Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks

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Introduction

Through-hole components

Though-hole components are an older circuit-packaging technology. As the

name implies, the connection pins of the parts fit in holes that go through

the circuit board. The dual inline package (DIP) is used for through-hole

integrated circuits. You can see an example of DIP components in Figure

II-6.

How to Identify Connectors

Using high-quality connectors will reduce troubleshooting for a project and

prevent failures over time. A friend of mine who has been building autono-

mous robots for 15 years once told me that a robot is actually a careful study

in the design and use of connectors. While hacking you will often want to

take a signal from one circuit board to another or to provide a different

power source.

There are hundreds of connector types in use today. I have outlined two

such connectors, which are used in the upcoming chapters.

Insulation displacement connectors

IDC connectors are very common and allow you to quickly connect a multi-

conductor ribbon cable to a large number of tiny metal sockets. This type of

connector is used in almost every IDE hard-drive cable. The number of sup-

ported connections can range from as few as 8 to almost 100. You can see

what a small IDC connector looks like by itself in Figure II-7 and connected

to a piece of ribbon cable in Figure II-8. These connectors are attached to