A lot of really good components are all smd these days which makes life a little more complicated for hobbyists.

I picked up some nice current sense amplifiers (TS1100-200) which were cheap but unfortunately only came in SOT23 package.

There are conversion pcbs available but as this ic only has 5 pins and two of them are ground, I thought I’d try to attach them to header pins (like http://43oh.com/2011/10/breadboard-surface-mount-parts/)

The only issue I could see (apart from delicate soldering) was that the smd component would not be strong enough to hold together the pins.

This is the component:

To solve this I put the 6 pins (2 x 4) in an breadboard and cut off tips of the middle pins.

I then used a blob of hot glue to hold them together and to fill the space to make a little stage for the ic. Try to ensure the glue stage is pretty flat as it will help with soldering. After cleaning the pins I soldered a wire to join the two farthest pins and once joined I snipped out the middle of the wire.

Carefully I used tweezers to place the ic on the little glue stage and soldered the first leg to the wire. After checking the connection under a magnifier I soldered the other legs and then checked everything again.



It was a little fiddly with the glue sometimes getting in the way but it turned out pretty neat and I can now use it in a breadboard or perfboard.