 Every single week we do the great search with digikey lady adoshes. You have to find all things You're looking for on the digikey site. What is the great search this week lady? Okay, so this week We're going to show how to chain together these RGB LED matrices if you've picked up a matrix portal from Adafruit or digikey You want to connect multiple matrices together, especially if you need a custom cable length IDC cables are really really popular. They're incredibly inexpensive They're kind of a standard they used point one inch spacing You know, they're they're fairly easy to put together, especially if you have factory So, you know, they're not they don't have like weird like, you know, you have to get contacts in you basically just like crimp them down all at once They're very that's why it makes them very cheap And common is because they're very simple to manufacture and you can get these like crimper things that allow you to create your own IDC cables And I've done this and feeling you remember we had a little press that we made IDC cables with and it kind of sucks So what I do recommend is, you know, just get the cables pre-made from digikey They'll do it for you So if you only need a couple you don't want to pick up like these are, you know, not inexpensive tools If you don't have to make them yourself Just get them a digikey They're only a couple bucks and get them in like any size and length and configuration you want So the cables that we will be getting Do you mind if we go to the overhead real fast? These IDC cables that go between our G matrices So you'll you'll know the common IDC matrix So the common IDC cable by the fact that they tend to be two rows very common. It's a rare to see one row There'll be this little nub here sometimes and that matches with a Cut out on you can even see on the silkscreen is a little notch. That's the polarizing key There's often a red marking on the connector. You'll also know that these are very common You know, they're used with raspberry pi. So like, you know, this is a raspberry pi with an IDC connector as well Also the same dual row 40 pin. This one is less So this one is dual row Eight pins, right? So you count them eight pins two times 16 pin total has a polarizing key So that's something we have to watch we want to make sure that we get that and then, you know, we can Get these in almost every length and size and color, but we won't care about the color too much this time. So let's go to the computer Okay, so In case you're wondering all about IDC can't like what is IDC stand for and I was like I don't remember insulation displacement connector and again, they look like this. They have these little notches in the connector that they when you connect them they crimp they they go into the ribbon cable and Kind of nick it and that's what makes the contacts and you can You can get them with like DB connectors on the end. We want in this case Another thing that's really cool about them is you can have them like in the center a few people remember putting together computers and you had like SCSI drives or I What's it called ID drives and you remember you had or floppy you'd have like two of these Connectors on one cable and now these people you saddest. This is not as common, but that's you know, again Incredibly popular cable. So let's go to did you key and Luckily searching for IDC cables is really easy you start with IDC cables, right? classic and Then you can get parts to make your own if you so wish like if you just want that crimpy part But again, you need you need to like use a vise to make it squish evenly That said they come in like panel mount style and they come in like Free-hanging style and like they come with like little little hooky things on the side And that's that grabs the cable and keeps it in place. It's just it's amazing There's a lot of innovation IDC cables gold play 10 play anyway, so you want to make your own cables go to town There's a d sub versions, right? But what we're gonna look at is the assemblies Now assemblies are interesting you can get cable assemblies from digikey thing to watch for is They're not in stock They'll take a day sometimes because somebody actually has to make the cable for you and especially if you're making a bunch of cables They may not be like soft cables That said we should always look for active Cables and okay, so the first thing we're gonna do is we're going to look at number of positions again two by eight means 16 total Things that stick in so let's apply that Okay, next up how many rows again number of rows is like two if it's not two something weird IDC cables are almost almost always two Next up there's the pitch of the cable in the pitch of the connector now There are two millimeter pitch or one point two seven pitch connectors People will actually see one point two seven pitch connectors on SWD cables if you've ever had to Debug a board and if I have Yeah, hold on connect you go to the overhead real fast and I'll show this If you ever have a something with a good SWD or JTAG debug you might see these like it's IDC Right, it's got that same notch and it's got the same dual row like connector, but this is point This is point oh five inch not point one inch, so it's it's like ultra fine You'll know when you see these because it they're like wow it looks like an IDC, but like shrunken down That's when you're using one point two seven millimeter, but it's Not common for like when you're usually dealing with these kind of cables because these are a little bit more expensive. Okay, so back to the computer So for the pitch of the connector we want two point five four and then the pitch of the cable is gonna be half because the the the cable connectors are two per lane and they alternate Anyways, it's just believe me. It's gonna be point one inch And then actually I won't even show up if you select point one in spacing because they have to be point oh five and Then there's a couple like okay. There's like all the options For like strain relief and stuff, but let's look at all the connector ends So you can get them with like raw cable on the ends. There's only like one pluggy part You can get them with different connector orientations. So like the this is the The plug there's like the socket version in the plug version. See how this one has like the holes and Then this is sorry So this is the socket and this is the plug and so you can like make extension cables You can have ones that plug into IDC is like again. This is a innovative Place so you can get like ones with flanges for like mounting all sorts of stuff we want the standard Plug to plug like we want this which is sorry, that's a socket Gonna get that right. This is socket get the socket can't do a socket. So let's let's do Socket to socket I think this is what we want. Okay. Yeah, that looks right. You want two sockets on either side And then we get to choose. I mean there's kind of like a whole bunch of stuff There's like basically length. So let's just say we want Like about three feet, so let's select all of these options Like three or four feet and I really want a long cable for some reason, okay And then do you want the polarizing key and strain relief the strain relief is the folded over part So if you go to the overhead, I'll show you what I mean So this part here, this is the strain relief you it's actually not necessary you can do without but it's just like you'll Look if you see on this Cable There's no strain relief The cable just comes out and they're I mean it's connected and it's it's crimped on and strong But it doesn't have that extra Extra thing at the top that doubles over the cable Whether you want or not doesn't matter But you know you might have situations where you want a little bit more protection, especially something yanking it back and forth a lot Okay, let's go back to the computer and we'll wrap it up Okay so we do want the polarizing key and I don't care about strain relief, so let's get that and then finally I'm going to do my favorite thing which I sort by price and and This is what came up. So this is Suck-a-suck it 16 pin two row unshielded has a Polarizing key is three feet long Uses the gray ribbon I guess you can get like rainbow and there's tin and gold plate, you know It's up to you whether you want tin or gold. I mean the cost difference is one cent So honestly, you probably want to go For gold if you're if you're doing it and then this is the rendering of what you're gonna get No, that's just a rendering. It's not the actual thing and then You know, there's if you want something slightly different. They give you the ordering code And then when you order this this is a value-added item. What does that mean? It means that they have to assemble it, you know when they get the order So you can order as many as you want, but it's not gonna like ship immediately. It's going to take You know a day or depending on how many a couple days and then you know, if you order a bunch There are Discounts so, you know, if you give to like a hundred or 200 you're basically gonna drop down to like, you know dollar a dollar fifty Per cable and it's a pretty long cable like three feet. So not a minimal amount of size So if you want shorter cables, they definitely can be inexpensive so you can see why people really like IDC cables So next time you see an IDC cable and you're just like, do I have to crimp that? The answer is no. Did you keep crimp it? Does gold last longer? The gold will be less likely to oxidize so it does it does last longer and it will you know Survive in a human environment better But both are a haas, I wonder about that. All right, and that's the great search. All right That's a great search. We do the great search every single week Thank you so much. Did you key and thank you lady data for showing everyone on how to find stuff on did you key? Dot-com it is an art is a science is something lady does really good and she shares that with you every single week That's right. That is I'm a professional engineer