What kind of jumper wires should I get for electronics and a breadboard? There are female to female, male to female, female to female with headers. I don't know what to get. Just hookup wire?
Electronic – What kind of jumper wires are used with a breadboard
jumper
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Those are very long, but in general what you are looking for are (at least colloquially) called
machine tooled pin headers
"Machine-Tooled" generally means it's made with something along the lines of a screw-machine. It's a machining process, rather then a stamping process, as is common for rectangular pins. However, it also means they do cost more.
Off the top of my head, I know Mill-Max makes them, but they are fairly expensive (mill-max is high-end/mil-spec. On the other hand, 1 strip of 40 pins may be ~$5, and considering that would make 20 jumpers, cost may not be too big a deal.
I would imagine that other companies make similar parts, but I don't know them off the top of my head.
Digikey carries at least some varieties of them:
The place to look is the "Rectangular - Headers, Specialty Pin" category.
It's also possible the jumpers are manufactured using the pins from some connector, without the actual connector housing. In this case, you're on your own. I don't think there are really any resources for looking up connectors by their pins.
However, the magic words here are again "Machine Tooled". Machine-tooled pins are the round variety (e.g. they are machined, not stamped or moulded).
Cut and solder. Heatshrink to taste. There is really no smart alternative if buying new isn't an option.
Best Answer
From my experience, you should get all three types. Most of the time you will be using male-to-male and male-to-female.
Since using wires for breadboard connections can create quite a mess on the breadboard, I would also suggest getting these: