Engineering Definitions
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Wire Wrap Prototype Board

Wire Wrap Board. A circuit board containing a number of wire wrap pins used both to mount IC or components into the female end of the pin on the top side of the board and to attach [wrap] wires on to the male end of the terminals on the reverse side of the board. Components are interconnected by wrapping wires between the leads of the components. A normal size wire wrap pin will hold up to three separate wraps of wire.

A wire wrap board uses wire wrap pins that are an integral part of the board, the pins are fixed to the board. A perforated board [perfboard] could also be perform the same function using IC sockets having wire wrap leads. Because the wrapped wire on the leads hold the sockets to the board, the components do not need to be soldered to the perf-board.

Wire Wrap Terminal Board
Wire Wrap Board

Wire Wrap Wire. Wire wrap wire is all ways an insulated single strand solid conductor. Circuit function can be separated using common wire insulation colors including green, blue, red, white, black and yellow; however in many cases the wrapped board used only one color for all the nets. Of course the portion of the wire that is wrapped around the pin is stripped or un-insulated. Wire wrap wire can be purchased as either a spool of wire or in pre-cut lengths. Different gauge wire is possible in wire wrapping, but 30 AWG is the most common.

Wire Wrapping. A method of attaching a wire between components with out using traces on a Printed Wiring Board [PWB]. The components are placed in a socket or pin which have a wire wrap terminal, while the board it self is blank with either holes or plated-through holes to accept the pins. The components are then interconnected by twisting wires around the wire wrap pins attached to the components.





Wire Wrap Tools. Two types of tools are available, either a manual wrapping tool or a powered tool. The manual wrapping tool may also be used to un-wrap the wire. A powered tool may be either battery operated or AC powered. Wire wrap sleeves are available for wire sizes between 18 AWG and 30AWG wire. Using 30 gauge wire allows for 3 wire wraps per terminal, an advantage in designs having outputs driving more than two gates.

Wire Wrap Sockets;
IC Socket Manufacturers.
MIL-DTL-83734; Sockets, Plug-in Electronic Components, Dual-in-Line (DIP) and Single-in-Line (SIP) Packages.
Type I - Solderless wrap terminals

MIL-DTL-83505/1F; Sockets (Lead, Electronic Components) (Type I, Solderless Wrap)

MIL-DTL-83505/8B; Sockets (Lead, Electronic Components) (Type I, Solderless Wrap) Low Insertion Force (LIF)

Wire wrap terminal length vs Wire Gauge and number of wire wraps
Wire Wrap Terminal Length vs Wire Gauge

The above chart shows the number of possible wire wraps on a terminal as a function of wire gauge [30AWG to 18AWG].

Editor note: As an electrical engineer I've designed a half dozen circuits using wire-wrap boards. The fastest and most complex design fabricated on a wire warp board was a 100MHz ECL Delay and Multiply Chip Rate Detector. There may have been some TTL ICs for input control, but I don't recall.
Emitter Coupled Logic [ECL IC] is a style of digital logic that use transistors, like TTL, to generate the internal logic function. However; unlike TTL which is a saturating logic family, ECL does not force the internal transistors into saturation. So ECL operates more as an analog gate than a digital switch, but they still perform digital logic functions.

 
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