Seeing how a PLCC-44 wire wrap socket on eBay was $50, I wondered if I could create something cheaper.

A while back I bought a few rows of WW pins from Jameco. I think it was about $6 or so for a single row of pins (40x1).

So that's about $0.15 per pin.
I then bought a PLCC-44 socket on Mouser for around $2.50.

Total investment so far, ~ $9.10.

eBay could possibly yield a little better pricing.

Then I wondered if I could simply break off those pins into the rows for the socket. I tried one small row and it actually seemed to hold really well. So then I tried another and another until I had all 44 pins plugged into WW pins!

Cutting and pushing those pins on the socket was a little tricky but not too bad.

The tricky part came when I tried to insert my home-made WW solution into the board. The rows of pins want to shift and rock about.

But after a few minutes of gentle nudging with my tweezers, I managed to get the socket installed. After pressing down against the table to secure the pins again, it really seems like it might work. I won't know until I try. The socket is flush with the board but it's hard to see in the pictures.

Anyway, wish me luck.

** EDIT **

I just had another idea. The 28 pin WW sockets are actually pretty cheap on eBay. It might be cheaper to get a few of those and use a sharp knife to cut them up. That way, the rows of pins would be a little more sturdy since they won't have that break-away notch in them. Plus, I think the price-per-pin might even be cheaper.

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Cat; the other white meat.

RS Components has one for £13.39 at https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/plcc-sockets/2446818/ . Jeff has a good post on the subject of making your own, at viewtopic.php?p=37202#p37202 . It is unfortunate that wire-wrap supplies are becoming more expensive and hard to find.

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

I saw those before on the RS Components site. But since I am in the US, it wanted me to use a US seller. The US site didn't appear to have the same thing. Maybe I did something wrong...

And, in reality, I bought all of those pins and sockets before I set out to build my contraption. So it was essentially a sunk-cost already. Meaning, it didn't cost me anything to build it because I already had the stuff.

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Cat; the other white meat.