Okay it's no secret that "dupont" connectoprs as I call them (with no caps, as they deserve none), that is to say chinese knockoffs of harwin's knockoff of DuPont's connector and cost maybe a penny vs 30 cents or so for the "Genuine Article".
Since most of us can't afford to use the good stuff (even if you could buy wire with the good terminals crimped on -neither clone nor good terminals are hard to crimp with the right tool, Both are nearly impossible to crimp well with an inappropriate tool. Acceptable tools I am aware of for under $100 and currently in prodution? There are very few suitable tools: The Hozan P707 is the leading manual one, and there are two usable ratchet type ones from china (for like $20 each): The SN025B which crimps nothing else your going to see most likely, and the Toozo TZ2848 (there may be others - some have come and gone), whiich is what I recommend because it can also crimp JST XH, PH, and VH,
In a ideal world, you would use your thermal wire stripper to get a perfectly stripped wire of the correct thickness, use one of those crimp tools to crimp a Dupont/Amphenol terminal on. $100 or so for the PTS-10 entry level thermal stripper (I really do like thiat stripper - it changed electronics for me). At least $20 for the crimp tool, and 60 cents per strand of wire with a terminal on either end,.
There are a great many caveats:
- Most chinese wire has thicker insulation and undersized conductors to save money (ubiquitous among hookup wire. Often it seems that the seller isn't entirely aware that they're selling wire 2-4 gauge smaller than they're claming. The ones that hard a chart showing how many strands of what thickness rarely deviated from that spec, and that could be used to calculate that AWG. FEP-insulated wire, even on aliexpress, has only been mis-sold to me once, and on that occasion, I ordered 24 AWG and the seller sent clearly and accurately marked 26awg. Compare w/hookup wire which is always 2-4 AWG undersize.
- Very few of us are willing to spent 30 cents per DuPont connector
- Crimping is a skill. Some people pick it up faster tgan others. Some people hate it.
- There's this dirt cheap stuff on aliexpress, either terminals or "terminal lime" with terminals already crimped on.
The only terminals you should use if crimping your own are either genuine ones with the Very High spring force option, that is
| AWG | Tin, CT | 15u Au CT | 30u Au CT | 40u Au CT | Tin, bulk | 15u Au bulk | 30u Au Bulk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18-20 | 47648-000LF | 48247-000LF | 48252-000LF | 47566-002LF | 47749-000LF | 48256-000LF | 48233-000LF |
| 22-26 | 47649-000LF | 48248-000LF | 48051-000LF | 47565-002LF | 47750-000LF | 48257-000LF | 48236-000LF |
| 28-32 | 47650-000LF | 48249-000LF | 48050-000LF | 47564-002LF | 47751-000LF | 48258-000LF | 48239-000LF |
| 32-36 | 75543-011LF | 75543-017LF | 75543-012LF | 75543-018LF |
Or if you don't have that kind of money (really, who does? An FTDI cable would run you $4 for th parts (FEP wire and DuPont terminals, and assuming you value your time at McDonalds rate, it still implies 6-10 per cable, depending on whether you have an electric wire stripper and how good you are at crimping connectors). So for most applicationls, you;ll likely you have to make do with the crappier dupont ones). The silver ones are available in two versions: Mediocre and terrible. Don;t buy those. Get the get half-gold ones, with gold plate over the mating surfaces. They cost under 1.5 cents each, barely more expensive than bad ones, and are of better build quality in addition to the gold plate, Plan to replace them periodically.
The quality of the cheap (pennies) terminals and cheap dupont line vary widely - but there is a quick test to determine if you should order from a different vendor. Take a rare earth magnet and drag it through your bin oif jumpers. Any dupont jumper that you can pick up with a rare earth magnet is,, bad. How much magnetic force is acceptable? Simple, if you see a connector dangling from the magnet, pull it off and place it in the trash can
They will fail the pull test, typically, as well... AND THEY RUST!
Besides looking for magnetic jumper terminals, another thing to avoid is that damned ribbon cable. They use wire at least 4 AWG smaller than the terminal was meant to take, and either can't adjust the machine any tighter, or backed off the force so the dies last longer, These are barely better than the magnetic ones (which are also ribbon cable, they fail the pull test and so on.
If you buy dupont terminal line (strangely, this is never an issue with JST terminal line), dupont is uniquely terribad), get either terminal line (with no housings made up of individual wires (you can crimp over the insulation crimp with a better crimper to tighten it up too), or buy cables that are made up of individual strands, slide a razor along the header to cut off the retaining tabs and remove the wires that way (this is cost competitive, shockingly - that is also a cost effective way of getting JST terminal line, I got my GH, SH, and MicroJST terminal line at a killer price this way: I paid less than I would for 100 of one color for 10 each of 10 colors,and quality was fine. ZH, PH and XH I found at reasonable prices as terminal line), which saves time
I usually use dupont terminal lineunless I am particularly concerned about longevity. Then I try to replace one or both connectors at the ends with something less flaky like jst-xh (the problem with the dupont connector I claim is that it relies only on the spring force of the metal terminal to hold it in place, JST connectors and "micro JST (which isn't made by JST at all - what's called that is a clone of molex picoblade also have a catch mechanism in the plastic housing which reduces stress that deforms the connector. (JST-GH uses a different system altogether - with a positive latch, and the spring force in the housing - it also costs several times more,. Finally, if forced to, I either consider the "dupont" terminals to be a consumable and expect them to fail, or use real real DuPont connectors crimped myself onto FEP wire with my Hozan P707.
This means my serial adapters now have JST-XH connectors on the adapter, which plug into cables ending in cheap-dupont connectors (with expectation that I'll periodically clip the ends off and crimp on new ones. When the cable is to be permanently affixed. , I will often put shrink tube around each wire, crimp on a cheap terminal solder it in place with eutectic tin-bismuth solder, and then shrink the tube over it. Only in the most demanding applications can I cost justify REAL DuPont connectors
Note that