Headers and Crimp Connectors beginner help.

[victormeldrew]

Hi all,
So far I have made small numbers of personal projects with stripboard and have been happy soldering wire to board, or soldering in headers and soldering wire to those. But I want now to move on to using crimp connectors and housings to make life a bit easier, especially if I need to connect/disconnect the wires after building. So I've been browsing Farnell for connectors and I'm pretty bewildered. Especially as the various types of housings seem to be specific to different types of pin and all seem to need specific (and very pricey) crimp tools.

Does anybody have a recommendation for a good basic connector system for 2.54mm pitch wire-to-board applications, preferably keyed for insertion one way only, that's easy to use for a beginner and with cheap crimp tools to match? I have looked at Molex, but I can't find a cheap matching tool, and even they have many different types of housings and pins. Even more ideally, something that will take unstripped wire would be amazing!

I'm not running a factory here, but when I'm staring down the barrel of 50 unstripped wires and a soldering iron, I would like something quicker and easier, that won't break the bank and will come apart again when I need it to...

 

[rob_croxford]

I have never owned a crimping tool nor do i ever intend too. At home i simply use a pair of thin nose pliers to "crimp" the connector to the cable i then add a small amount of solder to solidify the join.

To adeer to any kind of standards however you will need the appropriate tooling but for hobby work it doesnt need to be over complicated