Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Cory et al,
There are few things that can get you into trouble with these connectors. 1. You don't use the prescribed crimper and the barrel becomes oblong. The wires can then turn the contact inside the housing preventing full contact with the mating connector. 2. Rough handling has caused the contact to become deformed so that it cannot mate with opposite connector. 3. Any of the above in combination with a poor solder job will make you think the contact is fully inserted (since it won't pull out of the block) when it is not. 4. A deformed block will prevent full contact alignment.
The only fully inserted contact is one in which the end of the contact has slipped over the spring steel that is captive in the block. A very distinct "click" will be heard when the contact is fully seated. Although there are several manufacturers of a look alike connector, they are not compatable. Do not mix!
We have used these for many years. You will find them on our crab drive modules of past years (i.e. 2003 and 2005). Since they have the ability to snap together to build multipin connectors, we have used them for arm attachments in the past as well. Last year's arm used a block of 10 contacts as I remember.
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Al,
We made very sure that we paid attention to all these issues you mention. As far as we could tell, we installed them 100% correctly. We've never gone back to try again, and see if maybe we just had a bad batch, or some real bad luck, or something.