Worst connector ever?
Wuerfel_21
Posts: 4,513
So yesterday I managed to ruin a perfectly good playstation 2 motherboard. I hate myself.
The culprit? This little shitnugget. This may be the worst connector ever designed.
I think it's a JST SH 1.0mm 2 pin connector. It used to connect to the fan. You may notice that the male end is still stuck in, yet the wires are ripped out AND the connector lifted off the board. Amazing. There's no way to unplug this other than pulling on the wires. And you see what that gets you.
Luckily, there's test points for the fan power. Unluckily, they're next to some other stuff that's now globbed together and/or missing. Well, that's my wakeup call to get a fine-tip soldering iron and learn proper SMD soldering I guess. Will have to clean the mess up and replace a 10kΩ 0603 that went flying. Oh bother.
(Gore warning)
Anyways, I challenge ye electronics-heads to name a connector that's worse than this. Maybe I'm biased because it has caused me great grief, but I think it is safe to say that fully enclosing the male end like that is a pretty horrible design.
Comments
Common yukness can be found with many automotive connectors.
Probably many are designed to ensure sales of an overpriced service tool.
I was almost going to suggest "that's an easy enough replacement", until I scrolled down to see the 2nd photo in all its glory! Good job !!!!
BTW... Pretty sure I've got a storage box with a couple working PS2's, controllers, ethernet adapter, discs, dancemats and karaoke microphones. One of the PS2's was modded. Is that stuff of any use/fun? You're welcome to the lot if you can cover shipping costs. PM anytime.
Well, I could probably fix the actual connector (if I bought a new male end with wires pre-installed), but it looks to me like something that's 100% gonna break again, so I wanted to wire up my own fan wires with a nicer disconnect (read: cut some of those dupont breadboard wires in half). Dunning-krueger'd myself there. Then again, someone managed to install some 30 tiny wires for the modchip in this, so I can surely make it work again with a better tool.
Well that would be really nice. I really want to try fixing this one though (yet the actual fault I was opening it up for is still a mystery - laser carriage making awful skipping/grinding noise. The limit switch is working and it has continuity all the way to the DSP). Ethernet adapter would be real nice though, could use it as devkit for custom games with that. Where do you live again?
Ungarn
I'll go check where that box got to, and e-mail you a photo. Later this week.
Oh, that's very kind.
From oops to OMG in a couple steps. A very fine flat tip Wiha screwdriver could have pried that connector out a bit at a time. All is not lost, a very fine point Weller iron could probably get in and allow you at worst case solder the fan wires to the two pins at the base of the fan connector (if that is what they are) at the base of the connector, visible in the first image. The schmeere looks like it could be pretty easily cleaned up with a bit of flux pen, braid and parts restored with a bit of solder paste and either air pen or fine tip soldering gun. Best of luck, but with a bit of patience you should be able to recover this.