Box header to individually crimped wires

Question

I've got an amplifier board that has a 2x10 keyed box header with a pitch of 2.54mm (black connector in photo below). It's designed to take the IDC type connector. I want to connect a few channels of my balanced audio source to this box header.

I think the design of the amplifier board is expecting me to make up a daughter board with another 2x10 keyed box header which is connected by a standard ribbon cable. I don't want to make a PCB up for this, and instead would rather take the balanced audio sources and connect it directly to the box header with some crimped connections that work well with a gauge wire that is larger than typically found in the fragile IDC ribbons. I know I can do this using what is commonly referred to as 'dupont' connectors (like the Harwin M20 series), but the ones I can find aren't keyed (they don't have the little notch that stops the cable being inserted the wrong way).

Is there another connector series that is compatible with this box header (including the key for the notch), that I can use to neatly crimp individual wires?

Answer 1

The actual name for those connectors is not Dupont, Molex, or some other company name that makes thousands of other connectors. What they are called is is 0.100"pitch, 0.063" square headers and receptacles. They are loosely specified group of connectors and the only thing they have in common are the traits I just listed.

So there's your answer I guess. Look for that amongst connector manufacturers. If you search Digikey or Mouser which are more user friendly you should find lots. You can then go to the connector manufacturer's website which isn't so user friendly to find the range of possible options and then go specifically looking for them.

I recommend those from Molex since they seem to have the most variations. They are various combinations of keyed/unkeyed, latching/unlatched, crimped/IDC, single/double row, etc.

Tyco Electronics also makes them too but is rather an unfriendly website to search. 3M probably also makes them. I don't why know they are called Dupont connectors since I have never run into a connector manufacturer named Dupont. But you could obviously go look at them as well.

Being loosely specified, they exist under multiple Molex product lines which are the KK and C-grid series (some of which come in pitches other than 0.100" so be aware).

Since they are loosely specified, there is no guarantee that features like latches and keys will work between manufacturers so it might be a lost cause trying to fit the keys if you have no idea who made the original connectors. Literally the only thing that is guaranteed to be compatible are the square posts and pitch.