Electronic – the official name for these jumper wires

prototyping

What is the official name for the kind of prototyping wires seen at this link?

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I noticed that on this thread the above kind of wire (with the "square" end) was referred to as a "jumper wire". Some other sources refer to the ones with a "round" end as either a jumper wire or a breadboard wire.

To make matters more confusing, the Wikipedia entry for Breadboard refers to the "round end" type as "jumper wire".

When buying these wires off some websites from Taiwan, I noticed that the sellers will sometimes refer to them as "杜邦頭跳線" (Dupont Header jumper wires). Googling for "Dupont header" does indeed show me the kind of pin header suited for the wire in question.

So is that its real name? A Dupont Header jumper wire?

Best Answer

Dupont is a manufacturer of plastic products, much like Tyvek or Molex. The name has become synonymous with 0.1" 2.57mm headers, especially with jumper cables like these. As far as I can tell Dupont doesn't make these headers themselves.

This is similar to Molex being used to refer to computer 4 pin power connectors used for 3.5" drives, just because Molex does manufacturer them.

The real name of any part is whatever the community has de facto decided to call them. The real technical name is 0.1" Square Header on 22 awg Breakaway Ribbon Cable (with male to male or male to female or female to female or whatever as appropriate).