I came up with a great way to repurpose your old dried out pens..
1 Bic Pen "Round Stic", with cap
1 breadboard jumper wire, with male pin
1 physically small capacitor - smaller than pen inside diameter. I used a .22uF poly
Stranded wire of desired length
Heat shrink tubing
This choice of pen is key because it has a tapered removeable tip. Remove the tip and end cap and (optionallly) cut the pen body down to get rid of excess length - I took off a little over an inch.
Next apply 2 layers of heat shrink around the body of one of the jumper pins and cut the other pin off, leaving a 2-3" piece wire. The jumper pin gets wedged into the pen tip.
Connect the wire in the pen tip to the capacitor and the other end of the capacitor to your length of wire, optionally (since its going in a plastic pen body) protecting both sides of the cap with heat shrink. You can see my capacitor under the "M" imprinted on the pen body. I put it towards the end cap to double as a strain relief.
Cut a hole in the end cap and feed the wire through.
Use your favorite connector on the other end to your amp, computer, test box, whatever.. Mine will connect to my test box (WIP)...
Oh, and don't forget the pen cap when not in use, the jumper pin is sharper than you may realize once it is mounted on an impalable object!!
Enjoy..
- David
1 Bic Pen "Round Stic", with cap
1 breadboard jumper wire, with male pin
1 physically small capacitor - smaller than pen inside diameter. I used a .22uF poly
Stranded wire of desired length
Heat shrink tubing
This choice of pen is key because it has a tapered removeable tip. Remove the tip and end cap and (optionallly) cut the pen body down to get rid of excess length - I took off a little over an inch.
Next apply 2 layers of heat shrink around the body of one of the jumper pins and cut the other pin off, leaving a 2-3" piece wire. The jumper pin gets wedged into the pen tip.
Connect the wire in the pen tip to the capacitor and the other end of the capacitor to your length of wire, optionally (since its going in a plastic pen body) protecting both sides of the cap with heat shrink. You can see my capacitor under the "M" imprinted on the pen body. I put it towards the end cap to double as a strain relief.
Cut a hole in the end cap and feed the wire through.
Use your favorite connector on the other end to your amp, computer, test box, whatever.. Mine will connect to my test box (WIP)...
Oh, and don't forget the pen cap when not in use, the jumper pin is sharper than you may realize once it is mounted on an impalable object!!
Enjoy..
- David
