Alright, let me tell you about this thing I put together, the ‘easy quick jumper’. Wasn’t anything groundbreaking, you know, just something born out of pure frustration one afternoon.
I was working on this annoying little board, trying to troubleshoot why it wasn’t powering up right. Had to check continuity between a bunch of different points. Normally, I’d use my multimeter probes, or maybe faff around with jumper wires and clips. But holding two probes steady on tiny pins while also trying to look at the meter? Or getting clips to stay put without shorting something else? Total pain. It was slow, fiddly work.
Getting Started
So I thought, there must be a quicker way just to see if point A connects to point B, like, super fast. I didn’t need a reading, just a yes/no connection for quick checks.
I rummaged through my box of bits and pieces. Found some spare pin headers, some solid core wire, and a small piece of perfboard I had lying around. My first idea was just bending wire, but that felt too flimsy and unreliable. I wanted something a bit more solid, something I could just press down and get an instant connection.
Putting it Together
Okay, here’s what I did:
- I took a small strip of perfboard, maybe like 2×4 holes. Tiny.
- Soldered two sets of standard 0.1-inch pitch male pin headers onto it, facing downwards. Spaced them apart based on common component leg spacing I often deal with.
- Then, on the top side of the perfboard, I simply soldered short, solid wires directly connecting the corresponding pins of the two headers. Basically, pin 1 on header A connected straight to pin 1 on header B, pin 2 to pin 2, and so on.
- I made a couple of these with different spacings between the headers.
Seriously simple stuff. No electronics involved, just straight physical connections housed in a way that’s easy to handle. The pin headers act like probes you can just push onto component legs or through-holes.
Trying it Out
First time I used it, I was checking connections on that same troublesome board. Instead of fiddling with probes, I just picked the jumper with the right spacing, pushed it onto the two points I wanted to check. Then I could easily clip my multimeter probes (set to continuity) onto the top wires of my little gadget. Much easier than trying to hold probes directly on the board.
It just worked. No drama. Made hopping between test points way faster. You just press, check, lift, move to the next pair. Quick check, done. Saved me a bunch of time and stopped me from swearing so much, probably.
So yeah, that’s the ‘easy quick jumper’. Nothing fancy, just a little helper tool I knocked together. Sometimes the simplest solutions you make yourself are the best, right?