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| Why rotary-tip on 4mm banana plugs? |
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| tooki:
--- Quote from: The Soulman on September 08, 2024, 03:22:25 pm ---Anyone used these style as sold by ab-precision? --- End quote --- I don’t know who ab-precision is, but the original article made by Stäubli (formerly Multi-Contact), part numbers in tggzzz’s post above, are excellent. In addition to the benefits that tggzzz listed and mawyatt confirmed, they also have the unique ability to be mated plug-to-plug on the male side, since you can just shove one plug into the other, and still use the stacking jacks on the backs. Their light weight also makes them ideal for test leads made of thin wire, so that there isn’t a heavy plug dangling off a thin lead. I used them to make banana-to-DuPont cables, for example. The way that their spring force works makes them fit snugly in basically any jack, yet without being annoyingly hard to use in tight jacks. The downsides are that they only make solder versions of them, and just as mawyatt said, they can snag when inserting them into certain jacks, so careful alignment is sometimes necessary. |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: IanB on September 08, 2024, 04:51:27 pm --- --- Quote from: MrCAL on September 08, 2024, 09:09:01 am ---What's the advantage of the rotary-tip on some banana plugs? One might argue it just add one more "problematic" connection-point? --- End quote --- I very much dislike them for this reason. --- Quote from: sleemanj on September 08, 2024, 09:34:50 am ---I have had too manu bad connections from the springy spinny ones (admittedly cheap ones), I even soldered a batch of them once to stop them spinning because they were so bad. --- End quote --- I soldered all of the spinning cage test leads I have because I got so fed up with the high resistance and unreliable contact. After soldering the connection became very reliable. --- End quote --- But that truly is only ever needed with cheap ones. High quality lantern-style plugs (e.g. Stäubli and Hirschmann) do not suffer from any of those problems, even after decades of use. (I’ve run into ones that are 40+ years old, and they still just work.) |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on September 08, 2024, 04:46:51 pm ---I've always thought that is to help rotating the cable without wearing out the connector. Honestly, don't like them. Also curious what's with all the fruit and animals naming. ;D Banana plugs, crocodiles, parrot-beak hooks, alligator wires, crocodile clamps, etc, etc. --- End quote --- Well, we humans describe things by things we know… :P (Like how in the Middle Ages, in most European languages, exotic fruits they encountered for the first time were frequently called some kind of “apple”.) Ever watch Dr. Pimple Popper (before she sold out to TLC) or Mr. PopZit? They are always comparing the contents of cysts with foods. 😂 Butter, pudding, mashed potatoes, smoothies, mayonnaise, … And of course we can’t forget the ongoing (for years? Decades?) debate on Wikipedia about alligator clips vs. crocodile clips. Different dialects of English use different terms for different types of clips, unfortunately colliding with two conflicting meanings of crocodile clip. But alligator wire? Never heard of that! |
| electr_peter:
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on September 08, 2024, 04:46:51 pm ---I've always thought that is to help rotating the cable without wearing out the connector. Honestly, don't like them. Also curious what's with all the fruit and animals naming. ;D Banana plugs, crocodiles, parrot-beak hooks, alligator wires, crocodile clamps, etc, etc. --- End quote --- There are crocodile clips and dolphin clips (former long and straight, later with widening near jaw to grab big diameter wires). |
| tggzzz:
--- Quote from: tooki on September 08, 2024, 06:23:45 pm --- --- Quote from: The Soulman on September 08, 2024, 03:22:25 pm ---Anyone used these style as sold by ab-precision? --- End quote --- I don’t know who ab-precision is, but the original article made by Stäubli (formerly Multi-Contact), part numbers in tggzzz’s post above, are excellent. In addition to the benefits that tggzzz listed and mawyatt confirmed, they also have the unique ability to be mated plug-to-plug on the male side, since you can just shove one plug into the other, and still use the stacking jacks on the backs. Their light weight also makes them ideal for test leads made of thin wire, so that there isn’t a heavy plug dangling off a thin lead. I used them to make banana-to-DuPont cables, for example. The way that their spring force works makes them fit snugly in basically any jack, yet without being annoyingly hard to use in tight jacks. The downsides are that they only make solder versions of them, and just as mawyatt said, they can snag when inserting them into certain jacks, so careful alignment is sometimes necessary. --- End quote --- I'd noticed that back-to-back feature, but haven't found it to be a benefit, as yet. The leads used by the HP3458 owner I mentioned were indeed thin. After all, they weren't going to be carrying much current! |
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