GPIO cable, how to use?

[normal]

I bought one of those GPIO ribbon cables from adafruit but I'm not sure how to use it. I also got a breadboard and solid jumper cables, and looking at the free end of the cable, the pins are mirrored. If I keep that in mind, would it be worthwhile to buy some flexible male-to-male jumper cables to connect them without worrying about anything shifting around? The solid cables work but it makes it hard to work with.

[Grumpy Mike]

Not sure if there was a question in their somewhere.
If you want some C code that flashes lights or want to know how to have a buffered output the see:-
http://www.thebox.myzen.co.uk/Raspberry ... Board.html

[domesday]

The holes in the IDC cable are much bigger than the ones in a breadboard, so the male-male jumper wires would not make a good connection. There is an article in the latest MagPi magazine explaining how to solder your own. If you don't fancy soldering then you would probably be better off with some male-female header wires, some links below ..

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9140

https://www.adafruit.com/products/826

http://www.tandyonline.co.uk/electronic ... -10pk.html

[normal]

I assume I can just cut off one of the ends of my cable and solder pin headers onto those. The only thing I'm left wondering is why they're even made that way. I'm fairly sure connecting two Pis together with the cable isn't going to end well, so what does it connect to?

[domesday]

Yes you could cut the end of the cable off and solder your own pins on, but then you will have pins that you will have to make sure are inserted in the breadboard all the time used or not so that the pins do not hang free and touch. The Adafruit ribbon cable might work with the Gertboard when it becomes available but in the mean time it has little use unless you are making your own PCB with 26-way header on it.

[Grumpy Mike]

You can always use it to make one of these:-
http://www.thebox.myzen.co.uk/Raspberry/Breakout.html
It is made from Veroboard and allows screw access to the Pi's GPIO.

[pjc123]

That's funny, I just asked the same exact question today on the Community > General Discussion thread titled "GPIO to breadboard .1" wide to .3" wide header converter". The user Lorian came up with this, which is pretty close to what I am looking for:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Breakout-Head ... m1c27148ef

[Gert van Loo]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/02/adaf ... pins-to-w/

[normal]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/02/adaf ... pins-to-w/

That's exactly the kind of thing I was expecting for. Wonder why they took so long to make the one thing it actually fits.

No matter tho, I just got this for now http://www.adafruit.com/products/801

[cpswan]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/02/adaf ... pins-to-w/

Or make one yourself with some stripboard and header pins - http://www.designspark.com/content/cobb ... pi-cobbler

[TonyD]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/02/adaf ... pins-to-w/

Or make one yourself with some stripboard and header pins - http://www.designspark.com/content/cobb ... pi-cobbler

Yeap, pretty easy to make one yourself, heres one I made from Instructables