I am designing a PCB where I expect to have a certain part assembled at the edge of each board (blue in the picture below).
However, this part needs to be at connected/soldered at a height of about 6 mm above my PCB. Therefore, I'm considering using some conductive object/part to create the vertical displacement (green in the picture below).
So far I have considered
- right-angle header pin; but may be too thin/flimsy.
- zero-ohm resistors (0402-sized or 0603-sized); but I'd need to stack too many of them to get the 6 mm height.
I am interested in ideas for some object/part I could use for the 6mm height-creation; anything as long as it would be:
- inexpensive
- widely available
- conductive
- preferably NOT through-hole (soldered on PCB top surface)
What would be ideal is if it were just a 6mm cube of conductive material, but no such normally-sold object seems to be readily available!
(Note: This height-creator needs to be strong in its soldering to the board, just as any standard part soldered on a PCB, but it does NOT need to be strong in its soldering to my blue part.)
Best Answer
Use an inverted brass flat head machine screw. These will solder easily and depending the mechanical strength you want the part can be selected from a range with various head sizes.
Some possible candidate machine screws would be these part numbers from McMaster-Carr.
Length of 6mm
99658A524 M3 $9.68/100
96686A150 M2 $10.58/50
96686A210 M3 $7.94/50
Lower Cost with length of 6.35mm
92451A092 #3-48 $4.21/100
92451A106 #4-40 $4.29/100
92451A124 #5-40 $5.27/100
92451A144 #6-32 $5.90/100
92480A106 #4-40 $4.72/100
92480A144 #6-32 $5.85/100
This would certainly meet your criteria of being inexpensive, widely available, conductive and NOT through-hole. See the search page here.