Do It Yourself Jumper Wire Help

Hello everyone.

I was wondering if I could do some wires for my breadboard by myself and, for my surprise, I discovered that the pins are called Dupont Male Pins. So far so good... But here comes the problem: I can't find the plastic end that covers the pin. So, anyone know how they are called? Where to find them? What they eat? Can they be tamed?

Thanks for reading until here!

A picture for illustrative purpose:

Personally I wouldn't call them DuPont. They (DuPont) tend to have rectangular housings, not round.

I do make my own using DuPont single way housings. The housings will accept either male or female terminals which crimp onto the wire.

Firstly those pins are wider than 0.1" so don't quite fit together
in a row on a breadboard, and secondly you don't need to make up
jumper wires at all, you just buy single strand hookup wire with a
wire diameter of 0.6mm, then all you have to do is strip the ends, no
other work needed.

Buy a metre or two of Cat6 cable with solid conductors. Take it apart. Cut a piece to length. Strip a bit of insulation from the two ends.

Cheap and cheerful - and fully functional.

...R

Edited to change Cat5 to Cat6. The conductors in Cat5 cable are a little too thin.

Robin2:
Buy a metre or two of cat5 cable with solid conductors. Take it apart. Cut a piece to length. Strip a bit of insulation from the two ends.

Cheap and cheerful - and fully functional.

...R

Except that CAT5 cable wire is 0.5mm, not 0.6mm, so doesn't make reliable
connection to Arduino female headers.

Hi, I just go on ebay, check out the auction/free postage for the jumpers and make a suitably low bid.
Surprising how low you can buy them for, just have to wait 3 or 4 weeks.

Tom....... :slight_smile:

PS. The cat5 will fit in the protoboard.....

the plastic ends are molded.

you can get something close with heat shrink but by the time you are done, the e-bay special will be a nicer devcie.

if you do want to make your own, get stranded network cable.

MarkT:
Except that CAT5 cable wire is 0.5mm, not 0.6mm, so doesn't make reliable
connection to Arduino female headers.

You are quite right - I should have said Cat6. I will correct my post.

I tend to go into Maplin and say "May I have a metre of that stuff please" - they have samples on display and, yes, the Cat6 is noticeably thicker.

...R

Solder the an LED leg to the end of the wire, put on a small piece of heat-shrink tubing, apply heat.

(nb. You should always save LED legs when you snip them off....they're very useful)

Wow

Thanks everybody for the replies. It was very helpful!

I was just trying to find out something to mess with, you know, for fun and for the feel of making your own tools.

But that's ok. I think I will try ebay. Things there are really cheap.

So, thank you guys and until next time!

Good tinkering!

Bye!

While you're tinkering with jumpers, make a few with a resistor and led in series in your jumper, with red wire for positive side and black for negative. Very handy for detecting voltage and whether your digital pin is high or low. I keep several around..

pegwatcher:
While you're tinkering with jumpers, make a few with a resistor and led in series in your jumper, with red wire for positive side and black for negative. Very handy for detecting voltage and whether your digital pin is high or low. I keep several around..

+10

...R

Good idea pegwatcher, I have made a set of LEDs on a bit of vero and used a machined IC socket to to plug the wire into, will post a pic later this weekend.

Tom...... :slight_smile: