Does anyone know if the OSH version comes with pins I can solder, or should I find extra elsewhere?
Well the T4.0 I got from Adafruit did not have pins. The PJRC version listed in their store no longer mentions providing pins, and I believe the purpose 3.2 I got from OSH park a year or two ago did not come with pins either.
I tend to keep a stock of male headers, female headers, and female stacking headers of various sizes:
- Male short header pins (10mm)
- Male normal sized header pins (11.5mm)
- Male normal sized header pins at a right angle (11.5mm)
- Male long header pins (18mm)
- Female short headers (female header size 5mm)
- Female normal headers (female header size 8.5mm)
- Female normal headers with right angle pins (female header size 8.5mm)
- Female stacking headers (8.5mm for the header, and 10.5mm for the male pin)
In fact as I was soldering up my Teensy 4.0 with stacking headers, I noticed I was down to 1 5 pin female header left, and I went to reorder more from taydaelectronics. I also look at pololu.com:
Now for male pins, they break away easy enough, but for female headers, you generally have to pull the next pin and use diagonal cutters to get the size you want, and use a rotary tool to remove the excess. I find every so often, I cut a little too close, and I have to cut another header (unfortunately while Tayda Electronics carries many sizes, they don't carry 14 or 24 pin headers, but they do carry 15 and 25 pin headers). One place where it matters is getting a 5 pin female header for the back row of pins in the Teensy 3.2/4.0 or the row before the micro SD card in the 3.5/3.6.
For the side pins, you can go to PRJC which does sell the headers the right size, plus extra tall pins for mounting the audio shield:
For the stacking headers, Adafruit and Dipmicro carries the longer ones I can cut down:
I find generally I need to order enough at a time, and possibly bundle other things in the order so the shipping cost does not overwhelm the cost of the headers.
I would have to imagine digi-key, mouser, element14, etc. has tons of different headers to order. There the problem is often narrowing down things to what you can use, making sure you get the right size for pins, etc.
Pololu also has a large selection of pre-crimped wires and housings to you can build your own cable assemblies. The trouble with these DIY cable assemblies, is sometimes pushing these into a breadboard or female headers pushes the cable out of the housing. My next set of custom cables, I plan to add a little glue when I put the cables in the housing so they won't come out:
For example, here is a set of headers for a Teensy 3.5/3.6, an Adafruit feather adapter, a prop shield, and FrankB's 3.5/3.6 -> 3.2 pin layout PCB that I was going to solder up. I meant to take other pictures of the process but I got distracted and I only finished the Teensy part:
Here is the FrankB 3.5/3.6 -> 3.2 adapter PCB: