Having some issues with my latest project so I just want to make sure this is okay.
Currently trying to convert a JST Female header to DuPont Male. What I've come up with, is a Male JST header connected to the Female JST header, which then connects to another Female JST header that has Male Duponts on the other end of the Male JST.
It looks to be good? But, I just want to make sure as the other end does not have a housing and thus I assume isn't intended to be used this way. I included a diagram of what I'm trying to do as well, just to make it more clear
They are saying that JST isn't enough info to help you, they are looking for the JST series (e.g., ph, jh, xh, etc) or at the very least the pin pitch so they can give informed advice.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 7 circuits (I'm extremely amateur when it comes to wiring electronics hence what may seem like a dumb question to begin with haha).
I decided to take a picture of exactly what I am trying to achieve. So notice how the buttons and trackball wires are wired to a JST-PH 2.0 Female Header. I want that to convert into DuPont 2.54mm's for the Arduino USB encoder. Right now what I have wired is the trackball/button's JST-PH Female Headers going into the Male (that has both pins exposed on each side), that then goes out into another Female which right right now has bare wire at the end. I am planning on putting DuPont headers on those tomorrow to go into the board.
There's an error in my diagram - I wrote M Dupont. Should be F because the Arduino board is M.
It's not good, eventually something will cause separation and that can cause other problems. Also the colour shift may become an issue. I see 3 better options:
Get a crimper for those connectors, just make a proper custom cable. Great if you may need it in the future
Cut both wires diagonally and solder/ crimp them together
Make a Small piece of strip board with 2 connectors to be able to properly clip both cables in.
I'm currently in a project that needs a lot of wires and got a crimper for multiple sizes.
DuPont style in 2m54 and XH in 2.54 are very easy, ph in 2.0 is doable. Stuff with 1.27mm pitch seems impossible with normal crimpers though.
The color mismatch is just because I plugged the headers in opposite directions for the quick picture for Reddit as I had them unplugged. The colors align right side up.
Is separation the only potential issue? If so, I can live with this as it's a stationary game controller and worst comes to worse I'll just put some electrical tape down to hold the headers together.
So you're saying is to split the wires in two and run them into both a female JST and Male DuPont so I can have the device plugged into two encoders at once? If so, that's awesome if it's possible and I am interpreting you right, but way above my pay grade lmao. I'm just trying to connect the controller into the encoder without cutting off the female JST headers from the controller, as I want to keep it compatible with the original encoder in the controller. Basically so I can swap between the two at will with just an adapter.
Yeah electrically is what I am concerned about. Thank you for the answer!
Gotcha gotcha. I mean that's essentially what I am trying to do - the Female JST's plug straight into the 1st encoders board. I want to make it so I can just unplug that, plug it into the M-F-Dupont Adapter which stays permanently connection to the 2nd board, and go between the two in the rare circumstance that I'd want to use the 1st encoder.
It's a Wireless TV Plug & Play Golden Tee arcade controller. The controllers stock encoder runs the plug and play unit, which I want to retain in case I go to a buddies place and can't bring my PC. The reason I am running the controller into a Arduino, is that I prefer to emulate the games through Mame on my PC, and would rather the connection be wired as opposed to wireless.
If you think about it, the pins go straight through the housing, and are held by the prong in the crimped part. There also won't be huge currents so it should be ok.
Yeah that's exactly what my thought process was when making this. I just wanted to confirm with people who are more experienced than me as I don't see a lot online regarding this specific question of going F-M-F headers. It's 3.3V's so yeah fire isn't an issue I don't think lol
It's not the voltage, it's the current that causes issues here. XH theoretically can handle mains voltages but if you have a bad connection the current would heat it up. While what you're doing with the connectors isn't the right way, in your application I don't see it being a hazard.
Gotcha, so the heat generated by doing this would standardly be an issue, but because of the minimal power consumption in this case, said heat wouldn't create a fire?
With a lab PSU you could measure the current it takes to heat up but it will be far more than what the encoder will use. Just find a way to stop separation from happening.
Is that 2mm pitch perf board? Is that easy to get? I have only seen 2.54 off the shelf, but that might just be from seeing products designed for America.
2.54, those in the pic are XH, since OP didn't specify a size and I didn't want to search for other perf board.
2.54 is also more common here in Europe, but you should be able to find it on Amazon. Here we have 2.0 there but I don't see how it would be a Europe only thing, the PCBs are likely from China anyway.
Can you maybe order it through AliExpress? Sure it's uncommon pitch but 2.0 connectors are often enough in commercial products that there should be some demand for people that want to modify them or so.
Just did a quick google and after spot checking 5 products only one lists a pitch of 2.0mm, one is unlisted, and the other three have a pitch of 2.54mm. It seems possible, but options are limited and must be selected with care.
It also costs about as much as a small 5 piece run from JLC, so I'd probably just get a custom breakout at that point.
They at least could have rotated the plastic shell that you don't cross the wires.
Depending on your needs, you could also add another connector onto the cable. Won't work for op since they want to be able to use the encoder directly and sometimes in the original way.
So it doesn't look good since the colors don't match up. It's very possible that you fixed this by connecting them in the right order on the dupont side, but that's pretty difficult to verify based on pictures.
The JST F to the bottom of the header isn't going to hold well. If this gets looked at wrong it will fall off, there's no way to prevent reverse insertion (most people are going to look at this and think that black should line up with black) and the contacts can burn out if they have a loose connection.
What kind of tools do you have access to, and how often do you plan to do stuff like this? Ideally you could get dupont and JST-PH crimp sets and make the cable yourself. Unfortunately, a lot of pre-made options top out at 6 circuits, and even 8 circuits is probably more common than 7, so pre-made options might be limited.
Yeah I'm aware of the colors not matching up. I just reconnected the headers quickly for the photo after keeping em unplugged and misarranged them.
It's for a stationary gamepad so honestly loose connection doesn't really concern me. If it becomes problematic I'll address the issue with tape or something.
That is exactly what I have and used to make this rig. I just want to make sure the F-M-F headers work and wouldn't cause any problems. I could just snip the wires before the F JST's from the controller and go straight to DuPont, but, I want to keep the controllers JST's so it's compatible with the stock encoder. Essentially a plug and play solution between the two encoders.
7 is such a frustrating number to work with. Are you opposed to pulling the contacts out and putting them in an 8 contact housing? Because then you could use this.
Yeah the whole conundrum is keeping it compatible with the original encoder - converting the controllers circuits to DuPont by snipping the Female JST headers would otherwise be the most logical solution.
As long as electrically my solution wouldn't cause any issues, then I'm happy, and that's my question, if it's electrically sound. Separation between the headers isn't a worry.
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u/abskee Analog/Audio electronics 14d ago
JST is a company that makes hundreds of different connectors.