Author Topic: Need longer tip plugs  (Read 1706 times)

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Offline tooki

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #25 on: November 10, 2024, 11:37:55 am »
Yeah, for $11.60 for 4.
Thanks but no thanks.
Consider what your time is worth.

One rule of thumb says to value your time off at 3x as high as your hourly wage.


Of course, if you simply enjoy making it yourself, we all understand that.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #26 on: November 10, 2024, 11:39:00 am »
Fine. It's in Chinese. I don't read Chinese.

So how many more unhelpful irrelevant replies will there be? C'mon, keep 'em coming!
I don't know why anyone would be motivated to continue to help.  You're coming across as a jerk.  You want everyone to waste their time searching the internet for you, but you're not willing to spend $10-$20 to solve the problem?
Same attitude as in his wire stripper thread. Nasty attitude there, too.
 

Online Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #27 on: November 10, 2024, 06:09:13 pm »
I found those on DigiKey by going into connectors > circular connectors > circular connector contacts, then filtering by pin size (2mm, though I would also look for Size 12 contacts, since those should be 2.05mm, well within tolerances) and pin gender. I usually filter by “in stock only” first, but I don’t remember if I did or not in that search.

Now that is helpful; I've known about DigiKey's parametric search function for a long time. However, look at the bewildering array of stuff you're faced with here: Circular Connectors has 2,754,014 items; Circular Connector Contacts narrows it to 5,775. Filtering on 2mm and in stock winnows it down to a manageable 70 items. But without knowing what to search for it's a jungle out there.

So thanks for that; I've decided that unless I find some inexpensive ready-made solution I'm going to go ahead and make my own here. Turns out that ordinary copper 12 AWG solid wire is the perfect size, and there's lots of that here. Sure it's soft, but with care it should work well for this application. Now I just need to find some suitable plastic tubing.
 

Online Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #28 on: November 10, 2024, 07:38:47 pm »
Well, I have proof of concept at least:



Plug is 12 gauge copper wire, with a bit of insulation (green) and a bit of heat shrink (3/32") on top inside what looks like piece of PVC tubing. All super-glued together. Not the prettiest but solid and it'll work for now.

It'd be nice to find some larger-diameter plastic tubing for the body, so I'll be looking for that (but not at any electronics suppliers).
« Last Edit: November 10, 2024, 07:40:37 pm by Analog Kid »
 

Online Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #29 on: November 10, 2024, 10:02:06 pm »
Nice what a little paint will do:



Hey, now I can sell these on Ali Express!
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #30 on: November 10, 2024, 10:06:15 pm »
I found those on DigiKey by going into connectors > circular connectors > circular connector contacts, then filtering by pin size (2mm, though I would also look for Size 12 contacts, since those should be 2.05mm, well within tolerances) and pin gender. I usually filter by “in stock only” first, but I don’t remember if I did or not in that search.

Now that is helpful; I've known about DigiKey's parametric search function for a long time. However, look at the bewildering array of stuff you're faced with here: Circular Connectors has 2,754,014 items; Circular Connector Contacts narrows it to 5,775. Filtering on 2mm and in stock winnows it down to a manageable 70 items. But without knowing what to search for it's a jungle out there.
Digikey’s parametric search is, overall, the best parametric search in the industry, and by a pretty big margin IMHO. (Others occasionally do better in some specific way or parameter, but in the totality, only Mouser comes close, and it’s still a clear second place if you ask me.) But yes, you still need to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the taxonomy and the parameters. I’ve been relying on digikey’s taxonomy and parameters for years now, and I still sometimes end up in the wrong place. Nonetheless, I am so much more proficient on their website than any other distributor’s, so they are hands-down the first place I look for things.

