAN residents only - sorry to the internationals!). EFT preferred.

Cheers.

Tom

Neat, nicely done.
Lead benders have been around for decades.
**broken link removed**

Lead benders have been around for decades.

Click to expand...

cheers, yeah figured as much... still there if anyone wants them.

Nice little jig.

In in Australia and interested, PM me and see if we can work something out.

I'd take a laser cut stainless one for that price any day over a piece of plastic, but since you had it on a laser cutting table anyways you should have got them laser etched with the measuring marks too . If I weren't in the US I'd grab one, would probably last a lifetime.

Yeah I considered running channels between each notch pair too. Would have improved the design, although not sure how cost effective it would have been. And consistent depth control might be tricky. plus the grooves might create weak point in the steel. I'll have to ask the question with the supplier. You're right on the Etch marking though; would have given it a good professional finish.

Seems we have opposite problems! Half the reason I got it made up was because I couldn't find any available in australia. Happy to send you the dxf for the LC profile if you want. PM if you're keen on it.

-Tom

Still a couple available. Would consider a swap for something else (need a 2 x 16 LCD screen if anyone has one!)

Hey Tom, I was just thinking. If you made the horiz steps in 0.1" resolution too you could bend wires on either the vertical step or the horizontal step, to give a lot more sizes from the same device.

True, although you'd only have 0.1inch wide steps on each side (I think I made them 20mm wide so you could get your finger over them). Might still be ok though

I received the tool in the mail, thanks for that! It was a little bent, some mail monkey probably jumped on it.

It straightened up fine with a little muscle and is now sitting next to my soldering iron.

Should have them gold plated! Tools like that are really bought for life or till lost (shorter periods of time for some in both catagories =>)

Oh sh!t sorry about that! Would have taken a bit of force to bend it. If you've got a vice with flat jaws, might help flatten it back to its original shape.

Got the shift1-lcd - cheers! Quick question - you wrote the code in C yeah? I've been writing all my programs in Assembler, which I've no problems with, until I tried to write a Tacho program. Very tricky! I might start a new thread on that topic actually... cheers -Tom