Jumper Wires and Connector Housings
Here, I recommend you purchase some colors of jumper wires and housings.
The color wires help you to keep track of your connections and avoid connection errors, such as short-circuit connections, reverse power connections, etc. For example, always use black wire for ground and red wire for power, so you will easily and quickly recognize the power source wires, and make sure they are not connected together, and that there is no reverse connection to the power supply sources.
The connector housings can help you to organize connection wires. Using connector housings with color jumper wire can help you to easily reconnect the devices without having to connect each wire every time, and reduce connection errors.
Jumper Wires
You will need jumper wires for making quick and easy prototyping connections between sensors, the breadboard, and the embedded board. Use them to wire up all the circuits.
Jumper wires can be purchased with male terminations on both ends, female terminations on both ends, or one male and one female termination. These terminations are designed for use with 0.1" (2.54 mm) male headers and female headers, solderless breadboards, and prototyping PCBs. The wires are available in various lengths and colors. The 3" (7.5 cm) wires are useful for the connections on the breadboard; the 6" (15 cm) wires are useful for the connections between the embedded board and breadboard; the 12" (30 cm) wires are useful for the connections between the sensor and breadboard/embedded board.
Here, recommend you prepare all there types of wires in various lengths for the embedded labs:
- Female-Female Jumper Wires: 6", 12"
- Male-Female Jumper Wires: 6", 12"
- Male-Male Jumper Wires: 3", 6"
Buy jumper wires from Pololu - Premium Jumper Wires.
Does the color of Jumper Wires matter?
No, the colors do not matter. The wire color is just an aid to help you keep track of which connections are connected and do not affect the operation of the circuit. You can define your own color-coding scheme, but here we recommend you to follow the rules as below lists, so everybody can understand the way the circuit is wired:
- Black Wire: Negative Power Sources (GND)
- Brown Wire: Data signals
- Red Wire: Positive Power Sources (+5V)
- Orange Wire: In a dual power source circuit, orange wires are used for +3.3V power sources. Otherwise, it can be used for Data signals
- Yellow Wire: Clock Signals
- Green Wire: Protective earth ground (PG)
- Blue Wire: Data signals
- Purple Wire: Reset Signals
- grey Wire: In the mixed signals circuit, use grey wires for Analog Ground (AGND); Otherwise, it can be used for Data signals
- White Wire: for Data signals
Crimp Connector Housings
Connector housings allow you to quickly make up your own custom cable harnesses or assemblies for connection to your hardware circuit projects. It mates with various 0.1" (2.54 mm) - spaced connectors, including male and female headers and solderless breadboards. Just select the housing with the correct number of pins, pick the colors and genders for your wires, and snap them into the housings.
I recommend using the housing to make some cables, so you can quickly reconnect the devices without checking all of the wire connections one by one every time. The connector housings can use with pre-crimped wires, which are "jumper wires" you purchase from Pololu, or you can make your own self-crimped wires with the crimping tool.
At least, you need the following housings for the embedded Labs:
- 0.1" (2.54mm) Crimp Connector Housing: 1x2-Pin
Power Connections - 0.1" (2.54mm) Crimp Connector Housing: 1x3-Pin
PIR Sensor, Servo, IR Receiver Module, DHT11 Module, Water Level Sensor, - 0.1" (2.54mm) Crimp Connector Housing: 1x4-Pin
I2C devices, Stepper Motor Driver Board, Ultrasonic Sensor, Sound Sensor - 0.1" (2.54mm) Crimp Connector Housing: 1x5-Pin
Joystick, Rotary Encoder Module, Matrix LEDs Module - 0.1" (2.54mm) Crimp Connector Housing: 1x6-Pin
SPI Devices, - 0.1" (2.54mm) Crimp Connector Housing: 1x8-Pin
RC522 RFID Module, MPU Module - 0.1" (2.54mm) Crimp Connector Housing: 1x16-Pin
Character LCD module
You can buy the housings from the following vendors: