The Easter Solar Engine

Step 5 External Connections

To make the connections from the circuit board to the solar cell and motor, pin tail sockets taken from inline strips are very convenient.  The pin sockets can be easily emancipated from the plastic setting in which they come by careful use of nippers.  The tails can be snipped off after the pins are soldered in the board.

Solid 24 gage wire plugs into the sockets nice and secure, but usually externals are connected via flexible stranded hookup wire.  The same sockets can be soldered to the ends of these wires to serve as little "plugs" that fit into the sockets on board beautifully.

Board sockets can also be provided into which the storage capacitor can be plugged.  It can mount directly into the sockets, or be remotely located and connected via wire leads plugged to the board.  This makes it possible to easily change and try different capacitors until the best one is found for the application and its average lighting conditions.  After the best value of C1 is found, it still can be permanently soldered in place, but rarely has this been found necessary if good quality sockets are used.

Comments

[Avasar10000]

Can you provide some websites that stock the SIP's? Thank you!

[TinkerJim]

All the major electronics supply houses carry them, and I think many of the specialty and surplus electronics sellers do also.