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I'm trying to avoid soldering or modding of any kind as I'm 7,000 miles away from where the project is based! I'm trying to come up with a simple solution I can get a layman to do on my behalf. I have the following IO board: http://www.phatio.com/ which exposes 2x14 IO ports (2.54mm pitch pin header connection) but need to convert the connections into screw terminal block type.

I was thinking of using some angled double pin header connectors and then connecting them to pluggable screw terminal blocks (http://www.metz-connect.com/en/products/311661) but the smallest size I can find is 3.5mm.

Anyone have any suggestions or a better/alternative idea? (screw terminal blocks are a must)

Thanks

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Do you need 14 connections, or 28, on your screw terminal strip? \$\endgroup\$
    – Anindo Ghosh
    Commented Dec 1, 2012 at 14:00

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For a similar requirement, converting a 20-pin header strip to screw terminals, we fabricated a tiny adapter PCB with screw terminals like this one:

enter image description here

The screw terminals are on 0.197" centers, and they interlock nicely on a 0.2" pattern.

The PCB used was thus:

enter image description here

The screw terminals are arranged in two rows atop the PCB on opposite sides of the header strip, facing outward for ease of connecting wires. The 0.1" header strip is on the underside of the PCB, facing the board to be connected to - Either make or female header strips are soldered in, depending on requirements.

You could as well fabricate this using single-sided stripboard or veroboard, just that the header strip on the underside would then need to be soldered with a bit of finesse.

Another such adapter board of ours uses the screw terminals all on one side of the header strip, with a bit of a gap between the 2 rows of screw terminals. That version's a bit fidgety to use though.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks for sharing the PCB design, I came across this earlier. Thought I'd post on here. It’s 34 pin but it’ll do: ebay.com/itm/… I’ll use it in conjunction with a double pin right angle header. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nathan Andrews
    Commented Dec 1, 2012 at 14:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @NathanAndrews You're welcome. :-) There's a dual-row PCB layout we use as well, for a 10x2 pin header, but that's pretty similar to what you found on eBay, so you're all set. \$\endgroup\$
    – Anindo Ghosh
    Commented Dec 1, 2012 at 15:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ There is no need to use .197" pitch terminals. They are available in .2" pitch too. \$\endgroup\$
    – Olin Lathrop
    Commented Sep 8, 2013 at 15:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ @OlinLathrop Sure. We had 0.197" pitch terminal blocks on hand. \$\endgroup\$
    – Anindo Ghosh
    Commented Sep 8, 2013 at 15:58
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You can buy screw terminals with 2.54mm pitch. For example, SparkFun has some. Google yields some more hits, for example Farnell.

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I just made this little breadboard screw wing from parts I had lying around. The trick is using strip board which takes care of all connections from the pin header to the terminal blocks. Two rows of 5.08 mm pitched terminal blocks back to back with 2.54mm shifted apart allows to access every pin. I pushed the pins of the header all the way through the black plastic so the pins are long enough to plug in the breadboard and still easy to solder. The wing layout has the advantage that it covers as few breadboard holes as possible. I made this one to match an Arduino Mini which has 12 pins (on each side).

Pretty much similar idea as in Anindo's answer, but a different layout.

enter image description here

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