Slightly OT - roadrunner prototyping system

[davebungo]

Does anyone remember or still use this?  (Dug out of my loft last week as I'm having it insulated)
This is my Engineering Council Exam project (a Transputer based audio processor - never completely finished) but if you look carefully you will see the Roadrunner wiring pen and a spare coil of wire.

The idea is to melt the insulation of the wire with the soldering iron tip and then solder it to the joint.  This can be done in one operation.  You then simply drag the wire to the destination and hey presto!  It works really well but maybe not quite suited to audio stuff and the insulation is toxic I believe so you have to use it in a ventilated area.

I just thought people might be interested to see it.
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[twabelljr]

     So that's what a wiring pencil looks like! Craig A. mentions them in E.P.F.M. Very interesting. What gauge is the wire?

[davebungo]

The wire is very fine, there are no labels on the spools but it looks to be about 0.1 to 0.2mm.

[Nasse]

Such system is called "wire wrapping" where I live and was quite popular back then. I worked with a repairman we did some maintenance for old communications safety security equipment and there is such stuff used here and there still working. We talked about it and he said the joint is very reliable, the posts the wire is wrapped are not round but has hexaconal or something shape so the wrapping wire sticks like disease and contacts nicely. Think about modern guitar strings, the wound ones have hexaconal wire inside.... sorry my english

It was good and fast and very reliable method for small custom jobs, don´t know it is still available

[davebungo]

No, it's not wire-wrap.  Wire-wrap involves stripping off some fairly fine plastic insulation off the wire and then, as you say, wrapping around a square post with a special tool to make the job easy.  This is different in that the wire has an even finer insulation which looks a little like the enamel you get on coil winding wire i.e. the type used for RF chokes etc except that it vaporises in contact with extreme heat to leave a little bit of exposed wire which you can then solder conventionally.

[Nasse]

http://elm-chan.org/docs/wire/wiring_e.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_wrap

Yes I was wrong and I was not wake up yet when I pressed the send button. But life is learning. I learned wrapping stuff is still available too.