Weird Flex But OK — FlexyPin From Solder Party Will Help You Make Contact with Your Modules!

Testing is an often overlooked artform.

Many of us will have spent far longer than we care to admit chasing "ghosts in the machine" — only to later realize that the intermittent fault we've been chasing is due to a break in our multimeter lead — or worse, some other far far far more expensive bit of test gear.

When looking for problems, the last thing you want to do is add more of them by way of faulty, or poorly designed test equipment.

That's one to remember, whether you are chasing down the one-off bug, or doing battle against an army of ghosts worthy of calling... well, you know who.

And when you are part of (the) Solder Party, turning out module after module for sale, the right test gear is going to make the world of difference in not only the reliability of the data gathered, but the time taken to test each module itself — all in the name of a better product and a better service.

While Solder Party aren't quite at the level of flying probe ATE (automated test equipment) tooling, they have released for sale an integral part of their module test platform tooling — and it looks like it will allow many of us to take a far more flexible approach to our module based circuit creations!

Meet FlexyPin

FlexyPin is a novel way of solving a problem that many of us would have previously turned to... turned pins for...

If you want to non-destructively mount a module with castellated edge pated contacts. Nearly all of us would spring for the surprisingly expensive cost incurred by pogo pins.

These intricate mechanical assemblies have been the go-to for modules on-the-go for some time now — that is, if you don't wish to sacrifice the saleability of your module by soldering the part down onto your test PCB.

Available in myriad shapes and forms, they all have one thing in common, and that's a surprising amount of intricate mechanical complexity — which means that they are usually associated with a similarly surprising price tag!

FlexyPin does away with that intricacy- and the associated costs, by creating that same temporary sprung contact with a single piece, soldered flexure, rather than a coiled spring contained within a cylinder.

Yup, a simple curved wire form is all that is needed to make reliable contact with any module based form factor that sports edge-plated castellated pads along its perimeter.

Cheap, simple and effective. The holy trifecta of engineering.

And when we say cheap, we mean it. With a pack of 100 pins going for the price of your favourite chain-brand take-out coffee, that's anywhere from 20 to 50 times cheaper than many of the pogo-pin parts that we'd have previously used.

You can how the pins are mounted to the test adaptor board in the images above and below.

While it's a little more complex than a simple plated drill hole, Solder Party have you covered — with their KiCad footprint library supplied for use with FlexyPin.

If you want to flex on friends and show off your spring contact skills, head on over to the SolderParty shop (hosted by Lectronz) and pick up a pack of FlexyPins today!