[sdiy] 16pin dip header -- mild warning

[greg montalbano]

At 05:47 PM 1/9/03 -0500, you wrote:
>greg...
>
>so, what's the number One cause of failure?

I'm tempted to say "Stupidity";  but then, I'm ALWAYS tempted to say that.

Among the two-dozen-or-so synths I've worked on, the primary cause of 
intermittent or total failure was linked to the power supply (failing or 
dead regulators, caps, etc).

Number two cause was connector-related (molex, DIP, whatever).

Number three could be summed up as "temporary operator brain-death";
including (but not limited to) liquids of various nature spilled on & in 
the device,
plugging the wrong things into the wrong things (110 volts into a 
footswitch jack, etc), and one person who attempted to "whittle down" the 
size of a keyboard to make it more portable (he didn't think all those 
extra parts & pieces were necessary).

Others may have a different ranking....

~GMM


>on 1/9/03 11:48 AM, greg montalbano at greg.montalbano at ucop.edu wrote:
>
> > Thought this might be a good place to point out that, as they age,
> > DIP connectors can be the source of deteriorating performance;  of the
> > synths I've serviced over the years, the number two cause of intermittent
> > or total failure of one or several features has been traced to the DIP
> > headers.