I bought some of the cheaper red stripe 3M ribbon cable from Digikey but it's kinda stiff compared to the ribbon cable I'm used to, even the cheap stuff from China that Sparkfun uses. I was wondering if anyone's used the darker gray stuff with the blue stripe from 3M and if that was more flexible, or if the apparent changeover to something that doesn't emit harmful smoke when it catches fire caused a change to the chemistry of the plastic that resulted in stiffer cables and this is what we're stuck with now?
This is the cable in question:
Also, does anyone know any cheaper places to get ribbon cable than Digikey / Mouser?
The recommended solid wire size is 22 Ga and those real floppy wires are like 10 strand wound together to make a 30 ga wire I only use them for signal wiring or the 3In./75 mm power wires from a rail to a light load. When I need to use a back-light I use another separate power supply usually a breadboard "Plug-In" that has a 2.1/5 mm coaxial power jack, a power switch and a USB connector, the ones I have are for the 830 tie point b'boards and acn make one rail 5V and the other rail 3V3 or both rails 3V3 and they only usually cost $2.00 - $4.00.
What are you going on about Docedison? Recommended solid wire size for what?
scswift only asked about flexible28 guage ribbon cable.
I bought a 100' roll of 16 conductor from phoenixent.com and female crimp-on headers. It is 3M flat cable and seems pretty flexible.
Where'd you see 500' roll? I only see 300' at digikey.
You could add 6 pin headers to both ends of 100' rolls and plug together. Just peel the extra 4 back a little & leave in place otherwise.
Or splice together yourself.
I'm not sending a signal 500', and I don't see any 300' rolls of the grey 6 conductor ribbon on Digikey, that price was for 5 100's rolls.
I need 500' because I need to make 50 pairs of ribbon cables with one 7.5' long and the other 6" long.
(Actually, come to think of it I only need 400' but I wrote down 500' because I was looking for a 500' roll.)
The ribbon cables will be carrying low speed signals via SPI to some LED drivers.
Oh and that's an Atmega1284 on there. I was originally going to use a 328, but it turned out SD cards don't play nice on the SPI bus with other devices and I really needed the extra ram.
Ended up going to the local surplus store today and scored 300' of 16C ribbon for $15 Wish I had the money to buy all they had, there were around 5 more rolls there. Anyway saved myself a bundle, it would have cost around $75 for all the 16C and 6C cable I needed. I'm just gonna unzip 250' of it to get my 6C cables. Unfortunately half of them won't have a polarity stripe, so I'll have to be careful when assembling the cables.
Now I just gotta find a place where I can get IDC connectors cheap and fast. I need 100 6P ones and 100 16P ones. I'm thinking about using half direct wire to board ones for the 16P so I don't need to buy a bunch of matching shrouded headers. Stupid things are expensive!
I'm not gonna sharpie 250' of cable. I'm sure my customers would rather have a pristine cable than one with my crappy sharpie work all over it.
As for the connectors, finding them isn't the problem, it's finding them cheap. Mouser's got some from FCI on there. It's $88 for 200. I'd rather pay more like half that. My budget is running kinda thin here, and I'm sure there's some surplus somewhere I could buy or a supplier in China I can order from.
As for the shrouded headers, those are for my customers so the won't plug stuff in the wrong way. But if permanently attach the ribbon cable with the right connector then I don't really need to worry about that.
Well the less flexible cable seems more cheaply made. I'm concerned constant flexing might break it. Also these things need to be stuffed inside a small box with a lot of other wires. If the cable is more flexible it makes it easier for the end user to install. Not a big thing but I know I'd want more flexible cable if I was given the option.
As for the sharpie, it would look unprofessional. You might not be able to see it once it's installed but my customers would see it when they go to install it.
Basically I'm just trying to deliver the best and most professional product I can within my budget.
