1. Home
  2. Electronics Design
  3. are pin headers breadboard safe?

are pin headers breadboard safe?

avoid.

Hi there.

I use standard 0.1" pin headers in my breadboards all the time. I haven't noticed any ill effects from using them. In fact, I find they work very optimally. The gold plated pin headers seem to slip in and out of the breadboard very smoothly compared to old and oxidized regular tinned ones.

The pins on those headers are square shaped with 25 mils on each side. Interestingly enough a 22AWG wire has a diameter of 25 mils. By this measure the pins should not put any more stress or tend to stretch out the springy contacts any worse than a standard 22AWG wire.

I primarily use the Radio Shack breadboards ("Experimenter 300"), and on the package they specifically recommend using 22AWG wires with their breadboards (although they advertise they are suitable for a wide variety of wire sizes).

In general the breadboards do get easier to use as they age, and the holes don't hold the wires in as well, but I have breadboards around here from decades ago (from my father) and they still work very well with 22AWG wires and standard component leads. Of course... YMMV.

Reply to
Fritz Schlunder
Loading thread data ...

Hi - just a quick simple question. Are standard .1" pin headers safe for a breadboard? They seem a bid thick, so I'm worried about the possibility of them wearing out the contacts, which is something I'd really like to avoid. Thanks,

-Michael

Reply to
Michael Noone

Not ideal. The spring clips underneath can get stretched out of shape a little, and might not make as good a contact with the next, smaller wire. I try to avoid doing that, because poor contacts on the protoboard can be very difficult to diagnose, and can waste enormous amounts of troubleshooting time.

I like using these boards for low frequency stuff, and what I'll do is solder the header to a scrap of perfboard, then solder wires to the perfboard to make the connection to the solderless breadboard.

Questions of this type usually get a better reception on sci.electronics.basics.

Good luck Chris

Reply to
CFoley1064

It has also been my experience that standard 0.1" pin headers are not a problem. What kills the board is pushing in an oversized lead such as commonly found on 1N4007 diodes. That and melting the plastic when using resistors as fuses.

Reply to
Guy Macon

AMP (of Tyco fame) makes 0.1" headers made from round wire. They should work just fine in push-in experimenters' blocks.

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer:  Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
Remove spaces etc. to reply: n o lindan at net com dot com
psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com/da/fstop/
Reply to
Nicholas O. Lindan

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.