Minimalist ECB (MECB) – Grid Cards for Prototyping & Wire Wrapping

Introducing a new family of plain Grid Cards, to join the existing Prototype Card family.

You now have a choice of six different Cards for your MECB custom Card build or prototyping needs.

Inspired by getting out my Wire-Wrap tools, to re-live the wire-wrap experience, and also by feedback from those who preferred a plain grid style of prototype card.

Join me as I present the new Grid Cards, and the now full range of six Prototyping Card options, to enable you to easily build your own custom MECB Card project.

Minimalist Europe Card Bus (MECB) – Grid Cards for Prototyping & Wire-Wrapping

Pre-amble

I’ve been busy on another fun MECB project, which has been a little delayed, due to a technical oversight.

So, I thought I’d instead do a quick blog post & video to talk about some new MECB Prototype Cards. These will hopefully ensure there is a prototyping solution for everyone’s needs!

Just be sure to stayed tuned for my future project blogs & videos also.

Introduction

So, recently I decided it would be fun to get out my Wire-Wrap tools, and re-live the wire-wrap experience that we originally used for making our custom computer projects back in the 70’s and 80’s

This plan was going well until I realised that the current MECB Prototype Cards were not really well suited for old-school densely populated wire-wrapping.

Existing MECB Prototype Cards

A while ago I’d upgraded the original plain MECB Prototype Card to v2.0, which was instead based on 3×1 connected pads, instead of just a plain grid.

Existing MECB Prototype Card (note the 3×1 connected pads)

The 3×1 connected pads made complete sense for the typical point-to-point permanent wiring of your breadboard created circuits.

But, this 3×1 connected pad change was not really ideal for Wire Wrap creations, where you really just want a plain grid of holes, so IC sockets can be placed wherever you want, and as densely packed as you want.

Wire-Wrap example – Preferably on a plain grid card for dense layout!

As it turned out, I still had a couple of my original v1.0 plain Prototype Card PCB’s, so I was able to satisfy my immediate need.

Mind you, I also discovered that the Wire Wrap IC sockets, which we used back then, are pretty rare these days.

My nearly depleted stock of old-school Wire-Wrap IC sockets

Socket Strips as a Wire-Wrap IC Socket Alternative

Instead, I found some wire wrap friendly socket strips. These will provide all that I need for doing some wire wrapping.
I can just cut them to length, for whatever size IC sockets I need.

Currently available 40 position Wire-Wrap socket strips suitable for IC sockets!

As you can see, these are just like your usual machined round hole socket header strips, but instead, they have wire-wrap length square pins, which are nicely suitable for wire wrapping.

New MECB Grid Card Family adds to existing Prototype Card Family

It also occurred to me, some experimenters might prefer the plain grid style of prototype card anyway (even if not for wire-wrapping), instead of the 3×1 connected pads of the existing family of MECB Prototype Cards.

So, I’ve decided to double the number of prototyping card options, by adding a family of three Grid Card variations to the existing family of three Prototype Cards.

This means you now have a choice of six different Cards for your MECB custom Card build, or prototyping needs.

The full range of MECB Prototyping Cards that are now available

Hopefully, this now covers everything you’d ever need, for putting together your own experimental MECB Card design prototype.

So, first there is the plain Cards (without a PLD), in either 3×1 connected pad Prototype format, or in the new plain Grid of holes format.

Then we have the original 16V8 based glue logic PLD populated Card, again, in either 3×1 connected pad Prototype format, or in plain Grid of holes format.

Finally we have the recently added 22V10 based glue logic PLD populated Card, which again comes in either 3×1 connected pad Prototype format, or in plain Grid of holes format.

You’ll also note some improvements over the old original v1.0 Prototype Card, as I’ve re-done the grid layout to also now include both 5V power and ground connection strips on both the side edges of the cards.

Also, the PLD containing Grid cards are completely new, as the first Prototype Card that contained a PLD was originally in the 3×1 connected pad format.

All are now consistent in their use of edge power strips and overall layout.

All Six Card Variations now Available on Tindie

All are now available on my Tindie Store, where you’ll find them as six different product listings, all either as PCB’s only, or with all of the parts needed to get your MECB bus connected Card up-and-running.