Seeking 1mm pin headers for use as connectors

[tetsujin]

Hey,

Back when I was first getting into this hobby for real I did a lot of my shopping for supplies and such at the local hobby shop which specialized in railroad stuff. One of the good things about that is they had a great selection of electrical parts (if vastly overpriced) from Miniatronics. One of my favorite items from Miniatronics are their mini power connectors, which are basically pin headers with 1mm spacing. Great, except Miniatronics sells these for $10 per connector set. Crazy! I've looked for a cheaper substitute but the best I've found are 2mm pin headers (noticably smaller than .1" pin headers, which are very common, but still not as small as I'd like for some projects...) I was hoping someone could tell me where I could buy the 1mm pin headers at a reasonable price. I use the 2mm headers a lot inside model kits to modularize things, 1mm would be great because the connectors are half the size.

I have dug around on Digi-key and Mouser looking for these, but it's tough. Miniatronics must be getting these from somewhere, before they solder the wires on and apply heat-shrink and mark them up to at least 10-20 times what they're worth.

[Pat Amaral]

Try these guys:

http://www.centuryinterconnect.com/

And these guys:

http://www.gradconn.com/index.html

I don't know if either one sells to individuals though.

[Jades Dark Heart]

Wow that is the first time I have seen those connectors and man they would be handy to have but you are definately right. They have them marked up ridiculously high.

JDH

Hey,

Back when I was first getting into this hobby for real I did a lot of my shopping for supplies and such at the local hobby shop which specialized in railroad stuff. One of the good things about that is they had a great selection of electrical parts (if vastly overpriced) from Miniatronics. One of my favorite items from Miniatronics are their mini power connectors, which are basically pin headers with 1mm spacing. Great, except Miniatronics sells these for $10 per connector set. Crazy! I've looked for a cheaper substitute but the best I've found are 2mm pin headers (noticably smaller than .1" pin headers, which are very common, but still not as small as I'd like for some projects...) I was hoping someone could tell me where I could buy the 1mm pin headers at a reasonable price. I use the 2mm headers a lot inside model kits to modularize things, 1mm would be great because the connectors are half the size.

I have dug around on Digi-key and Mouser looking for these, but it's tough. Miniatronics must be getting these from somewhere, before they solder the wires on and apply heat-shrink and mark them up to at least 10-20 times what they're worth.

[tetsujin]

Yeah, I have one set of the Minitronics connectors but I never used 'em for anything because they're too expensive to replace. (How's that for logic? :))

The Century Interconnect and Gradconn listings are fairly interesting, but not quite what I need, as all their 1mm headers seem to be double-row. Plus I can't figure out if they have a distributor that will sell in small quantities... (I'll have to do more digging to answer that, I guess)

(EDIT): Still no headway on finding 1mm pin headers, but I was looking at Don Matthys' Excelsior build on CultTVman and I found a reference to "Scale Shops" connectors - they appear to be 0.1" pin headers, so the spacing's no tighter than the garden variety pin headers, but the headers and mating connectors are very small otherwise. Check it out:

Scale Shops connectors at N Scale Supply