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Break Away Headers - Straight Product Help and Resources
Rotary Switch Potentiometer Hookup Guide
April 30, 2015
How to use the Rotary Switch Potentiometer breakout board, with some sample applications.
Noisy Cricket Stereo Amplifier - 1.5W Hookup Guide
April 26, 2018
A hookup guide for the Noisy Cricket Stereo Amplifier - 1.5W.
GPS Geo-Mapping at the Push of a Button
September 27, 2019
Let's ramp up our GPS tracking skills with KML files and Google Earth. We'll make a tracker that logs location and allows us to visualize our steps with Google Earth.
Basic Servo Control for Beginners
February 25, 2020
An introductory tutorial demonstrating several ways to use and interact with servo motors!
Dimension of Square Pin
Width of the square pin was measured to be about 0.65mm.
Core Skill: Soldering
This skill defines how difficult the soldering is on a particular product. It might be a couple simple solder joints, or require special reflow tools.
Skill Level: Noob - Some basic soldering is required, but it is limited to a just a few pins, basic through-hole soldering, and couple (if any) polarized components. A basic soldering iron is all you should need.
See all skill levels
Comments
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Customer Reviews
4.6 out of 5
Based on 20 ratings:
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Endless Utility
I love these headers, they cut very easily with wire cutters. Though I always manage to end up with an odd single header whenever I buy a strip.
3 of 3 found this helpful:
The duct tape of electronics
You can never have too many break-away headers. Solder these to a bare breakout board for easy breadboarding. Or use it with jumper wires to easily attach and re-attach components within your project.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Very useful parts
Using it for homemade connectors (and more) since it doesn't break on itself, it makes a nice clean break using cutters, the metal pins can be bent or removed from the plastic casing with pliers if needed, great purchase and I'll order more for sure.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Perfect
Use an xacto knife for a perfectly clean break every time.
2 of 2 found this helpful:
You can never have too many of these. AAMOF, I need some that are long on both ends more often than expected too.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
As expected
Good quality shipped fast.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Break Away Headers
They are great...what else can I say.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Break Away Headers
They are great...what else can I say.
3 of 3 found this helpful:
Yes, break away headers
Pros: Very straight Many breakaway such header wow Cons: Solder reasonably quickly, too much heat will melt the plastic.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
Easy to use, high quality pins
Very easy to break apart cleanly and the pins are really good quality. Good product for the price.
1 of 1 found this helpful:
They are effective headers
They are headers. Spacing seemed good. Metal very... conductive of electricity, which is good. I mean, they are headers. What is there to say?
2 of 2 found this helpful:
Sparkfun suggested I review these.
I'm not entirely sure why they need a review. They're headers. They snap with a pair of pliers and some pressure. They're both extremely useful and entirely unexciting to describe.
Works great
Simple product that just does its job!
Nice pins!
If you need straight break away headers, just buy these!
Have to have item
I always keep a good supply of these headers at my workbench. Easiest way I know to make quick connections between custom boards and prototypes.
Headers headers everywhere.
Always have a wide selection of pins available. Never know when you'll need to replace a few, or just one. Either way these are a must have.
Good Headers
Haven't had any issues, easy to use. Good product.
I command you to come back in stock.
BTW, dont use these as combs, they will break
This is very true...I recommend the female headers for people who have unruly tangled hair. :P
True, through much experimentation, I've found the female headers to be much more suitable for the combing.
Any chance we can get a bigger pack of them? Or maybe a bundle of three for $5? I use these things like they're candy to a 5 year old, I order some and by lunch time they're all gone, haha.
damn... I bought 5 of these things for 20 cents on another website. You guys are expensive but do a bang up job of service and shipping!!!! I like sparkfun
I can buy these for 50 cents for a row of 36 at a local store. Sure, you have to make money to stay afloat, but isn't $2.50 a bit steep? $1.50 would be at least somewhat more reasonable, although I still wouldn't buy them for that price. With all the stuff SparkFun is getting from China, you'd think that you could get simple headers for a bit less...
It -is- $1.50.
I must agree, at least a better bulk rate I need like 10 strips, adafruit sells 10- 36 pin for 75 cents each(10x7.50$) but I need the female ones too, that they dont carry.. but its funny you both carry the touch screen breakout board.. I'd rather pay around 1.50$ each for a american made one elsewhere..
Customer Request: Please add a country origin to your products description, I prefer to buy american made parts when I can, followed by not made in china..
Due too ever increasing demands and threats by the chinese government from controlling of raw, rare earth minerals, political pressure/demands, and because it supports its governmental control of its people. I'm sure many people here agree everything is coming from china.. I understand not everything can be american, but I'm avoiding buying products imported china.. I dont even regularly shop at walmart. I've shopped at a walmart 2-3 times a year totaling to less than 1,000$ in 5 years.instead I drive twice as far to shop.
I must disagree with complaints that these are overpriced. SparkFun is a hobbyist's dream company, developing boards, prototyping stuff, and giving great advice. It's fair that the should charge more, because they do add value.
