Forrest W Christian wrote:
> Quite frankly the mechanical design of a crimped
> modular cable is rather poor, especially if it is inserted or removed a
> lot.

I agree, but it's not immediately obvious to me that a hard mounted plug on
a PC board would be much better.  Being hard mounted, small misalignments
would cause large stresses that wouldn't exist on a flexible cable.  In the
end, patch cables are cheap.  Even if you simply toss one every 100
insertions, it only costs a few cents per test.

> I have some units with 10
> modular jacks - it would be nice to be able to build an assembly where I
> could mate all 10 plugs with a single insertion.

That's a whole other issue I don't remember being in your original
requirements.  You might be able to build a jig with a set of RJ-45 cable
ends glued down and their locking tabs broken off.  I've used the trick of
breaking off the locking tab for quick production test a few times.  It
seems to make the cable last longer too, probably because of less futzing
around when removing it, which ends up flexing the cable less.  Of course
you have to make sure there is some other means to ensure the plug stays
fully inserted durin the test.


********************************************************************
Embed Inc, Littleton Massachusetts, http://www.embedinc.com/products
(978) 742-9014.  Gold level PIC consultants since 2000.
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist