I'm using an Arduino Due with various sensors. At the moment, I'm using the majority of the pins along the width (the double width pins). I want to make the setup more permanent, however I can't seem to find any ribbon cables with 36-conductors. What do you use for long term connections on the Due, especially if you occasionally need to unplug all the connections? Would a 40-pin ribbon cable work as they're easy to come by.
Thanks
3 Answers 3
I have used 40 pin cables for this purpose, specifically, IDE cables (beware: on high speed, "80 conductor" cables, but still with 40 pin connectors, some pins are permanently connected, to indicate to to the controller that this is a high speed cable!). The connectors are cheap, the cables are free if you ask around (probably less so now). In my case, I connected two extra-large 7-segment displays, and it worked great. More pins than you rarely hurts. In my case, it was especially useful since I needed some pins at the top, and some pins at the bottom of the display; my ide cable had three connectors (motherboard & two drives); I used the top row on one ide connector to the top of of my displays, and the bottom row of pins on the other connector to the bottom of the displays.
You can also make your own IDC ribbon cables pretty easily. A 36-pin cable might be pretty hard to find a connector for, but you could use a 20-pin and a 16-pin side by side.
Have a look at Kobicon 164-9008-E and Kobicon 164-9001-E.
You can get creative and mix and match different pin counts, depending on your project. Buy a few meters of 40-conductor .05" pitch ribbon cable, and you can peel off the 4 outermost conductors to make it 36-conductor, as well as separating the end of the cable into your connector groups.
Take a look at these jumper wires. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00M5WLZDW/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?qid=1431346007&sr=8-6&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70 they are really great for debugging as well as more permanent solutions.
If you are looking to build more than 5 go with some of the other posted answers