Cables Protoboard
Angelique Syria
I know someone is going to have a quick solution to this, but google has not availed me today. The common method for getting Stranded Wires into Breadboards is by tinning the tips with solder to make them solid. On 24 Gauge Wire, even after you've done this, the wire is a bit too delicate to get into a good Breadboard socket.
Has anyone seen Breadboard Compatible Spring-Terminals, Screw-Terminals, or other methods? We're a bit exhausted of working with these tiny wires, constantly trying to thread them in and out, but all of the terminals we've seen so far are spaced too widely, or the posts are too big, for Breadboards.
I've tried that before, but found two things - 1 - heating up both the wire and the header at the same time is nearly impossible - even with helping hands! 2- The plastic on the headers melts very easily, and often the header is ruined by the time I finish soldering!
I plug the header into a socket to act as 1. a heat sink to keep the rest of the pin from getting very hot 2. a clamp that holds the pin in place even when the plastic of the pin header gets too hot and 3. a convenient way to hold the whole thing.
Go to Digikey (or your favorite parts supplier) and look for headers with higher temp ratings. Use Helping Hands or just an alligator clip on the business end of the header to sink heat away. Pre-tin the wire-side of the header, and the wire itself. Then, line the wire up with the pin (over, or to the side) and heat to bond them.
When I started a project recently I requested these as well and they are great. Sparkfun and Seeedstudio also carry them, as well as amazon. They are great for prototyping. Worst case is you can cut a wire in half and solder the wire to the other stranded wire, heat shrink it, and move forward with a mostly flexible wire.
Priest:
Has anyone seen Breadboard Compatible Spring-Terminals, Screw-Terminals, or other methods? We're a bit exhausted of working with these tiny wires, constantly trying to thread them in and out, but all of the terminals we've seen so far are spaced too widely, or the posts are too big, for Breadboards.
Rather than getting MM, MF, and FF versions of the 6" wires, I've been using only FF wires, and then these extra long male headers that fit in the breadboard, and allow female cables to be mounted: Extra-long break-away 0.1 16-pin strip male header (5 pieces) : ID 400 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits.
A somewhat different approach is to use locking wafer connectors. This site sells a bunch of male/female connectors and crimp pins that fit on stranded wire (it fits better than on solid wire). You get a selection of 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10 connections. You will need to leave extra space on your breadboard for these connectors: Straight Wafer Header Male/Female 3,4,5,6,8,10-pin PCB to Wire 6 Types 10/ea - dipmicro electronics
Another place has these JST connectors (I don't know if the JST connectors are the same as the wafer connectors above). You can get a basic JST set for making cables with 2, 3, and 4 connections -jst-connector-kit.html.
If you wanted terminal blocks that you could just put in wires without crimping, you can get these. Both Sparkfun and Adafruit sell a few versions of these, but pololu.com has more variety of # of pins, and is cheaper. You want the 0.1" pitch for a breadboard. Depending on the breadboard layout, you might want the versions where the wire attaches to the top of the side: Pololu - Terminal Blocks.
You could also go for a prototype shield with screw connectors. I got this, but I don't like the layout of the connected holes in the prototype part of the shield, and never used it: -proto-screw-shield-assembled.html.
The Pololu stuff is great, I always have a supply of crimp housings on hand. Usually have bags of terminated wires too so I don't have to mess with crimping pins on. Never seem to have any bare wire anyway. Wife is way better at crimping on pins than I am usually.
I accidently "Smoked" one of those jumpers with the "Cute" moulded ends and when I measured 29Ga wire I changed to making my own jumpers as fast as I could reasonably find the parts at a realistic price... The prices on the parts from the 'big boy's ($7.95/100 male or female) and the shell extra too last time I looked... Iis nearly the same money as what an assembled part would have cost.
I buy 100 pins, male and female for about $2.00 @ Electrodragon and shells too 1 to 8 pins. The Crimper set me back about $20.00
I was digging around there last week and found 138C Bismuth soldering paste.. It's the only thing besides hot air that will remove an SMD part W/O damage to part or PCB.
