I seem to have designed myself into a corner. I need to connect up to 4
daughter boards to one main board. Each daughter has a 1x7 header that must
connect to a matching 1x7 header on the main board though a cable that can
be from about 6" to about a foot long. (that is errr... 15 to 30cm?) via AWG
24 to 28 wire.

Originally, I intended to cleverly arrange the daughter boards side by side
so that a standard IDC DIL cable could be used including a key between each
2 sets of the units which would prevent getting it on the wrong way, but
that isn't working out due to other mounting requirements which I totally
missed.

Cost and assembly time are the major issues.

I could just use the IDC DIL cable (ribbon cable with the snap on dual row
headers) but end users would have to get the correct side of the DIL
connected at each end... And I don't trust them to do it. As it is, there is
no way to key the thing and I fully expect people to put the cables on
backwards which will fry the unit, so giving them another entire way to get
it wrong seems really bad.

So the specific questions are:

1. Does anyone know of a common application that uses a 1x7 header with
matching cable? The theory here being that if such a cable is commonly used,
the price will be low. 3.5" floppy power cables are 1x4. 

2. Are there people who make custom cables like that for very (very) low
prices in quantities of 100 or less? So far the people I've talked to didn't
want to talk after they hear that quantity.

3. Is there an easy way to make such a cable? The Molex connectors I've seen
take forever to crimp and solder to individual wires and then stuff in to
the little housing. If there was a SIL IDC, I would love to see it...

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