IDC (Re: Archive 5945C)

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Fri Feb 27 18:11:03 2004

> > Jay> I once ran across an article stating the "expected life" of IDC
> > Jay> ribbon cable connections. It was suprisingly low, like 64
> > Jay> connect/disconnect lifespan.
> >
> > That's about 63 more than I would expect. Those things really are
> not
> > meant to be reused.
>
> Jay is not talking about fitting the ribbon cable to the connector, but
> to connecting/disconnecting it to its mating connector. Class 3

In practice you normally get reliable connections after many more
connect/disconnect cycles :-)

I would suspect that for the normal 2-row header connectors, it's the
female part that wears out. The solid pins on the male part are not
likely to show much wear (assuming the plating is reasonable!). And the
female, cable mounted, part is the easier one to replace (just crimp a
new one a bit further up the cable, rather than having to desolder a 50
pin header from a PCB).

-tony
Received on Fri Feb 27 2004 - 18:11:03 GMT