Fried Ethernet Ports

[heydowns]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

We broke both of the ports off of our first DS. Between tethering the robot and connecting to the field, the connectors had just had it. From what I can see, the plastic housing over the ports doesn't seem to be connected anywhere but board itself, and could probably use a bit of strain relief.

You are right on based on what we've seen here. There is nothing but enough solder to make the connectors electrically connect to the board, based on two different failed DS's we had the opportunity to look at after two other teams decided to open theirs near the end of build season.
Also appears to be some amount of epoxy, but that won't cut it as we are seeing.

Our short term solution is a couple of short cat5 cables with F/F adapters on the end. Does anyone have insight on whether that would be competition legal? Or should I go to the Q&A with this?

Not legal unfortunately. I hope FIRST reconsiders given the near epidemic failures.

If you do not use both connectors on the field one potential solution is to leave a secured cable connected to one of the ports and use that to interface to a small switch. When not on field, connect this to a 5-port switch/hub (use the kit one with wireless disabled if you want) and plug your robot and programming or debugging laptop in to that switch.
This will cut out any non-match wear on the ports, and has the side benefit of some limited ESD protection for the ethernet port.