I have a few questions.
I purchased a Logic Analyzer and it came with connectors, cables, and ends that connect to an IC pin extender.
I'm assuming these wires are going to break from use, so I'd like to buy some spares. The wire is amazingly flexible; it bends similar to cooked spaghetti. In the attached pictures, does anyone know what type of connector this is, what type of wire would be so flexible, and pins to tie into IC pin extenders?
The name of the original connector series, the series cloned and marketed as “DuPont” by the Chinese, is the Mini-PV series from Amphenol (formerly Berg).
There are many compatible connector series, like Molex C-Grid III, Molex SL, and AMP AMPMODU Mod I, II, and IV series. (Compatible in the sense that assembled connectors are fully compatible for mating; the components to make a connector (housings, contacts, etc) are not interchangeable at all.)
As far as wire goes, that’s likely an extra-fine-stranded
PVC silicone.
It’s too glossy to be silicone. (Edit: on second look, I noticed that it says “200°C” on it, so it has to be silicone.) For 24awg, it’d be somewhere in the ballpark of 40-120 strands. For example, look at the datasheet below. It’s a european-spec ultra-fine-stranded 0.25mm
2 (slightly thicker than 24awg, which is ~0.21mm
2) which uses 128 strands.
Standard 24awg stranding is 7 strands, and thus very noticeably stiffer. 19 strands is already better, but the really high strand counts are preferable. But another issue is that the finer stranding tends to be paired with softer insulation, even if it’s the same insulation material. There are many types of PVC and silicone which vary significantly in rigidity and in how much they hold a shape when bent.
I do not recommend the 30awg silicone from adafruit: though it is thin and thus doesn’t exert much force of its own, it tends to hold a shape rather than just flop loosely like I like in a test lead. It behaves like very thin wire, not like yarn or thread.
I’ve made many leads using 24awg fine-stranded silicone from AliExpress that uses 40 strands, and it’s day-and-night better than ordinary jumper leads. It also takes a shape a bit, but not as strongly as the adafruit stuff. As long as you don’t crease it, it’ll stay looking nice. (Roll it on a table under a stiff object like a PCB to remove a crease.) In fact, this is what I used to make a better set of leads for my el-cheapo logic analyzer.
There exists true test lead wire, in both PVC and silicone, which is ultra flexible and doesn’t take a shape, remaining floppy. But beware that a lot of vendors, even ones you wouldn’t suspect, sell ordinary silicone as test lead wire, even though it’s not. (For example, avoid Cal-Test wire.) Stäubli and Lapp both make excellent thin test lead wires.