Do "pros" break apart female headers neatly so as not to always waste one?

[cdev]

Is it possible to eliminate the header wasteage?

It seems that I can never get this right. 

I can make the "stump" nicer looking by shaving away the debris with a sharp knife. But at least one always has to be sacrificed.

Also, where do you buy your headers? Are any better in this respect?

[buck converter]

The "pro" that I used to work with would always sacrifice a header.

While I have never used these headers, it might be possible to break them without a sacrifice

[Buriedcode]

Usually I, like you, snap them off sacrificing one 'hole', then shaving it clean with a craft knife -  pretty much exactly as you described.

Some female headers however, can be snapped neatly with fine pliers, like these:
https://www.toby.co.uk/content/catalogue/products.aspx?series=SLW-1xx-01-x-x

These days, very few female header strips have the scored breakaway parts.  And it is annoying, but given the price of these, and the fact they are often available in any number. I really don't care.

I buy my standard/generic headers from rapidonline in the UK, if that's out, a much wider range for very reasonable price is Toby Electronics (link above eh).  I've ordered everything from a *single* strip of low profile header for about £2 to hundreds of wire-board or board-board connectors, and they are awesome.  I had quite a (geeky) chat with a guy about what connectors to use for a recent smart watch project. Highly recommended.

Edit: Buck converter shows turned pin headers.  These are available that will take the standard square pins, but tend to be much more expensive that the one shown. Those turned pin headers are ideal for educational or evaluation boards where one needs to plug in bare wires for a breadboard.  And they also snap perfectly at the gap between sockets.

[janoc]

Edit: Buck converter shows turned pin headers.  These are available that will take the standard square pins, but tend to be much more expensive that the one shown. Those turned pin headers are ideal for educational or evaluation boards where one needs to plug in bare wires for a breadboard.  And they also snap perfectly at the gap between sockets.

However, it is worth pointing out that most of these won't accept a regular square pin! I have discovered that only after soldering two strips of these into a devboard 

They work great for creating odd-sized DIP sockets, though.

[jmelson]

Is it possible to eliminate the header wasteage?

It seems that I can never get this right. 

I can make the "stump" nicer looking by shaving away the debris with a sharp knife. But at least one always has to be sacrificed.

Also, where do you buy your headers? Are any better in this respect?

For the single-row headers and sockets, I generally snap them off with a thumbnail in the groove between sections.  Rarely do they break at the wrong spot.  For dual-row headers, I score between the rows with an X-acto saw, then I always get them to snap at the right spot.

Jon

[MLXXXp]

Related thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/i-found-a-new-way-to-cut-female-pin-headers/

[b_force]

Just cut it with a very sharp but sturdy knife.
I never have waste.

[nfmax]

Do "pros" break apart female headers neatly so as not to always waste one?

Of course we do! Every time!
 

[Tac Eht Xilef]

Cut 'em with small sharp sidecutters; success rate is ~80%. Then dress with a small file.

I used to throw a handful in to pad out orders from chinese suppliers, eBay, etc - until I went to use them one day. Melted as soon as the iron got near them. Didn't think it was possible to make them cheaper & nastier than the junk from the local Jaycar, but it turned out I was wrong.

Now I keep them in 3 bags, marked "complete shit" (chinese/eBay ones), "mostly shit" (Jaycar etc.) and "good 'uns" (Harwin, Aries, Würth, etc). Keep trying to give the first bag away, but I don't often meet people I dislike that much...

[EEVblog]

If snapping off then you pretty much resign yourself to wasting one.
If you need to save every one then cut with sharp thin blade.

[mathsquid]

If snapping off then you pretty much resign yourself to wasting one.
If you need to save every one then cut with sharp thin blade.

I find that a jeweler's saw does the job well.

[Buriedcode]

Edit: Buck converter shows turned pin headers.  These are available that will take the standard square pins, but tend to be much more expensive that the one shown. Those turned pin headers are ideal for educational or evaluation boards where one needs to plug in bare wires for a breadboard.  And they also snap perfectly at the gap between sockets.

However, it is worth pointing out that most of these won't accept a regular square pin! I have discovered that only after soldering two strips of these into a devboard 

They work great for creating odd-sized DIP sockets, though.

Which is why I said there are ones available that will accept regular square pins.. just not the ones in that photo.  The ones I'm on about tend to have much higher current rating, and more snug/secure fit but are pretty rare, and expensive as I recall.

[MarkL]

I gave up trying to get them to break cleanly.  I built a simple wooden jig to guide an Exacto or Gyro razor saw to cut exactly where I want.  See photo below.  The saw cuts on the pull stroke.  The header comes out looking like it was factory cut.

And if need a lot of headers of the same size, it's easy to clamp a stop block in place (second photo).


EDIT: Photo is of a male header, but hopefully it goes without saying it works just as well on female headers.  Double female headers usually need several saw strokes to get through the additional plastic.

[Buriedcode]

But those are male headers, which are designed to 'snap off' relatively cleanly I still use pliers for those.

[cdev]

Some time back one of the posters to the "what did you buy today" thread described "parallel grip pliers" or something along those lines, which applied force via some kind of linkage to always keep the jaws flat with respect to one another.

That would probably be the ideal for this. If anything could do it it would be that!

I don't think I have ever managed to cut them in the middle so that one isn't toast.

 I don't even try now.

[MarkL]

But those are male headers, which are designed to 'snap off' relatively cleanly I still use pliers for those.

As I said, it works fine for female headers too.  Breaking them off with pliers always makes a rough edge.

Below is a 2x1 cut from a larger female header using the jig from post #12.  No waste and no need to file the edges to make it look nice again.

[David Hess]

If snapping off then you pretty much resign yourself to wasting one.
If you need to save every one then cut with sharp thin blade.

I find that a jeweler's saw does the job well.

I often cut the socket pins out and mount them individually flush with the printed circuit board so I always have a use for the "wasted" socket pin when cutting them apart.  If it is an issue, then I use a jeweler's or hobby saw.

[alank2]

I tried various methods breaking them a bunch until I started using:

https://www.harborfreight.com/micro-flush-cutter-90708.html

[ThunderCat]

I put mine in a vice, right up to the number I want to break off. Then I can even use my hands. Results are pretty clean, although sometimes I use some light sandpaper on the edges.

Other times I just use some precise snippers and they work great too.

[CJay]

They're so cheap is it worth worrying about?

But, parallel action cutters will help, I've used a twisting action instead of snapping, that also seems to help, a scalpel works too.

Spending a little more money also helps because the plastic seems to break more cleanly and I've seen those female headers made with a more flexible material (could not guarantee what it is but it felt like Nylon) which cut very cleanly with a knife.

I suspect that anyone using them in large manufacture runs would be ordering them made to size

[cdev]

You're right Cjay.

They are usually so cheap it doesn't matter. Its just always something I've wondered about when I carve off the stumps.

Even when I do that, my projects usually still look a bit uneven header wise.

I just ordered a bunch of super tiny 1.27mm headers, half the size of the usual ones.

They are going to be so small I will be extremely surprised if I can get away with only destroying one female header when I snap it into pieces.

We'll see!

[CJay]

Yeah, I have to admit that's what annoys me too which is why I experimented a bit to try and get them to break 'nicely'.

Which I think might say more about me than I wish to freely admit to because they are still perfectly functonal