Another gold star for DigiKey is how they handle error reports: they always respond, and most of the time they fix the error right away. On rare occasions it’s taken a bit of back-and-forth when they’ve misunderstood the problem, but in the end they come around. :)

In a way, it’s shocking how bad many distributors’ and manufacturers’ parametric searches are. They often have decent taxonomies, but just terrible parametric searches. In some there’s good data but terrible user interfaces. In others the user interface is fine, but the data quality renders the UI pointless. And others have terrible UIs and terrible data. And the worst have no parametric searches at all.  :wtf:

(One that truly baffles me is Conrad: they have reasonably good metadata in many categories. But many of the parameters are not available for filtering and don’t appear in the results tables so you can’t even sort by them. Why do the data entry if you don’t let people use it to find stuff?!?)

So thanks for that; I've decided that unless I find some inexpensive ready-made solution I'm going to go ahead and make my own here. Turns out that ordinary copper 12 AWG solid wire is the perfect size, and there's lots of that here. Sure it's soft, but with care it should work well for this application. Now I just need to find some suitable plastic tubing.
Indeed, non-metric contact pin sizes are just the diameter of that AWG solid wire. So indeed a size 12 pin is the same diameter as 12 AWG solid wire!
« Last Edit: November 10, 2024, 10:08:43 pm by tooki »
 
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Offline tooki

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #31 on: November 10, 2024, 10:09:30 pm »
Nice what a little paint will do:
One of life’s small joys is a full rainbow of colored heat shrink tubing. :)
 

Online Analog KidTopic starter

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #32 on: November 10, 2024, 11:40:42 pm »
Digikey’s parametric search is, overall, the best parametric search in the industry, and by a pretty big margin IMHO. (Others occasionally do better in some specific way or parameter, but in the totality, only Mouser comes close, and it’s still a clear second place if you ask me.) But yes, you still need to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the taxonomy and the parameters.

Yep, I totally agree; they've got the best system I've seen anywhere.
I wish Jameco would clean up their web site: they don't have parametric search, but they allow you to search within results, which theoretically should get you to what you want quickly. Problem is that their descriptions are all over the place: apparently different people there use different terminology, so if you're looking for, say, a 120--> 12 volt center-tapped transformer, you'll find "12VAC", "12VCT", "12.6VCT", etc. Plus the search function is broken anyway and gives spurious results that have nothing to do with your search term.

I plan on writing them an email about this, nice and diplomatic, pointing out the flaws in their system. We'll see how that goes. Other than that, I really like Jameco.

Yes, taxonomy is what you need to know here.
 

Offline Martian Tech

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #33 on: November 11, 2024, 04:01:37 am »
So you don't understand why I get annoyed when I pose a question regarding a goddamn tip plug, a penny-ante item, which I need a longer version of--something that should cost, oh, I don't know, less than a dollar, and I get the following responses:
  • Someone's eBay auction for a set of test leads for $19.95
  • Another eBay auction for a set of tip-to-banana adapters (not at all what I was looking for, btw) for $11.60
  • A listing for yet another set of tip-to-banana adapters in a language I don't understand (or perhaps I should just drop everything and learn Chinese for the occasion?)
If that's your idea of helpful, I just don't know what to say.

As I said, if worse comes to worst I'll just make a damn plug out of a nail. I would just like a ready-made solution if one is available and doesn't cost too much.

You'll notice, BTW, that some people here have been kind enough to actually give some helpful advice in this thread.

It's people like you who make life ever so enjoyable. If you really want to be helpful, fine. Otherwise, let me suggest as politely as I know how that you just STFU.

Attitude Check:

Posts on this forum don't disappear once your immediate problem is solved.  Three years from now someone else may be looking to solve the same or a similar problem, but they may not have the same constraints as you in terms of cost or other factors that you may or may not have mentioned up front.  So responses (as long as they are on-topic) that you may not find helpful because they do not address your specific problem and requirements may be very useful to to that someone else.
 
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Offline jonpaul

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Re: Need longer tip plugs
« Reply #34 on: November 11, 2024, 04:44:32 am »
ger a decent DVM with normal bannana jacks, I fond them for perhaps $1..5

j
An Internet Dinosaur...
 


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