[sdiy] IDC connector reliability?

[Florian Anwander]

Hello

Am 03.04.2013 07:17, schrieb Mike Beauchamp:
> What is your opinion on IDC connectors and reliability? I'm wanting to
> use these to carry power, audio and control voltages between boards to
> save some time wiring and make things a bit cleaner.
Laurie mentioned alread the low on/off cycle count.

I'd like to add, that there are two parties involved:

The connector and the socket on the pcb. In this case the socket is a 
pinhead. I found that simple pinheads with no housing a prone to be bent 
if the connector is not pulled carefully. But even the pins in sockets 
with housing can be bent if you lever out the connector instead of 
pulling it in a straight angle. This can happen especially with wider 
connectors. For example the bus in my Yamaha mixing console is 
constructed with IDCs, and the former owner managed it to bend one 
pinhead that much while removing the connector, that the pin was 
"crumpled" when he tried to reinsert the connector.

If you use pinheads with no housing you also should be sure, that there 
is no danger of a lateral load. I once unscrewed a Doepfer A-155 from 
the rack, the module fell out and the power cable pulled that unluckily 
on the the pinhead, that the pinhead was bent that much that I had to 
replace it. I think this happened because I used a quite long 
(testing-)cable (more than one meter), so the module could gather more 
gravity acceleration than usual - and also the A-155 is quite heavy in 
comparison to other modules. But nevertheless it should be considered.

Florian