Making custom jumper wires for rasberry pi.

[dennisyuki]

I know I can buy male to female/male jumper lines like these  sold here.  http://www.adafruit.com/products/824

But I want to make my own so I can make my own length.   I tried searching google and digikey and can not find the female connector part name.   

Does any one know the part name?

Also,   I assume i would just solder a male header on to a wire to make the male end, right?   or is their a crimp style male connector?

This is for my raspberry pi board headers.

[dentaku]

Lately I've been curious about those too.
It looks like you can buy the plastic housing and the metal crimp connectors separately then clip them together.
http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1930
http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/1900

[Bored@Work]

Making your own is a rather boring and annoying activity. I recommend you buy them. They are available in different length from many eBay sellers. And at much better prices than from Adafruit. Less than $2 for a set of 40. So for $10 you should be able to get five different length, 40 pieces per length.

The connectors are for crimping. And for extra fun, the metal pin inset and the shell are often sold separately. An interesting fact is that for whatever reason the connectors didn't have a real name until not so long ago. All the large manufacturers just had some order number for them. Until the Chinese came around and actually made a mistake, confusing the manufacturer of some plastic with the name of the connector. Since then they are often called Dupont connectors and cables. And these are the keywords to use to search for the stuff on eBay.

Here is an example of the metal insets
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Female-Pins-2-54mm-Long-Dupont-Head-Reed-/370917228993

And here some housings
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Dupont-Head-2-54mm-1P-1x1P-Dupont-Plastic-Shell-Pin-Head-/400536114318

[dennisyuki]

Making your own is a rather boring and annoying activity. I recommend you buy them. They are available in different length from many eBay sellers. And at much better prices than from Adafruit. Less than $2 for a set of 40. So for $10 you should be able to get five different length, 40 pieces per length.

The connectors are for crimping. And for extra fun, the metal pin inset and the shell are often sold separately. An interesting fact is that for whatever reason the connectors didn't have a real name until not so long ago. All the large manufacturers just had some order number for them. Until the Chinese came around and actually made a mistake, confusing the manufacturer of some plastic with the name of the connector. Since then they are often called Dupont connectors and cables. And these are the keywords to use to search for the stuff on eBay.

Here is an example of the metal insets
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Female-Pins-2-54mm-Long-Dupont-Head-Reed-/370917228993

And here some housings
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Dupont-Head-2-54mm-1P-1x1P-Dupont-Plastic-Shell-Pin-Head-/400536114318

That is some great info and history.   I know it is boring, but what the hell.   Thanks again.

[Bryan]

The trick is to find a QUALITY product. Don't let the name Dupont confuse you, not made by Dupont. Many of the Ebay stuff is pure garbage. If anyone knows of a place that sells a quality quality product please post.

[mariush]

I made cables for breadboard in the past, but it's too boring of a job. After about 20 cables, I just decided I can wait 3 weeks to get a package from eBay and just ordered a set of 100 cables for maybe 3$ from China.

Basically, what I did was to
*get a 0.1" header (a long strip), put it in helper hands,
*get an IDE cable,
*strip the ends a bit,
* tin them with the soldering iron,
*solder them to the 0.1" header strip in the helping hand.
Then I just used some cheap nail clippers to cut each header from the strip without any problems.
The 0.1" headers are cheap on eBay or stores like Farnell, Mouser, Digikey, ide cables are maybe a dollar or so. The standard 0.1" headers are not as long as needed, they stay in the breadboard if you push them in but if you pull the wire a bit they can pop out - but there are 0.1" headers available that are longer and basically perfect for breadboards.

The headers on motherboards like you were told, don't have a particular name. Chinese call them Dupont...
You can get those female sockets on Farnell for example here:


http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=1593509
http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=1593522
(there's other combinations but these I just copied from one of my older orders, I'm too lazy to look for them)
Female pins inside this connector would be these, a pack of 100 for about 10$ (I'm sure there are some cheaper no brand ones somewhere on Farnell but again, these are from an older order i had) : http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search/productdetail.jsp?SKU=1022220

You would have to crimp them with a tool, I personally use an Engineer PA-20 for such job, it's a bit expensive but it's quality tool and supports lots of connectors : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/universal-mini-crimping-tool-molex-jst-amp-crimp-terminal-pliers-engineer-pa-20-/261110204270?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:US:3160

There's also the Molex KK series of connectors, which is spaced at 0.1" so it would work on breadboards.. If I'm not mistaken, they're the connectors used on PC fans. Molex is a bit expensive though: http://www.molex.com/molex/products/family?key=kk&channel=products&chanName=family&pageTitle=Introduction