There are many articles, videos, blog posts, etc, showing you how to use pogo pins to make programming and test fixtures for your electronics projects. But almost all are missing one critical component to make pogo pins work reliably: the Pogo Pin Receptacle. If you’re trying to build a fixture or jig that uses pogo pins, you should be mounting the receptacle part to your fixture, and not mounting the pogo pin directly.
For the generic pogo pins available on AliExpress, eBay, etc, sold with designations like P50, P75, and P100, there are corresponding parts R50, R75, and R100 that you will want to use. Unfortunately these can be harder to find than the pogo pins, but it’s well worth tracking the parts down and ordering.
It is a little easier to demonstrate how they work with a live video, so I made this one to explain how to dramatically improve both the ease of construction and the reliability of fixtures and jigs that use pogo pins to make contact with your PCBAs.