Heathkit PCB Wire-to-Board Connectors - Still Available?

[Vonsgarage]

Good day.
I can not figure out how to describe these things to find them at part suppliers. Seems like something Miller or Smith may have made but no success there.
Heathkit used them on PCB's to allow the use of solid wire jumpers for testing and circuit function selection. Wire size around 22AWG.

[james_s]

Those look like socket pins, I've bought something very similar years ago that I used for some nixie tubes, I forget who made them though. They're essentially slightly larger versions of the standard machined pin IC socket contacts.

[WattsThat]

Yup, designed for solid #22 or 24. Heath used ALOT of Molex products and that was one of the many one-off products they used back in the day. Right up there with the staggered pin ic sockets or the super crappy ic pin socket roll stock, that was 100% Molex. That stuff is long gone in today’s market.

Any round, screw machine pin socket could be substituted. There’s a bunch of Chinese stuff available on eBay in 40 piece strips. Samtec or Mill-Max would have individual sockets but the prices will not be cheap.

If you need a few pieces to restore a kit, PM me, I can send you some. They used to send floor sweepings from the kit packing areas to the stores for use anyway we saw fit. I still have some stock ;-)

[edpalmer42]

Keystone has similar items.  https://www.keyelco.com/category.cfm/Micro-Pins-Jacks/Micro-Jacks/p/459/id/466/c_id/806

Ed

[Vonsgarage]

Thank you all for the timely and informative reply. What a pleasure to be able to access information like this from such smart people.
> james_s: I know about the Nixie pin sockets. And it's funny; I also can't remember where I got them, either! Nixies Rock!
> WattsThat: Molex you say? Now that I think about it, that certainly makes sense. And having built ALOT of Heathkits I can agree on your assessment of the quality of the stuff they decided to go "economy" on. And "floor sweepings" sent to you? You've got to share more about that story with us! Your offer to provide an item that is vintage, no longer made, and as a consequence quite valuable is amazing. I'm OK with stock but nevertheless find it super cool you offered to part with some. Heathkits Rock!
> edpalmer42: Those little fellows on the link are pretty darn close. 22AWG claims to be .0253. Keystone IC pins max-out at .025 and I remember that IC pins repurposed as substitutes for whatever Molex called these things back in the Heathkit days are a very tight fit. Keystone next jumps to .025 > .037 which may be a tad loose. But I will certainly throw a bunch of those things on the next Mouser or Digikey order to try-em-out. Great info; Keystone added to the bookmarks tab. If I remember I'll circle around to this post and update all on the fit.


Thank you all.

[tooki]

Mill-Max and Preci-Dip make wide arrays of PCB sockets.

If you’re after something designed for lots of mating cycles, I’d go for the little breadboard sockets sold by 3M (for exorbitant prices) or Adafruit (at very reasonable cost). They solder into a PCB.

[Vonsgarage]

tooki; Thank you. Another bookmark (Adafruit) added to the browser.
Appreciate all the info. Thanks to all.