Finally my 'other' $0.02's worth and that is to stay as far from solid wire as you can unless it's really the correct diameter .025" (6.4 mm) or 22 Ga (AWG) wire which is the same size as the pin that normally goes in that female connector. The max size IMO is a .032" (8.12 mm) or 20 Ga (AWG) wire. Nothing however is or works as well as those pins though... I make my own and consider it to be one of the "Evil's" I have to put up with to have fun
Those crimp connections are exactly what I'm looking for - I just couldn't find any. I could find the computer sized ones that are for larger cable (that service Video Cards, typically), but nothing smaller.
Given the availability of cheap imported male-male breadboard jumpers and female-female ("Dupont") jumpers, it may be false economy to buy connectors and crimpers for small numbers of connections. You can cut each jumper in half and you have two connectors ready to graft into whatever wire or cable or device you need to interface with.
I like Pololu, but it's about 6/ea for metal connector inserts and then you have to add the cost of the plastic housing to that. On the other hand, if you can get a 65- or 70-wire breadboard jumper pack for $3-4, that's less than 3 per connector -- only downside is you have to solder and heatshrink your splices (but, on the upside, you don't have to buy crimpers).
I went ahead and got some crimp connectors from Digikey/Mouser/Newark and a pair of cheap crimpers, but will not hesitate to butcher a jumper wire if it seems appropriate. Those assorted jumper wire packs always seem to have too many short jumpers and not enough long jumpers anyway, so buy a couple packs and don't feel bad about repurposing the short ones.
If you were only buying the crimp pins & housing for breadboard use, I would agree.
I however buy them mainly to build into projects, and only occasionally use with a breadboard when a straight-up jumper will not do the trick. Perhaps for a pot, or cable connector, pushbutton, adding a DB9 or similar, where a sturdier piece of wire is desired for something being used a piece of test equipment.
I decided to start working with hobby electronics, but I'm having a problem finding a local source of solid wires. As far as I know solid wires are often recommended for use with protoboards because inner wires of stranded wire can get jammed inside protoboards wire holding mechanism.
I have always used a dab of solder on stranded wire when needing to use it in a breadboard. It has always worked perfectly for me. Just be careful to make sure that you do not have any excess solder at the end as the wire tends to get stuck in the breadboard if there is anything sticking out that can get caught on it.
In this instructable, I'll show you how to use an old or broken USB cable to make a simple power supply for your breadboard projects. And due to the modular nature of this DIY project, you'll be able to connect different extensions to use the cable with more than just a breadboard. You'll need some soldering skills, a couple of hours of spare time, and some cheap parts and tools.
Inside the cable I found a bunch of wires: one white, one green, two red, and four that had no insulation. Using a multimeter, I confirmed that the two red ones were power (+5V) and the bare wires were ground. I twisted the matching wires together, as shown in picture 3. The green and white, which normally carry data signals, are not used in this project.
I also cut a second, more basic Micro USB cable to show you what's inside (picture 4). Older, simpler USB cables usually contain just four wires: one white, one green, one red, and one black. Again, the red one is power (+5V), and the black one is ground.
The first picture here is a close-up of the JST connector I used for this project - it's probably not the best fit for the project, but it's what I had in my parts bin. These come in sets of 10 pairs with wires pre-soldered, and the bundle costs under a dollar from China.
I soldered the USB cable to one side of the connector. I also used generous amounts of heat shrink tubing for insulation and to strengthen the connection. Don't forget to add the tubing before you solder the wires together! Of course, you can use electrical tape instead.
After that, I soldered the pin headers to a small piece of prototyping board. The longer protoboard you see in picture 3 is there just to support the small piece. You should end up with something like what's shown in pics 4 and 5.
I suppose you can leave out the proto board entirely and connect the wires directly to the pin headers, but I think having the board will make for a stronger connection. It also allows an LED to be added, as shown in the next step.
This step is optional and tricky, but I wanted to have an indication for when power is provided. I'm using a standard 3mm LED and a 1Kohm resistor - and I had to get creative to fit them all in the tight space I had.
The LED is on the top side. One of its legs is connected to the resistor from the bottom side, while the other leg connects to the pin header. It's hard to explain this all in text, so I hope the diagram (picture 4) and close-ups will help you figure out what's going on. Apologies for the state of my fingernails.
After the wires were soldered, I snapped off the excess piece of proto board and sanded down the sides to remove all the rough edges. After that, I added a few drops of hot glue around the point where the wires were soldered to make the connection stronger.
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