Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Thank you to all who replied.     Your advice helps.   I had not considered  "polarized" pin/header socket connectors.   However, I will for future projects, at least for power & ground.   Since they are standard for PC's, I should probably make a habit of using them also for more-than-two-conductor connectors.    They would certainly make connecting/disconnecting quicker.

For external DC power connectors, I like to use coaxial (+ on the pin, - on the shield) jacks and matching plugs, because they are quick to disconnect and because you can't accidentally reverse the leads if you wired them correctly in the first place.    These are also called "DC barrel jack" connectors.