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Best Connectors for DIY Electronics Projects
2025-04-08 | By bekathwia
Connectors USB Connectors Barrel Power Headers / Rectangular Terminals Barrel Audio
Connecting DIY Electronics - What connectors are best for your project?
Connectors make it easy to engage or disengage a set of connections in your circuit.
USB Connectors
USB connectors are common for both DIY and consumer electronics like the USB cable you’ve been using to program your Arduino board. The plug and the port are standardized sizes designed to fit together.
The wide rectangular one is USB-A. The big square one is USB-B. The step pyramid one is mini B, which you don’t see so much anymore because of its smaller sibling, the trapezoidal micro B. You’re probably already familiar with USB-C. The USB standards are collaboratively maintained by a consortium called the USB Implementers Forum.
Clips
You might recognize these: they’re alligator clip leads, or crocodile clips, depending on where you’re from. They make it simple to temporarily connect wires and component leads, so long as they aren’t super close together.
Barrel Jacks
On to the next most common power connector: barrel jacks and plugs. You’ll often find a 5.5mm center-positive barrel connector on hobbyist boards, battery packs, and AC adapters, which usually have a polarity diagram on the label.
Headers
You probably already use breadboard wires with male headers to plug into your solderless breadboard and microcontroller boards. But you can use wires with female headers to extend your wires and to plug into male header pins, which come in all sorts of configurations.
Wire Connectors
Wire-to-board connectors are just custom-shaped plastic holding a particular configuration of headers and sockets.
The distance between the pins is called the pitch, and there are many standard configurations, such as those designed by JST, or Japan Solderless Terminal Manufacturing Company. They are differentiated by their type, for example, JST-PH, then also the number of pins and the pitch.
Screw Terminals
Screw terminals are one of my favorite connector types. They consist of an insulated metal space that is clamped when the screw is tightened. They can be more sturdy than some other connectors and are less likely to come unplugged from physical movement.
Using screw terminals with stranded wire can be a messy combo that can cause a short circuit, so here’s a tip: Twist the stray wires together and tin the ends with solder to tidy them up and make the wire fit more cleanly inside the terminal block.
Other Mechanical Connectors
A lever connector is similar to a screw terminal, but there’s a lever instead of a screw. Splice lever connectors are commonly used in places that are hard to reach with a soldering iron or where a mechanical connection is preferred over a soldered one, like in light fixtures or vehicles.
Alternatives used in similar contexts are wire nuts, which you might recognize from AC house wiring, and crimp connectors, which you see in automotive wiring because they are less prone to vibration damage than soldered connections.
TS, TRS, and TRRS
Another popular connector series you might see in hobby electronics is TS, TRS, or TRRS. These are used for audio so you might recognize them from your headphones or guitar pedals. The name stands for Tip, Sleeve; Tip, Ring, Sleeve; or Tip, Ring, Ring Sleeve; describing the two, three, or four connection points, respectively. The sizes available are a quarter inch or 6.5 millimeters, an eighth inch or 3.5 millimeters, and the teeny one is 2.5mm.
FSS Connectors
Connectors are just ways to pinch conductors together so the electrical charge can flow. Nowhere is this more obvious than in this next connector on our list, called a Flat Flex Connector or FFS. That’s what the end of a flex PCB is called, along with its corresponding clamping socket. These tiny connectors have some pretty tight specs, so be sure to read the datasheet carefully to make sure you’re matching things like the necessary stiffener thickness.
And More
These categories just scratch the surface on different ways to connect your project, and I hope you’re inspired to try using some new connectors in your projects.
You can also get creative and make an adapter using almost any combination of these connectors. For example, you can plug an AC adapter with a barrel jack into your breadboard circuit using a terminal block to barrel jack adapter.
What connectors or connector combinations are your favorite? Leave your favorite connectors and advice in the comments so we can all learn together. If you want to learn more about DIY electronics, check out the rest of this series and subscribe on YouTube to be sure you don’t miss the next video.
Hong Kong, China