PCB header pins & connectors for amateur?

He he. Unfortunately, the wires only need to be added for 5 mins at a time to re-program an on-board PIC microcontroller. The rest of the time, the connection isn't required.

Cheers, Mark

try wires :-)

on the other hand, most electronic stores have something on the shelf or scrap a tv-set, might find some handy stuff in there too

Is there available a PCB header pin set, with matching socket which can be assembled by an amateur without expensive specialist tools? Regards, Mark

Been there, done that. If you're on a tight budget, one thing you might try is using standard .100" solid headers and Molex KK Series crimp terminal housings with .100 crimp terminals. Yes, I know you need a custom hand crimping tool for the crimp terminals ($180.00 USD), but a little deft use of a needlenose pliers will allow you to fold over the sides of the terminal on the stripped stranded wire and the wire insulation just like the tool, except without the gas-tight crimp. You then use the tiniest bit of solder to solder the wire and the terminal housing. If you're crafty, you can avoid getting solder all over the place underneath, and it will fit into the housing nicely. If not, just cut it off and try again. The key to this is not to have excess wire or a solder blob hanging down beyond the crimp -- that gums up the action of the terminal. Also avoid getting flux on the mating surface of the terminal.

The Mouser part numbers you would need for a 3-pin programming plug are:

538-08-52-0123 Crimp Terminals (3 ea.) $0.09 ea. (buy a few extra to practice) 538-22-03-2031 .100" Verical solid header, 3-pin (1 ea.) $0.18 ea. 538-22-01-2037 .100" crimp terminal housing (1 ea.) $$0.25 ea.

As long as you use the phosphor bronze terminals with tin flash, you should be good for at least a hundred reliable insertion/extraction cycles. Don't jam the terminal into the housing. If it doesn't fit easily, you've either got it backwards or you got excess solder under the fold of the terminal. Use an xacto knife to push the little spring holder in to remove the terminal from the housing.

By the way, the above parts don't have reverse polarity protection -- least expensive solution here. If you're doing it yourself, be careful. If a customer is doing it, go with the polarized housings and headers or use a polarizing key and cut off one of the pins. Go to mouser.com and look for yourself -- look up p. 807 of the current catalog.

Chris

We've always used standard 3M 0.1" ribbon cable and connectors. They crimp together using a vice, so long as you get the cable lined up properly.....

Andyb

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Buy 100 or so of these and you can stack pretty much arrangement you need for a lifetime (well...). Many, many other places carry these or similar, this is just one example.

(Long URL -- go to

and search for part number 103350)

To mate with it, as Andy suggested, the easiest is an IDC connector crimped onto ribbon cable. Again, many other sources

(Jameco part # 138376)

Crimping the IDC connector really wants a parallel-jaw squeeze. Any small vice will do the trick (don't over-tighten). The small 2x5 connector *can* be done with regular slip-joint pliers, though.

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Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA

Thanks for the suggestions. I was put off by the cost of the tools, but the actual items are cheap enough to have a play with, thanks.

Mark

You can (and should) use a proper crimper in a production environment. For hobby or "just learning" pretty much anything that works, works. You'll probably "explode" a few IDC connectors -- at least I've HEARD that can happen, yeah that's it, just heard about it... ;-)

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Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA

For exactly that, programming PICs in-circuit, we put a simple IDC header on the board and used a ready assembled cable with female connectors at both ends to connect temporarily to the programmer (actually via a male-male convertor, but you might do it another way). In the UK, for instance, assembled cables go for about 1GBP in one offs from Farnell, e.g.:

Regards, Steve

Thanks for that link - saves me the aggro of making up my own leads Cheers, Mark