Female Header

thingiverse

I wanted colour coded female header pins to help those learning electronics to get familiar with the colour codes and build and debug circuits. It is also useful for those more experienced with electronics. This thing is a replacement for the usual housing for female header pins. It is designed for 2.54mm (0.1 inch) spacing PCB or veroboard. The customiser will allow you to choose the number of pins you require. For the colour change, I printed this on its side (unless your printer has a very fine nozzle you'll probably have to print in this orientation) and changed the material so you can print this without a dual extrusion printer. For the metal parts I simply removed these from standard female headers and pushed them into place with a pliers. I printed this in PLA and had no problems soldering it (no issues with melting) although I was a bit more careful than usual. At least for my printer (ultimaker 2), this is quite a challenging print. The walls are quite thin and there is a lot of fine detail. I would suggest printing slowly and print multiple items at once so each layer has time to cool. The customiser has additional fine tuning options which you may need to adjust for your particular printer. Definitely have a look at the part in layer view before printing as depending on the settings some features may not print correctly. Print Settings Printer Brand: Ultimaker Printer: Ultimaker 2 Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: 0.06 Infill: doesn't matter Notes: I used 40 mm/s print speed and an initial layer height of 0.2mm Overview and Background Students often find it difficult to wire up sensors and other electronic components. This thing aims to improve the experience by -colour coding the pins for simplicity -helping to reinforce the conventions for wire colour -assisting in the debugging of the circuit Lesson Plan and Activity The file would be printed prior to the activity. It would be used on a breakout board or shield (such as one for an arduino) in conjunction with other components. The educator would explain the colour conventions for wiring electronics before introducing a board with these connectors. The students could then wire the circuit which should now be more intuitive than with standard female connectors Materials Needed This is just a small component of what would be required for this activity. In particular, standard female headers are required to get the metal parts from. Also required is veroboard or PCBs, sensors microcontrollers, wires etc.