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I have a project that uses about 200 solderless jumper wires connecting header posts from one circuit board to the next. Now that the whole thing works, I want to ditch the "temporary" connections in favor of a permanent solution, which means soldering everything in place.

The solderless (female) connectors have a small hole in the side that I'd hoped was there for exactly this reason, but some experimentation leveled a zero, and I'm now in the market for anything that would slide over the header pins and be easily soldered in place. The "temporary" jumper wires I'm using now:

enter image description here

These things are very tightly packed, so I don't have any more room than the jumpers fit in. To be honest, I had to sand a mil or two off of some of them to get them to fit. (They're .1" apart.) =[

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Hot glue. Do not attempt to solder the female connectors. It won't end well. Well... you could always pull off the plastic and solder the metal connector. But why? Is your project going to be in a high vibration area? 0.1" dupont connectors are fairly tight. \$\endgroup\$ – Passerby May 9 '16 at 7:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ The small hole in the side is for a tiny locking pin which holds the metal contact inside the plastic housing. Could you just glue the solderless connector in place? It's be quicker than going back and resoldering the connections. There are ribbon cable sockets designed for permanent installation but you'd have to unsolder the pin headers first \$\endgroup\$ – Sam May 9 '16 at 8:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Passerby: Well, it's likely to be in my car most of the time, for starters. On top of that, the connectors are packed in so tight that there are already a couple that don't maintain good connection just from moving the thing around. I don't mind doing the soldering job because I want this to be a very long-lived device. (It's a rather complicated clock.) \$\endgroup\$ – user30997 May 10 '16 at 5:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ What would be PERFECT would be wires with these guys on the end: basicxandrobotics.com/tutorials/end%20pins/pin.jpg Unfortunately, Jameco has discontinued the part, or I'd be sorely tempted to manufacture 200 connectors with them, myself. \$\endgroup\$ – user30997 May 10 '16 at 5:17
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    \$\begingroup\$ uhhh, like I said, remove the plastic housing. Those "guys" are the bare, uncrimped connectors used in the wires you have hobbyrc.co.uk/Content/Images/uploaded/blog/… youtube.com/watch?v=-InoAbkNVdQ But still, just hot glue the whole connector in place. \$\endgroup\$ – Passerby May 10 '16 at 5:45
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You might consider wire wrapping.

In its era, whole computers and complex semi-custom machines were built this way. The posts normally used were longer, to permit multiple wrapped connections, but you should be able to get a decent single connection wrapped on a typical header pin.

Durability will really come primarily from mounting of the boards and organizing and securing the wire runs. If it makes you feel better you can solder the wraps, but it's not clear that will actually help once you have securely mounted the boards and protected the assembly from anything that might snag or pull the wires.

A more formal solution would be to makeup custom wiring harnesses using crimped contacts and multi-channel housings matching an entire header. You could also consider replacing plain headers with those having latching shrouds, though a multi-contact housing will be a lot more resistant to unplugging than the single-contact ones you are using.

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