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I want to adapt a 40 pin SMD (0.5mm pitch) for usage on a breadboard. Are there any adapters available that I can use together with a simple soldering iron?

Already I found the SchmartBoard adapters, but they only are available up to 2 × 14 (28 leads).

Photo of component with 40 pins

feklee
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3 Answers3

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Ready made? Maybe. Based on the pin pitch and relative width of the adapter, Look for 0.5mm pitch tsop (or tssop) 40 and 48 pin adapters. There is 0.65mm pitch tssop as well, avoid those. You can find these in most common places (ebay/dipmicro/digikey/etc).

You could also try your hand at pcb design, and have a board made at a pcb fab. Oshpark is good/cheap for small boards, while Seeed has a decent ten (you'd often get 12) 10x10cm board for 9.90 plus small shipping.

You could make a board specific for just adapting that socket, or make a board that holds everything you want, microprocessor and regulator and whatever.

Passerby
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  • I understand that I should look for a fab to do the soldering for me. There are two conditions, though: It should ideally be close to my place (the next weeks I will be on the Canary Islands), and it should take custom components, in this case my connector. Note that I only need one board because I only have one component, which is [hard to source](http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/64112/how-to-find-socket-for-keyboard-connector). – feklee Apr 03 '13 at 10:19
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    Actually, tssop is pretty easy to do by hand. I mean it's not dip or soic, but it's not exactly a leadless package. – Passerby Apr 03 '13 at 20:13
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There are indeed 0.5mm pitch SMD to DIP adapter boards available on sites like eBay.com for around $2.75 with free shipping:

0.5mm SMD to DIP adapter

The reason they may not have shown up in casual searches is that the common pin count in that range is 48 pins (24 x 2), rather than 40 pin.

Alternatively, look for two pieces of 0.5mm pitch, 20 pin FPC to DIP adapter boards, and use them facing each other, if the distance between the two rows of contacts on the SMD part is too much - as it appears it would be from the photograph in the question.

20-pin 0.5mm pitch adapter

Anindo Ghosh
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  • Can I use a simple soldering iron to hand solder the SMD onto these, like with the [SchmartBoard](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-32orELxkpE)? – feklee Apr 03 '13 at 10:13
  • Yes, I often do. Just make sure you have some desoldering braid handy, to clean up any bridges. There are several videos on YouTube demontrating this. Also, use lots of flux. "Drag soldering" is a useful key-phrase to search for. – Anindo Ghosh Apr 03 '13 at 10:15
  • The advantage of the SchmartBoard, according to marketing talk at least, is that it has grooves with solder in them. You just place the SMD into the grooves, then apply heat. – feklee Apr 03 '13 at 10:23
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    @feklee That's what the marketing says, but it doesn't really work that way too well, in my experience. One needs to drag solder. Yes, the solder present in the grooves does make drag soldering almost trivial. To get reasonably close to Schmartboard-like soldering efficacy, I typically apply a bit of solder separately to the traces on the PCB, then place the SMD part and drag-solder it. If the SMD part does not already have solder on the pins (many do) then I also pre-apply solder to the pins before the soldering attempt. – Anindo Ghosh Apr 03 '13 at 10:27
  • Thanks for the suggestions! In this case, I most likely will use a component that I desoldered from another board, simply because I cannot find it on the market. – feklee Apr 03 '13 at 10:29
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    @feklee That saves you needing to pre-apply solder to the part. :-) ... Also, I just looked at your previous question on that part: 1. The first adapter board in my answer will work for it, as per your provided dimensions. 2. The part is a board-to-board connector, digikey allows searching by separation between rows, nu,ber of contacts, and so on... I see several candidates there that match your specifications. Ignore the FPC "ribbon cable" on the keyboard connector (your comment there), just solder on a standard FPC of suitable dimensions if you must. – Anindo Ghosh Apr 03 '13 at 10:41
  • Thanks for the suggestion to look at digikey! I searched on their site already yesterday, and I didn't find anything that matches the required dimensions. The connector suggested by @shimofuri could work, if I remove some of the plastic. – feklee Apr 03 '13 at 10:58
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The guys as SchmartBoard pointed me to their 202-0007-01, which I have missed. It supports SMDs with up to 72 pins. So it's quite a bit bigger than necessary.

feklee
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