Custom adapter for IC or tiny connectors

It happens that you find interesting pieces at local fairies. In this case I bought some LCD displays for 1€ each. Since I wanted to connect them to a breadboard to make prototypes or test some features or codes, I needed to solder many wires to the tiny LCD contacts, or making a PCB to connect those contacts to larger pins. I went for the second way and I managed to be very accurate to avoid short circuits between the thin pads, I'll show you the entire process.

Step 1: References

With a fast research I discovered that the LCDs are very common 16 characters 2 lines MC1602X serie display. They are also compatible with the Hitachi HD44780 driver, so I can easily control them with Arduino libraries.
The 15 pins have a spacing of 1/20 inch, half the distance between common through-hole components and breadboards holes. To know the pins labels I've found this datasheet by Everbouchet/Wayton in internet, which is more likely referring this exact display module.

Step 2: Pcb layout

In Diptrace I created two custom pad arrays and I connected them with regular tracks. I tried to keep the bigger the pads I could, because I noticed that sometimes very little pads detached from the board during solder process or due to a mechanical stress of the component. For the same reason I drew the pads with an elliptical shape. Free space between little pads is very thin, to be exact is about 0.2 mm, and it will probably be unsuitable for higher current, but it works good in this projects where LCD needs very low currents.
I attach the pdf file with PCB layout and also the file for Diptrace, so you can modify it if needed.

 







Mar 07,2015
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