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Electronics => Beginners => Topic started by: ethhanners on February 15, 2014, 02:43:29 am

Title: cheap breadboard jumpers
Post by: ethhanners on February 15, 2014, 02:43:29 am
so I have been looking for a way to make homemade breadboard jumpers and this way I found works great.

You will need
pin headers
solder and iron
heat shrink
20  awg wirei salvage mine from power supplies 
just cut and strip the wire then cut one pin header and push it in the wire so  that you have 3/4 of an inch is still expoxed of the header then wist the header in and solder then place a piece of small heat shrink and shrink it leaving the pin exposed 
Title: Re: cheap breadboard jumpers
Post by: Araho on February 15, 2014, 03:08:04 am
Sorry to sound rough, but it is NOT necessary to create several threads and post multiple times about the same thing.

Moderator: Duplicate thread deleted.

As to your method of creating breadboard jumpers, why bother? Proper solid core wire or a pack of 100 jumper leads are so cheap it isn't worth the time to solder your own (dodgy) leads, except for getting practice soldering.
Title: Re: cheap breadboard jumpers
Post by: deth502 on February 15, 2014, 03:11:05 am
Proper solid core wire

 :-+
Title: Re: cheap breadboard jumpers
Post by: mariush on February 15, 2014, 03:17:22 am
0.1" pin headers (the versions that are higher than usual). Nailclippers to split the headers in individual pieces.

Cable ... an IDE cable has 80 x AWG30 strands, 45-60cm+ lengths.  Cheap and flexible.
If you want cheaper than this, a network cable has 8 strands of wire (AWG24 usually), each colored differently - you can probably get 3-4 meters of network cable for the price of an IDE cable.
Pay attention though, there's several types... solid core and stranded  (less often in Cat5e, more often in Cat6).  Stranded is more flexible and better for jumpers.
Then, the cheapest solid core network cables are actually CCA (copper clad aluminum), basically the wires are aluminum with just a coating of copper, which means they will break if you flex them too much. You can tell if it's CCA by simply scraping the copper using a knife or a blade.

But lately i just ordered a pack of 100 for 2-3$ from eBay, i just don't have the patience to make them by hand anymore.
Title: Re: cheap breadboard jumpers
Post by: VK5RC on February 15, 2014, 03:31:37 am
I have a breadboarding kit I use when needed,  it has male to male jumper leads (easily found on fleabay),  a power supply jumper (i use Andersons connectors on my psu)  a few long male to bare soldered end wires and also some male to female 0.1" leads (harder to find)  eg if joining to header pins,  in the breadboard is a ZIF ic socket.  The kit stops me getting distracted in the middle of prototyping.
Title: Re: cheap breadboard jumpers
Post by: kolonelkadat on February 15, 2014, 03:29:39 pm
is there any reason to not just use 24awg solid wire?
Ive always preferred doing it that way since it lets me use just the length i need instead of having giant hoops and loops all over the place like you get when you use fixed length prefab wires.
Title: Re: cheap breadboard jumpers
Post by: SeanB on February 15, 2014, 03:36:58 pm
What is wrong with the good old method of using old solid core phone wire. Often available for free from your local phone company technician if you ask nicely. 1m of multipair underground cable will make a lot of jumpers, and as a bonus they are tinned copper wire as well in most cases. You also get 10 colours, and a lot of certain colours.
Title: Re: cheap breadboard jumpers
Post by: dentaku on February 16, 2014, 02:36:26 am
I made few jumpers by stripping bits of phone wire we had in the house (it looks like 24 AWG solid copper) and I've found that the plastic insulation slides around on the copper too much. I'm assuming some phone wire is better than others.
I often just use 22AWG solid copper hookup wire though. It's the size most breadboards recommend. My new 3M breadboard even came with a bag of pre-bent 22AWG solid wire.
If I need something longer I split off what I need from 2 chunks of rainbow ribbon cable I got from Dealextreme.
They call them Male to Male DuPont Cables http://dx.com/p/male-to-male-dupont-cables-40-pcs-20cm-151541#.UwAi5IeYa70 (http://dx.com/p/male-to-male-dupont-cables-40-pcs-20cm-151541#.UwAi5IeYa70)


What is wrong with the good old method of using old solid core phone wire. Often available for free from your local phone company technician if you ask nicely. 1m of multipair underground cable will make a lot of jumpers, and as a bonus they are tinned copper wire as well in most cases. You also get 10 colours, and a lot of certain colours.