What is a jumper harness? If you love creating simple projects using breadboards or microcontrollers like Arduino, this is your article.
We’ll also highlight how you can use them in auto-wiring.
What Are Jumper Wires?
A jumper wire is a cable with connecting pins at the end to aid in connecting to a breadboard. These pins ensure quick connection, especially in a simple college project, without the hassles of soldering.
So, what is the application of these jumper wires in auto projects? Although they might look unnecessary, they are handy when bypassing a circuit path. They are particularly useful in circuit paths that don’t have a component, such as a capacitor/a resistor.
Also, the jumper wires will be useful if you’re looking to diagnose a circuit issue. Connecting them across the part you suspect has a problem allows you to test whether it has an issue.
What Do Jumper Wires Colors Mean?
Multicolored jumper wires.
Color coding is a common practice in electrical work. The yellow color in the jumper wire will have properties similar to black, red, and so on. Jumper wires are designed to help you easily identify the wire you’re connecting, especially when there are many.
In most cases, you use red to connect to the positive terminal, black to the negative, and yellow to the ground. But there’s no rule of thumb governing this, so it’s all up to you.
Types of Jumper Wires
Jumper wires are connected to a green breadboard.
While the colors of jumper wires mean nothing in distinguishing them, this does not mean they are all the same. They have differences, especially in their connectors’ head shapes whereby, primarily, there are two kinds:
- Round-headed connectors
- Square-headed connectors
The other classification is based on the gender of the connectors. So, based on this classification, there are three main types.
- Female-to-female jumper wires
- Male-to-male jumper wires
- Male-to-female jumper wires
A male one has a protrusion that is meant to fuse into the female connector. The connector heads are essential in ensuring a perfect connection, and they don’t come out even when disturbed.
For auto projects, it will depend on the head of the cables that you have.
Tips on using jumper wires
Colored wires for use in electronics.
Wiring is a complex undertaking, and this means you must clearly understand its intricacies. It would also help if you had some simple principles to guide you through the wiring process.
For instance, while the colors in jumper wires have no significant meaning, you can use them to your advantage. This is through creating your unique color coding system that helps you identify which wire connects to which.
You can decide to have the red jumper wires connect specifically to the power supply. The black or blue one would be perfectly suited for connecting to the ground. So, how about components that feature three terminals, such as servos?
The color coding is also simple, even for such. They have three wires with different colors. Fortunately, jumper wires have all three colors of the servo wires, so you only need to match them.
Therefore, using jumper wires is blissful, especially if you learn to take advantage of the different colors.
Conclusion
Autowiring involves several wiring components, and one of the most important ones is the jumper wire. You can effectively use them to bypass a part of the circuit. Also, since they have pin connectors, you don’t need soldering to use them.
So whenever you’re looking for a quick-fix solution for your car, go for a jumper wire harness, and it won’t disappoint you.
