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Comment by oakwhiz | Hacker News Reader

I've never heard anybody call them "DuPont" connectors outside of Chinese e-commerce and electronics websites. (e.g. "dupont line") Usually I've heard them referred to as 0.1" headers or header pins instead.

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I've always heard them called DuPont connectors. Might be a hobbyist vs. professional thing; I use them in hobby projects, so am probably exposed to the questionable vendors more than a professional would be. I was looking for crimping tools relatively recently and was surprised to find that reputable vendors don't call them DuPont connectors, even in passing. As far as I can tell, they have no name that everyone would recognize and that lets manufacturers steer clear of naming other companies, despite being so ubiquitous.

(I suppose this is a common problem with connectors. Someone could tell me "it's a Molex connector", and I'd know what they mean -- the one that supplies power to pre-SATA hard drives -- but of course Molex makes thousands of different connectors, so it's really a terrible name for that one specifically.)

As someone who came into electronics in a pretty indirect manner (started designing software for electronics testing, hard to be good at it without at least a decent understanding of how it works), connecter names/terminology/nomenclature proved to be one of the most annoying parts. I ended up doing a lot of reverse engineering to understand how things worked, and I hope that when a prospective EE is going through their ABET accredited program that they have some class that breaks it all down for them, but I had no such luck so just sort of brute forced my way into learning all connector types I encountered.

For anyone who wants to know - turns out, there a surprisingly limited number of types of connectors that are commonly used in most electronics today. You can go to any decent electronics supply outfit (mouser, digikey and many others) and in the space of a few hours familiarize yourself with most of what you need to know just by clicking through the connectors category and sorting by number of parts in stock.

That's a good tip for the in-stock browsing.

Would also be interested in a guide on common connector terminology for hobbyist makers, please share if you find one or write one up!

This one is pretty decent.

https://core-electronics.com.au/tutorials/Identify-Electrica...

I long for a better wire-to-wire answer than JST-SM.

Not done yet, but a prominent redditor on r/electronics is writing this: http://connectorbook.com/, which I'm looking forward to.

That's fantastic, exactly what I'm looking for. I especially love this: http://connectorbook.com/identification.html

Looking forward to the completion of the book.

> I hope that when a prospective EE is going through their ABET accredited program that they have some class that breaks it all down for them

That wasn't the case in the 2000s when I got my ECE degree (more-or-less EE, but with many course choices replaced by CS curriculum), from a state university in the US. EE is a very broad field, lots of grads won't need to know names of connectors for instance.

That's technician stuff and won't be taught as engineering.

Maybe a BSEET degree would cover it.

I've had the exact opposite experience. There are so many connectors (thousands of connector families) finding the right one is extremely difficult.

Molex is also a misnomer in the same way. The original is the amp/te mate-n-lock and the comparable connector introduced later is the molex 8981. There is also an incompatible molex connector with a straight side which might explain the naming.

I agree, although I've never heard them referred to as DuPont connectors ever, regardless of context - this is a completely new name to me. I've always seen these referred to as 0.1" pin headers or just pcb pin headers. When I buy them from electronics stores here in Australia I see them listed as 0.1" pin connectors.

The PCB end is usually referred to as a male/female pin header. However, the wire connector that consists of a plastic housing and a bunch of little female crimp tabs seems to often be called a DuPont connector.

Yes. I've never heard them called "DuPont connectors". Search Alibaba and the term will lead you to 2.54mm crimp terminals, though.

"Header connectors" are usually board-mount pins.[1] Within that range there are lots of options. Molex is noted for kinds that have board-mounted pins with a base and locking ramp, and mates with a shrouded wire connector that takes push-in crimp pins. Those won't plug in backwards, always a good feature, and are hard to vibrate loose or bend by pulling on the wire. They still cost only about a quarter, even from DigiKey.

[1] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/rectangular-conne...

Ditto. They're Berg connectors or, just as often, we're using the latched Molex SL, which is compatible most ways.

"Dupont" is exclusively a Chinese-ism in my experience, along with saying "buckled" instead of "latched" and "welded" instead of "soldered".

> They're Berg connectors

The article claims they're not compatible with Berg connectors. Is it wrong?

The 3.5" floppy drive connector that everyone calls a Berg connector: Not interchangeable, but can be shoved on in a pinch. Same pin spacing.

The ubiquitous series of ribbon IDC connectors and corresponding board-side headers also made by Berg? Totally intermixable with "dupont".

Bergstrip? AKA header pins, the ever-present companion of "dupont" connectors. 100% the same stuff.

Great observation and makes total sense, although IMHO it does not conflict with the point made in the article. It could well be the first adopters of these in China had indeed known them by the DuPont name due to the reasons explained in the article, then inadvertently participated in its spread.

On a side point, I call these "Taobao-ism" or "Aliexpress-ism". It may sound backwards, but the "cargo cult" days of practical EE ("shanzhai") have clearly shown a strong influence on the vast majority of EE colloquial corpus widely in use even to this day.

For non-Mandarin speakers out there:

"buckle", "latch" <---> "扣" (= attach / snap in place)

"weld", "solder" <---> "焊" (= join by molten metal)

Same here, I've never heard the phrase "DuPont connector" until this article (I would also call them 0.1" pin headers). But I thought it still had a nice exploration of the history of that terminology and the connector in general.

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