Apologies in advance if this is posted on here somewhere already and/or if I’m posting this in the wrong place. I assure you that I did do a search before posting this.
I’m wondering how best to deal with several loose wires on the JST connectors which plug into the VESC. I tried replacing one on the connectors by removing each of the wires and plugging them into a new connector but that seems to have made it worse. Some of the wires seem to be secure but others seem to want to just fall out. I even tried replacing some of the clips at the end of the wires but that didn;t seem to work well either.
Is there something I’m doing wrong or are these JST connectors naturally crappy? And if so, is there an easy hack that I can perform that will make them work more reliably?
Thanks
The pins that lock the wires into the jst housings are super fragile and flaky. You have to bend them back up to lock in but if you bend too far, they snap off. You can solder them on directly, hot glue them once the connection is good, or crimp new terminals to the ends.
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Would silicone work? I read somewhere that it’s better than hot glue.
Silicone will work but good luck removing it if you need to.
Hot glue will work quicker and be easier to remove when/if you need to.
The plug isn’t what makes it loose it’s the wire clamp things that have this spring. When pushed into place it fits past the opening of the plug stopping being pulled out.
You can bend them back, a box cutter or razor blade works the best for small ones. Bend it further back than you think and it will get compressed going in but spring back out. I broke the whole spring off once but bc I’m the best at soldering I made a notch with solder and it worked.
edit: rather make it really hot with a soldering iron and melt it a tad then make a mess with glue.
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If you’re having a lot of trouble with a JST-PH connector, I would remove them from the connector housing, snip off the crimps and recrimp them. And then install them into a new connector housing.
They can vibrate loose from the VESC JST headers, and hot glue or other adhesive would be helpful for that.
But if the wires/crimps themselves won’t stay in the connector, redoing the whole connector is the best way to ensure it’ll work and last.
We should drop the JST standard and switch to microlock connectors. Goddamn are they snappy and robust
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