[sdiy] Covers / shroud for unused header pins?

[James Coplin]

It clearly isn't best practice. It's not a synth but an arcade control panel with lots of rgb LEDs and a tangle of point to point wiring no matter how carefully you string it. The controller cards for the LEDs have a pair of large 2 row headers for connecting the 4 wires to the controller for each led. 

There ends up being lots of unused pins and unfortunately while trouble shooting a bad crimp connection, an unhooked spade thermal  numped into some exposed pins on one of the controllers and cooked it. I could be more careful obviously but now I'm also looking for ways to prevent it from happening again regardless of my care level. At some point I'll have it open and have some dangle cable, or a cable will come loose, or I'll be moving something and the threat will reappear again. 

Just to put some numbers on it, there are 43 buttons, each with 6 wires for a total of 258 wires each end of which has a metal spade type conductor of some point. That's a lot of careful handling that I would rather try to mitigate if possible.

James

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On Sep 5, 2024, 7:13 PM, at 7:13 PM, Neil Harper via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>On 2024-09-05 12:55, James Coplin wrote:
>> Yesterday, I burned out a board when an exposed piece of connector
>happened to touch some exposed pins while opening and closing the case.
>
>why does the board need to be powered up when you're opening and
>closing
>the case?
>
>
>
>--
>/// Neil Harper
>/// Every Wave is New Until it Breaks
>
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