Electrical – Wire Wrapping – power + ground

layout

I'm interested in getting into experimenting with wire wrapping for some small microcontroller projects using some Arduino Nanos.

I've watched a bunch of videos online, but something that is not explained is – how do you handle power and ground when wire wrapping?

Do you chain all your pins that use power or ground point-to-point? Or do you create some sort of bus that runs near certain components that you tie into?

I found this image: Bil Herd Wire Wrap example in a Hack-a-Day post by Bil Herd which shows some designs he wrapped. I noticed the thick black wires that run along the board, which I believe are for power. On the opposite side of the board, he appears to have a bare-wire ground wire:Bil Herd Wire Wrap example 2

This looks handy – but I'm not sure how you tie into those wires since you can't wrap onto them. It's not clear to me from the picture as to how they connect to the wire wrap pins. I believe the T-bits that go from the ground on top of the board to the bottom are soldered.

I had a thought of taking some male headers that have wire-wrap length pins on both sides of the plastic bit in the middle and just wrapping all of the pins on one side together to make a ground or power strip.

Any suggestions?

Best Answer

Almost a shopping question, so am not going to address a possible source for this kind of universal wire-wrap breadboard. The bus under the chips could be ground, while the bus between the chips might be +supply. Note that this example is not wire-wrap but a close cousin. I think it was called "slit-and-wrap".
The breadboard can handle both standard-width chips (0.3" and 0.6"). I might strip all the insulation from a grounded connection, solder it to the adjacent ground bus, then wrap it. This builder appears to have soldered each wire-wrap post to the breadboard - not a good plan unless you must connect other passive components like resistors, capacitors to a post. almost wire-wrap breadboard

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