Electrical connectors on control system items

[timytamy]

Originally Posted by Christopher149

The screw connector for powering the roboRIO (and previously cRIO). I don't know if we were using it wrong, but especially on the cRIO, the wires would too frequently come out or be loose.

I like to call screw terminals like these the best bad connector you will use. They're relativley versitile, flexible, easy-ish to use with medium pincounts. However they will never be better than a more specilised conector.

On to the OP's question:
I'm not interested in any new connections unless there are some very good reasons. Inventory management is a PITA, and it's much easier to maintain an inventory of 100x of one conector, vs 25x of 4 different ones. For this reason I'm willing to make reasonable comprimises on all the advantages/disadvantages you mentioned, for connectors already in common use.

This is all the more important if your intended market is ALL of FRC, ie not just the average to powerhouse teams that already have things like this worked out. Having helped many rookie and low-resource teams wire up robots, trust me when I say there is enough in the combination of Wago, Weildermuller, [3-pin only] PWM etc already.

It's a little different if your targeting just the medium-powerhouse teams. As other others have already mentioned Powerpoles, custom .1in (ie other than 3pin PWM), rings and spades, IDC, USB and ethernet etc all have some really good use cases.