I've found that the soldering step is unnecessary and tends
to reduce reliability because
A.  the insulation that the connector crimps to as a part of
the mechanical strain relief tends to melt and become
unreliable;
B.  globs of solder change the shape of the pin connecter
causing it not to mate correctly in the plastic bit of the
connector.

You really just want to strip the wire and crimp the bit
on there.  Once I stopped trying to solder it, I stopped
having problems.

Mike H.

On 1/18/07, Chris <ChrisPicList@rocklizard.org> wrote:
> Hi Piclisters,
>
> I often use 0.1 male headers, female sockets and pins to make
> interconnects, jumpers and other wiring connections between boards or
> between boards and i/o devices. I like them because they fit on
> breadboards during prototyping, they are flexible (Make ok board
> connectors for example) and cheap.
>
> Lately though, I have been making a lot of them for various experiments
> and it's starting to be a real pain to attach the wires to the pins. In
> the past I ignored this because I never made more than 1 or 2 at a time.
> At the moment, I need to build quite a few and my failure rate is too
> high. It's also taking me *WAY* too long to build simple 3 and 4 wire
> interconnects.
>
> My current technique is to carefully strip my wire, crimp the connector
> to the insulation then  solder the wire. If I am not *VERY* careful, the
> pin does not fit the female socket. The pins tend to stick, twist or
> fall out. If it matters, I generally use cat5 network cable - I pull out
> as many conductors as I need, cut to length and attach my connectors. I
> use the cat5 for two reasons: I have a 1000' spool (that's the big
> reason :) ) and I find that it's a versatile hookup wire in general.
>
> I have been looking for a tool, techniques or maybe a better brand of
> pins so I can make my life easier. I would appreciate any suggestions.
>
> If you have the current Jameco catalog, see page 126 for the headers and
> pins I use. A typical part number is 108337 (header) and 675850
> (housing) and a variety of pins.
>
> I would really like to get a proper tool to do the job but would like to
> avoid being locked into a specific brand of connector or a very
> expensive tool.
>
> Appreciate your help!
> Chris Levin
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