Alternativ PCB connectors...somehow

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mcc

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Hi,

(I am no native speaker of the English Language. I may mess up my sentences...)

Yesterday I received my brand new Teensy 3.6 and I generated a lot of prime numbers with it as a first check/fun "project".
Currently I am using the Arduino IDE on GENTOO Linux.

No headers are soldered to my Teensy 3.6 currently.
I dont like headers that much (and...how is the counterpart named..."anti-headers", "pins", or "male and female headers" ??? )...
The """problem""" I have with headers is: There are adding a lot of space to a board (and to anything else, which is used the same way),
which was designed to be small as possible -- for example by adding extra pads to the back side of the PCB.
I use tiny boost/buck converters of the size of my thumb nail, which size are doubled when using those headers.
I would use simple wires soldered to the pads of my Teensy 3.6. - but this would stop its interchangebility between different projects to try.
Currently I cannot afford being a new Teensy 3.6 for each project, which I am interested in.

To cut a long story short:
Are additional boards (like the audio board) sold with headers already soldered or not?
(If already soldered I would be bound to use headers...)

  • Are there any alternatives to standard headers, which are not that spacey and can be used instead?
This alternative should be useable with the audio board at least and should allow for many connect / disconnect cycles
(as headers).

For me there is no problem to create a little adapter board, which maps this alternative "header" to a ordinary header setup
to make my Teensy 3.6 useable on breadboards...

Thanks for any help in advance!
Cheers!
Meino
 
I didn't like growth in size from standard female headers - tried the 'round machine pin' type - they didn't offer reliable connections - as least after a few insertions and removals it seemed.

AdaFruit does make a low profile female header for standard male pins. It is a perhaps a mm more than half as high - so it saves some height, I found similar on eBay for less cost as well. That saves some height and they seem to connect about as well as standard headers.

Getting to the under pads is not easy - except when using some of the PCB's with castellated cuts allowing soldering that PCB to the Teensy to extend it's length an bringing out pin holes - it seems there were some for T_3.6 - but a couple were made for T_3.2 for example.

Long pin female headers - or long male pins might allow attacking boards more closely depending o use case.
 
Hi Paul, hi defragster,

thanks for your replies! :)

Since the audio board comes with unsoldered headers I can use alternatives! Yeah!

I made the same experiences with these machined headers. I think, they are made
for inserting DIL ICs (does any one remember the good ole days, when electronic parts
cannot be breathed in and were even able to be /TOUCHED/? ;) ) once or twice, if
the first broke for some reasons...

I think I need some help of a native speaker here...
Previously I searched with startpage and on EBay and Aliexpress with terms like
"headers" "pcb connector" "board connectors" and such and was bombarded with
standard headers.
Often the dimensions were missing and judging the size from photos is....hrmmm...
not so easy (read:impossible).

Is there any teminus technicus, which more is describing the kind of "Adafruit headers" more closely?

Thanks a lot for any help!
Cheers!
Meino
 
BTW, what is the part's name of the Line in / Line out connector header to use on the audio board ? I'm struggling to find it in online catalogs because I don't know what to search ...
 
Here's some at Digikey. You'll need to cut away one of the pins before soldering.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/metz-connect-usa-inc/PR20205VBDN/1849-1002-ND

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/adam-tech/PH2-10-UA/2057-PH2-10-UA-ND

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sullins-connector-solutions/PRPC005DAAN-RC/S2011EC-05-ND

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/amphenol-icc-fci/67997-410HLF/609-3243-ND

The 9 pins are meant to be used with "AC97" front panel audio cables used in most PCs. For example:

https://www.ebay.com/i/382878229094?chn=ps

ac97.jpg

It's also perfectly fine to use wires or a regular 10 pin "IDC" connector with ribbon cable. But if you have one of those AC97 cables, they're pretty convenient.
 
If you are concerned about the height of the headers, you can solder a Teensy 3.2 with right angle headers and use jumper wires to connect the teensy (assuming you have a teensy without headers). Adafruit sells these, but you should be able to find a cheaper supplier local to your country:

If you want a more permanent setup, you could use something like an Adafruit mini mint tin perma proto and make the permanent connections with wires in the inner rows (this perma-proto has 15 rows of parallel pins, so you would have one leftover row). You would use normal male headers with the plastic spacer underneath the Teensy. And you can solder right angle headers on the outer rows to allow for more connections.

If you aren't up for soldering, and you have a Teensy with pins attached, you can use a tiny breadboard to hold the Teensy, and use jumper wires on the outer rows. Like with the right angle headers, you can usually find a cheaper board on ebay or at a local supplier.
 
Hi Michael,

thanks for your extensive header science ! ::))

I wanted to save space in the absolute sense ... not only in height (hopefully this is not too germenglishly spoken... ;)
This neat little board is designed with (beside other things of course) "save space" in mind...I dont want to waste this
effort by "polluting" it with header of 8.5mm height (or width).

I have some header (female) in the height of 4.3mm for my Raspi Zero W...but they are too short.
I tried to find tyhose on aliexpress and found some...but with 1.27mm spaceing...

Those (4.3mm height) were neat ... sometimes they are called "sockets" instead of "headers".
I want to use female headers...I dont feel that comfortable to have rows of not insolated "needles"
on my board which cry "ZAP me! ZAP me! Static electricity, come over me!" :)

Cheers!
Meino
 
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