Mega 2560 wiring IDE ?

Other Hardware General Electronics
1

YooHoo. My first Mega arrived by courier today. Mega excited.

Looking at the female pins, it looks like it may be the same spacing as a PCs IDE ribbon cable. Can anyone confirm this, and would there be any drawbacks to using a ribbon cable to connect the pins to a breadboard ?

If it would fit, can you tell me the technical name of the male-to-male connector pin strips that I would need to connect the female board pins to the female IDE cable connector ? I would need to order it from an online supplier, but can't find the correct name for it.

2

The are .1" spacing so yes normal ribbon cable is compatible.

You could use headers, get ones with long pins and slide the plastic piece down to the centre of the pins. Or solder two headers together back to back.

However if you're talking about the dual connector at the front of the Mega you can't really use that because at the other end the header won't fit into the breadboard properly, ie each wire pair will be shorted. You would have to splay the pins out to straddle the gully in the middle of the BB.

Rob