On Jan 7, 1:47*pm, "Ross, NS7F" wrote:
Has anybody had any experience with those little cables used for
connections on computer motherboards, typically to front panel LEDs,
etc? The pins are 0.1" centered and would be extremely handy for
routing +12v around while breadboarding stuff. I think the official
name is IDT cables. However, whenever I search for them, I get the
crimpers for the massive 40 or 80-conductor cables for ATA ribbons! I
just want to make the little 2-3 conductor thingies...

Ross -
There are 0.1" dual-row headers that use 0.05" spacing ribbon
cables, and the connectors crimp on. These are "IDC" or "Insulation
Displacement Connectors". You can assemble these with a little vise
quite reliably. You don't often see these below 10 conductors, and I
don't think this is what you are asking about because you want the
connectors for 2 or 3 or 4 wires. But you'd be surprised how quickly
you need an extra conductor here and there and pretty soon end up at
10. And they are so cheap and so reliably assembled that even though
you don't need 10 conductors, you might want to use them anyway. As
long as you line up the polarizing stripe on the cable with the
socket, these are very reliably and very quickly assembled using
nothing more than a vise.

There are also single-row headers as well as dual-row headers that
use housings and discrete wires. These are "rectangular" connectors,
and I think this is what you want. The board side is called a "header"
and the wire side has a "housing" which holds the contacts. The
contacts are crimped onto the wires and there are different contacts
for different size wires. There are some specialized versions of these
for terminating miniature coax. There are many manufacturers of
housings and pins/sockets and crimpers and usually it's best to make
sure that you are using all the matching stuff. Molex and AMP are the
names to see in the catalogs. A "production" crimper can set you back
many hundred dollars but a "prototype" crimper for $10-$20 is what you
want. If you use a crimper that does not match the contact, the first
time you tug on the wire the contact will stay in the housing and the
wire will slide right out of the contact. So make sure you order
matching crimper and housing and contacts.

It's real boring to terminate more than just onesy-twosy wires using
the handheld crimpers. That's why the "IDC" versions for ribbon cable
are so popular. Even though you're not asking for the IDC/ribbon cable
versions, if I were you I'd seriously consider using them even though
you don't think you need so many contacts.

There are also IDC versions of these single-row connectors for
discrete wire termination. They only work reliably for very narrow
wire ranges, and if you aren't working with exactly matching wires I'd
advise that you stay away from them.

Tim N3QE