The Grove System is a wonderful way to start physical prototyping. The connector system provides an easy way to quickly connect different components together and not worry about soldering, connectivity issues and so on.
But what if you want to add a component that isn't in available from Grove, or just integrate a longer Grove Cable? Fortunately, it is easy to 'hack' the existing system and add new, standard Arduino parts to your Grove setup.
Looking at the connector of the Grove, it is easy to assume that it is a constrained and finished entity. If you look closer, you can see that it is actually just a combination of ports that are also available at a standard Arduino .
Generically, all of the Grove connectors are wired the same: Signal 1, Signal 2, Power, Ground.
This means that this connector can also be replaced by four individual cables that go to two signal ports, as well as the power and ground connector of your Arduino. This enables us to connect a Grove sensor to a normal Arduino, and vice versa a normal sensor to the Grove System!
Simple schematic of a Grove Module with an LED
What if you need a longer cable to connect two Grove components together? This process will require basic skills in Soldering, but is easy enough to do even for beginners. There are different approaches you can take, depending on the materials you have at hand:
Take a cable cutter and cut the Grove cable in two pieces. It is recommended to cut in the middle, as this gives you more space to solder and also retry an attempt if needed.
Take another non-grove cable with four strings and cut it to the desired length as well.
In order to solder the cables together, we need to remove the existing isolation. How to do this without damaging the cable can be found at Cutting & Stripping Wires .
Since we removed the the existing isolation, we need to add a new protective layer between the wires to prevent them from interfering and touching each other. Add a shrinking tube to each of the individual wires (Isolating Wires with Heat Shrink Tube).
Take a soldering iron and solder the individual wires together. A tutorial on how to do this can be found at Soldering.
Be careful that the individual wires are not touching each other and test if the connecting is working, for instance by creating a test sketch and connect it to components, or Using a multimeter to check if electricity flows as expected.
Once you are certain that your soldered connection works, heat the shrinking tube to fixate it and finish up your work.