Re: Life of round DIN connectors ?

Andre Majorel wrote:

On 2008-07-23, Baron <baron.nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Andre Majorel Inscribed thus:
On 2008-07-19, Baron <baron.nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Andre Majorel wrote:

I'm after an 8- or 9-way connector for a home brewed
polyphonic modular synth. Frequencies involved are DC to 20
kHz, 30 Vpp, input impedances on the order of 100 k.

The frequencies are not a problem for the mini DIN and I doubt
that the natural impedance is either !

That was my way of saying that the currents involved are on the
order of 0.1 mA so a very low contact resistance is not needed.

With very low currents I would have thought that you would need a low
contact resistance and probably gold plating as well.

My possibly naive thinking was that with so little current,
you wouldn't need a super-low contact resistance to achieve
low voltage drop and low dissipated power. What am I missing ?

Noise ! This is a potential problem with any connectors particularly in
audio circuits.

It better be a low-cost part because I'll need several hundreds.

Most if not all low cost connectors don't have high make/break
lifetimes !

With the notable exception of 1/4" phone jacks. I need an 8-way
1/4" phone jack. :-)

I've see six pole post office type jacks ! But I wouldn't
like to have to buy any. They must have cost the post office
a fortune.

Apple used a 4-way jack in one of their insanely great projects.

Let me guess... Single-sourced from a factory in Taiwan that
won't even speak to you unless you need 10,000 a month... :-D

Quite probably !

In itself, replacing a panel connector is not a big deal if
there is a wire-to-board connector behind it. The problem is
that spotting one bad contact can take a while.

You could always make a test jig for that job.

from your description of the failure mode (one branch of the
fork breaking), regular visual inspection would be the fastest
method.

Yes I agree it probably would. I have to use a big magnifying glass to
see the ends of the tines. The other thing that I see quite often is
the someone has stood on the plug and bent the shroud and sometimes one
or two of the pins. (usually keyboards and mice)

Along similar lines I had a client this morning with a broken USB
connector on his computer. Now how on earth do you manage to break off
the white plastic bit that supports the contacts ? Fortunately its on
the front panel, so its not as time consuming a repair as replacing a
motherboard one.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.
.

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