We have need to "permanently" connect two adjacent pins of a female DB-9 connector that has a molded housing, so we can't get at the back side of the connector for a properly soldered connection.  The first suggestion was an adapter (male and female connectors, PC board, and insulating housing or heat-shrink cover).  For the planned quantity of 50 units, this design effort seemed like a bit of overkill, even ignoring the size of the ugly protrusion of this adapter out the back of the product.

An alternative is being considered that needs some "fatherly guidance" from the collective TechNet intelligence:
A short length of .008" steel wire guitar string with a U-bend to span the two female terminals could be inserted into the proper terminals of the female DB-9 connector.  If the two legs were bent back on themselves, forming barbs, the shorting jumper could be inserted into the DB-9, with the barbs performing a lock-in function to hold the shorting jumper in place.  A quick test of a bent-up sample indicates that this approach seems to work well, with only minimal distortion of the female sockets.  The final product is expected to have only a few insertion/removal cycles in its lifetime.

The questions to this group are:  
1.  How crazy am I to suggest this solution?
2.  Should I consider Gold plating (or something else) to increase reliability?

Thanks,
Carl




Carl Van Wormer, P.E.
Senior Hardware Engineer
Cipher Systems
1800 NW 169th Place, Suite B-100
Beaverton, OR  97006
Cipher Systems (503) 617-7447   
Direct Line (503) 425-5163

This message may contain confidential and/or proprietary information, and is intended for the person/entity to whom it was originally addressed. Any use by others is strictly prohibited.  If I sent this to you by mistake, please be nice and delete it, then tell me of my mistake so I can send it to the right person.



---------------------------------------------------
Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0
To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in
the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet
To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL)
To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest
Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives
Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815
-----------------------------------------------------