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  • Author Author: rscasny
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Seeking a source for 3.5mm Pitch Through Hole PCB Boards

rscasny

I have been looking for (and not been successful) in sourcing a through-hole PCB boards with 3.5mm hole pitch. Everything I see off-the-shelf is 2.54mm hole pitch. Even the solderless breadboards don't have 3.5mm.

I need to mount/solder on the PCB these connectors:

/technologies/connector/m/files/146734

If anyone has a source, please make a comment below.

  • Hi Randall,

    Normal 0.1" pitch boards work for t3.5mm pitch connectors, for up to (about) 4 pins, if inserted diagonally. 5 or 6 pin are sometimes feasible (if the pins are thin enough), but it's a tight fit at 6 pins as shown in the photo below.

    (Connectors with no pegs: 3.5 mm pitch on 2.54 mm pitch (0.1")  board:

    image

    However the Omron connectors have pegs that won't fit, they are off the grid. But, Omron offer KiCAD footprints, so it would be easy to build a custom PCB for this, that could be orderable from any PCB manufacturer. This is an example footprint for the Omron 4-pin single-row version of that connector family:

    image

    I created a video to get up-to-speed with KiCAD quickly, here: https://youtu.be/5Be7XOMmPQE 

    If you wanted to have a board with (say) footprints for a range of these connectors, one suggestion could be to have a board design with the connector footprints on the left side, and normal 0.1" pitch layout on the right side. It's a simple board, that could be done in an hour - I'd be happy to do that if you need it. Here is an example of how that could look (I did this with 3.81mm pitch connector):

    image

    If you know which sizes of connectors you need (e.g. just the single row, or also the double row variants), then if you want, I can design a little PCB for them similar to that shown above, then you could order them from a PCB manufacturer to be sent to you. If you want to learn KiCad, then that video is a good a start as any other hopefully, but will take an amount of time (not too long, but it would take a day or two) to get up to speed. 

  • in reply to Fred27

    OSHPark would be better choice I think. Randall is from US and for this kind of breakouts it generaly cheapest option here.

  • The diagonal spacing on 100 though proto boards is 3.6mm which might be close enough for a small pin count connector.

  • I think this might be an opportunity to learn KiCad and order some PCBs from China. Wink