How to Find Shrouded Headers with Corresponding IDC Connectors

[The13thParish]

Dear folks,

I have found a variety of two-row 0.1" pitch shrouded headers (2x11P, 2x4P, 2x5P, 2x6P) I want on Digikey with notches for ensuring correct polarity alignment, but I am also looking for the corresponding IDC connector such that I can make my own ribbon cables to plug into said shrouded headers. I'm finding difficulty in finding the IDC connectors. I do not want to purchase ribbon cable assemblies, since I would like to make some custom lengths.

It seems that you can pretty much buy any shrouded header you want under the sun, however the corresponding IDC connectors are limited to 2x3, 2x5 etc. with many intermediate values not produced. I would have assumed that if the 2x11p shrouded header is manufactured, there must be a corresponding IDC connector out there somewhere, but I'm having no such luck. Any tips, or thoughts?

All the best,
Ryan

[Buriedcode]

I don't think I have ever seen a 2x11 IDC socket, as you stated the most common seem to be 2x3, 2x5, 2x7, 2x8, 2x10 etc..  In fact I have seen a 2x11 shrouded header.

We are talking about the generic ones like this? https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/TE-Connectivity/1761682-3?qs=xbX7sCn4AeOtsA3cD%252BncPQ%3D%3D

[The13thParish]

Yes, those are the ones.

I'm currently working on soldering pins to the Arduino Portenta breakout board, which breaks out some of the pins of the microcontroller to a double row of pins, 11 for each row. I'm rather annoyed that they used an odd number, because I think I might just have to solder some generic pin headers to it and use the dreaded Dupont connectors I hate so much. For a 'pro' product, it makes me wonder sometimes.

[tooki]

Dear folks,

I have found a variety of two-row 0.1" pitch shrouded headers (2x11P, 2x4P, 2x5P, 2x6P) I want on Digikey with notches for ensuring correct polarity alignment, but I am also looking for the corresponding IDC connector such that I can make my own ribbon cables to plug into said shrouded headers. I'm finding difficulty in finding the IDC connectors. I do not want to purchase ribbon cable assemblies, since I would like to make some custom lengths.

It seems that you can pretty much buy any shrouded header you want under the sun, however the corresponding IDC connectors are limited to 2x3, 2x5 etc. with many intermediate values not produced. I would have assumed that if the 2x11p shrouded header is manufactured, there must be a corresponding IDC connector out there somewhere, but I'm having no such luck. Any tips, or thoughts?

All the best,
Ryan

There definitely aren’t all that many sizes of IDC headers. I assume the reason the male PCB headers exist for sizes where IDC female headers don’t is because the same headers are also used for polarized crimp connectors. For example, this 2x11 one:  https://www.digikey.ch/product-detail/en/amphenol-icc-fci/69176-022LF/609-2388-ND/1002703

I see a few pragmatic solutions for you, assuming you don’t have the correct crimping tool for Mini PV contacts for the housing above (or equivalent from another vendor):

1. Use a slightly larger connector, like a 26 pin. Pull out or cut off the unused pins.

2. Use a much larger connector, like a 36 pin. It looks like the groups of holes on the breakout board are on a 0.1” grid, such that you could use a much longer connector and have it span multiple groups. (E.g. the analog IOs and the GPIOs.) Again, pull or cut off the excess pins on the male header.

3. Use a slightly smaller connector, namely, a 20 pin. Two of the 22 pins are grounds. So just leave them out and grab ground elsewhere.

[wizard69]

Here are some suggestions I've picked up from doing repair work in the industrial sector for years:

• do not rely upon supplier parametric search capabilities.    Instead if at all possible find the manufactures series catalog / pdf and down load that.   This if you can even find such catalogs anymore.     What I've found is that parametric search can often fail, sometimes to a surprising extent.   However a search via a manufactures part number can often be productive on a suppliers we site.
• Sadly some manufactures are going to parametric search, via online databases, which have similar failure rates.    In this case you can be screwed as for ease of research.
• Using parametric search does require a bit of experience with each database you log into.   It would take a long post to explain and frankly a video would make it much easier.   One thing though is to make sure you start over completely if you can't find what you are looking for on the first go around.
• It is often worthwhile to see if there are alternative manufactures with compatible connectors.
• If a socket has a rejection feature, for example a socket that should be 12 pins but has one port plugged you can often get creative with a dremel to make a 12 pin connector fit into some dual inline sockets.   This isn't a production solution obviously
• For Arduino often you can find answers in the boards documentation.    if not the docs, on the forums.

I forgot perhaps the most important rule: avoid hardware that requires hard to source parts to be usable in your application.   This especially in the case of semi open hardware like the Arduino series.  There really is no reason to suffer poor choices made in any one Arduino board design.   This especially for I/O which is half the reason for any Arduino to exists in the first place.   

[thm_w]

You can get 22p IDC, and almost any variation in between, just not from western suppliers: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=616219725322
The common ones are: 6/8/10/12/14/16/18/20/30/40/50/64 pins as buriedcode listed.

So yeah, makes sense to use the common numbers for your projects. I would just use a 2x10p header here.