[sdiy] 0.100 pin header reliability.

[Cary Roberts]

Gold flash or plate should always be used on anything carrying critical
(pitch) control voltages.  Dual row headers are available with gold flash
header pins and female crimp contacts off the shelf.  Gold flash Tyco MTA
parts are sometimes a little hard to get in small quantities in the exact
config you may want.  I've done a bit of research lately while preparing to
change out a couple hundred MTAs across three memorymoogs.  I'm not sure why
the non-gold flashed Roland stuff fared better than the Tyco/AMP MTAs.  The
MTA is a single leaf contact in most configurations, but I assume the Roland
contacts are as well.  A number of the connectors I mentioned that didn't
fail weren't gold flash, which indicates that crimp contact design and
forming can be just as critical as plating.

-Cary




-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Rivera [mailto:marr at lumin.us] 
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 12:12 AM
To: Cary Roberts
Cc: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
Subject: Re: [sdiy] 0.100 pin header reliability.

> Winners:
> -------
> .1" dual row headers like those on the Prophet 5, OBXa, OB8, etc have held
> up well.
>
> .1" single row headers on Roland equipment have held up well and don't
seem
> prone to oxidization.

> Failures:
> --------
> .1" tin plated Tyco/AMP MTA connectors used for critical CVs on the
> memorymoog are prone to oxidization and are utter fail.

What's the difference between the two winners and the failure here?

If the tin is fail, then what is the recommended plating?