Micro Cold Headed Pins
MW Components produces cold-headed pins used as terminal pins, Kovar pins, connector pins, and other cold-headed pins and pin-related components where strength, precision shape – especially with high concentricity – and good smooth surface finishes are required. These qualities ensure a proper automatic connection with a high mean-time-between-failure rate and serve applications that require disconnection and reconnection multiple times for service or maintenance.
Custom Manufacturing
Custom Micro Cold-Headed Pins
Our cold-headed pins are manufactured using a wide variety of materials that are cold-formed while maintaining contact integrity, incorporating oxygen-free copper alloys (CDA 102, CDA 2102), copper-core alloys, copper-clad steels, stainless and low expansion alloys for hermetic seal applications, and many others.
In addition to offering both industry-standard and specialty materials, MW Components offers a variety of other useful services including design, prototyping, and tooling assistance. Put our expertise to work for you.
Request a quote to send us your specs or configure a custom cold-headed pin or other small metal parts.

Examples of Custom Solutions

Material: Kovar alloy (per ASTM F-15)
Manufacturing Method:
- Formed on a slide machine
Notable Features:
- Micro size Kovar pin
- For the small connectors needed in RF devices
- Spherical radius on one end, wire bondable flat on the other end
Advantages:
- Formed from wire with no scrap developed
- The flat is very uniform and presents an exceptional wire bond surface.
- The corner (or "edge") break at the end of the flat has a radius of .001" max.
- Good for wire bonding near the edge of this feature.
- Very good finish on the spherical radiused end with no machining lines
- Micro size allows this component to be used on very small connectors & hermetic seals

Material: CDA 2102 copper
Manufacturing Method:
- Multi-Die cold-formed/coined/notched on a slide machine
Notable Features:
- Coined flat area with a notch to provide a precise location and a holding feature for the wire wrap.
- Headed flange used as a stop and locating feature for circuit board insertion.
Advantages:
- Material waste is minimal. The part is formed from oxygen-free high conductivity copper wire round wire.
- An inexpensive way to produce high-volume pins with a coined/notched and headed feature on the part component.
- Production speeds are high allowing for low production costs. Much faster than machining.

Material: Copper cored 42-6 stainless steel alloy
Manufacturing Method:
- Wire formed/extruded in a slide machine
- Machined secondary
Notable Features:
- Copper cored 42-6 stainless steel alloy is extruded to form the small diameter shaft
- Precise undercut with sharp edges
- Cutaway notch; burrless
- No indents/marks in the sealing area
- No longitudinal draw lines that would introduce a leak path
Advantages:
- 42-6 stainless steel outer sheath allows for glass to metal sealing Integrity, and the copper core allows for higher electrical conductivity that would otherwise not exist with the stainless steel by itself.
- Highly toleranced dimensions are precisely controlled for reduced variation (ie: high CpKs).

Material: Kovar alloy per ASTM f-15 (nickel/cobalt alloy - glass to metal seal quality)
Manufacturing Method:
- Multi-Die cold formed
Notable Features:
- Very large volume head combined with small diameter shaft
- Very high surface finish. No machining lines or machining tit present at either end of the part.
- A very good surface finish present on the sealing surfaces. No leak paths.
- Note the recessed trapezoidal shape in the top head surface.
Advantages:
- Material waste is minimal.
- Normally, this component would be a two-piece welded unit combining a Kovar disc (ie: a button) with a terminal lead. This component is cold-formed as a one-piece unit therefore there is no weld/braze joint between two different pieces and no assembly error.
- Production speeds are high allowing for low production costs. Much faster than machining.
- Concentricity of all diameters is near perfect: TIR approx. .002".
- Surface finishes are smooth for good hermetic sealing characteristics. No machining marks/spirals/inclusions are present.

Material: CDA 102 copper (oxygen-free; high conductivity copper)
Manufacturing Method:
- Formed & bent on a slide machine
- Complete off machine
Notable Features:
- Wide circular (pigtail) area that provides good stability on top of a circuit board surface.
- The large pigtail circular section is an excellent surface for solder attachment. The solder is able to melt in between the open areas of the pigtail for excellent attachment.
Advantages:
- The pigtail section is very wide in relation to the wire diameter and can oftentimes provide a wider, more stable surface for placement of the pin on a flat surface.
- Used when heat sink requirements (requiring a large cold-formed mass of copper) are not an issue.
- Production speeds are high for this high-volume piece allowing for low production costs.
- Excellent attachment characteristics for soldering lots of surfaces for solder interface.

Material: Expansion alloy: Kovar (cobalt/nickel alloy) per ASTM F-15.
Manufacturing Method:
- Multi-Die cold formed
Notable Features:
- A very good surface finish present on the sealing surfaces. No leak paths.
- Very large head volume on top of a small lead diameter.
Advantages:
- Material waste is minimal.
- Cold forming the pin eliminates the presence of spiral machining lines.
- Production speeds are high allowing for low production costs. Much faster than machining.
- Very smooth die mounting surface on top of head diameter.

Material: CDA 102 copper (oxygen-free; high conductivity copper)
Manufacturing Method:
- Cold-headed pin with coined C-Bend on a slide machine.
- Complete off the machine.
Notable Features:
- The coined area is formed into a precise C-Bend.
- Large-headed area (heat sink and braze attach platform).
- Smooth top head surface (RMS 32 and better) with zero voids or inclusions or folds on the braze surface.
Advantages:
- Material waste is minimal. The part is formed from copper round wire.
- The C-Bend area is a stress relief feature providing longitudinal give protecting the die attachment.
- Production speeds are high for this high-volume piece allowing for low production costs.

Manufacturing Method:
- Produced from coiled wire .101" diameter.
- Manufactured completely from cold forming. No secondaries on slide machine.
- Tooling designed & built in-house.
Notable Features:
- High thermal conductivity while resisting thermal softening at high temperature (or high radiation).
- Maintains strength at high temperatures.
- Part combines a cold-headed flange with a flattened area for wire bonding.
- Surface finishes better than 32 RMS
- Burrless
Advantages:
- No machining lines or cut-off deformations present.
- The headed portion is used as a stop for insertion into a circuit board and the flattened area is to provide a pad for an electrical connection (ie: wire bond). Incorporated into a one-piece design.
Have Questions?
Looking for solutions for products related to micro cold-headed pins like Kovar pins, terminal pins, shoulder pins, wire wrap pins, and others?
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