If I needed 10,000 units, I doubt I would think of sparkfun. But if I need < 10 units to finish a board or project, I'm just as happy getting them from SparkFun as going around shopping for the best deals. When shipping costs are taken into account, it's easy to get these parts thrown into the same box with my SpeakJet shield, and still come out ahead.
So carry on, SparkFun!
Rare earth metals are not that rare. There are a number of places that could be mined. But nobody but the Chinese has bothered to mine them. This gave China the power to set their own price. It's just business son.
I actually agree with razburn and Ed to some degree. I do my best to buy American when available. At the same time I like to save a buck if so if I order from Jameco, I may ad a couple of parts that are indeed cheaper than Sparkfun. At the same time I will do the same when ordering from Sparkfun and throw in a couple of other parts I needed even though more expensive. I enjoy doing business with these guys and the info they have here makes supporting them worthwhile.
what is the thickness of the pins?
It is probably 22 gauge, as that is the thickness of breadboard wire. The diameter of 22 gauge wire is 0.0254 inches. Source: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/awg-wire-gauge-d_731.html
You should specify they are "male" headers, because the search engine doesn't seem to check the pictures ;) Doesn't show up in the search results for "male header"...
Get them for $0.25 from here: http://atomsofttech.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=60_62&product_id=76
Are These Breadboard compatible? I want to make PCBs that fit on my breadboard
Yes, these headers are spaced at 0.1 inches, the same spacing as on a breadboard.
The spacing is compatible with breadboard, but I have found that they do not stay in the bread board very well because of their length
what the long end goes in the breadboard the short end in the cable they come off the cable first if you do it like that
Connectors require longer pins than the short end provides.
these are for soldering to pcb, not plug connectors. for plugs, you could try the long pin version and slide the plastic down some
how long does it take for a comment to show up?
Not long :)
How do you solder these things? the solder just keeps beading up and falling off, it's not sticking or anything, it's like two magnets repelling eachother.
UPDATE: After reviewing a few videos, i realized my error and everything is now on nice and snug.
Pretty sure these are made by 4UCON: 00834 Datasheet
Cheers...
I this recommended for a shield
I got on of these with the SparkFun Inventor's kit (as I'm just starting with hobby electronics) and felt like an idiot for not realizing how it's supposed to be used. Fortunately, there's a nice Scotsman on YouTube who can provide de-idiotification:
Any chance of finding just the black nylon spacer in the middle of the header?
I recently saw a Parallax LCD kit with two rows of the black spacers between the two PCBs and wish I had been able to do that when I put together my SparkFun Serial Enabled LCD kit.
These do not fit into breadboard sold here PRT-00137, where can I find headers that do?
Ummmm they do fit, just push.
Once I have, say, 4 pins sticking out of my board, where do I get the parts to make a connector that I can plug into my board?
You could use individual jumper wires, and we also carry 4-pin jumpers in several lengths.
Great! Thanks!
I use these headers all the time. As mentioned, a larger pack for $1.50 would be more reasonable... at least several at that price. I honestly don't buy them here. I only pay $0.19 each for these 40-pin headers (packs of 10 for $1.90). But SparkFun makes it sooo easy to buy everything at once... so it's a trade-off! ;-)
oh, you want it for $1? here: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/965
Nice. I'll probably do some of my shopping there since I don't care about such things as ROHS compliance for hobby work.
Follow up to this: got these headers from Pololu and as far as I can tell they're exactly the same.
These really should be cheaper.
A buck at most...
I'm guessing you've never shopped at mouser or digikey before. This is actually a really good deal.
I agree. Headers with gold finish on both ends of the plastic are pretty rare and you won't find them cheaper on digikey or mouser. If you want non-ROHS tin headers they can be found for cheaper. As you pointed out, a good deal (for quality headers)
What's the advantage of gold plating for headers? I know of a site that sells a 10-pack (400 pins) for $2.90, but I don't know if those are gold-plated or not. Probably not.
With gold plating, you don't have to worry about oxidation causing intermittent connections or being hard to solder. Everything just works. (And in regards to another comment, to each their own, but I personally prefer to use the highest-quality parts when I'm prototyping as there can be enough problems to deal with without having to worry about simple things like connection integrity.)
It's also no secret that you can get many of our products elsewhere cheaper. Much of our effort goes into our engineered products, but we also like to carry essential small parts like this so that you can buy everything from one place instead of having to go to multiple companies. I personally go through at least one of these a week, so I'm glad we stock them.
How about offering the tin headers also? I'd pay $0.50 to $1. I don't need gold pins in a prototype. Certainly not at this price.
I bought 10 of this in a eletronics store at Brazil, and cost me $1
And...?
What is the drill size for these? I have a board mill and I'm not sure what kind of bit I should buy. Help!
Generally they are .025 square pins for headers such as these. computing the square root of the sum of the squares gives about .0353..... so fudge a bit and call it .040 for hole diameter...... (or just use the library part in eagle from the sparkfun eagle library - then get the size bits eagle calls for)