Spoilers; It’s those little TOSlink connectors the doors snap off in 100% of the time, but I am willing to listen to other candidates.
I just ordered a bunch of transmitter/receiver units so I can fix both of the devices I have with broken doors…
2 Likes
MicroUSB
29 Likes
The little magnetic Microsoft Surface Connect things break so often for me. Probably as they need to magnetically ping into place from any direction.
2 Likes
Dell made Windows tablets with MicroUSB ports that allowed the jack to be inserted upside down and break the one and only charging port. Horrible design!
9 Likes
I raise you this MF from back in the day… every time I tried to connect it without looking it ended up in boiling blood and creative cursing.
18 Likes
This is the most rewarding of leads. It feels like an achievement once it’s it place!
2 Likes
this gets a special medal.
1 Like
this is neck and neck in terms of “design includes seeds of it’s own destruction”
2 Likes
D-port… when you’ve got shit eyes and think it’s HDMI
4 Likes
Ribbon connectors that are flat and unkeyed.
5 Likes
There’s no practical purpose to have both 5.5x2.1 and 5.5x2.5 dc barrel jacks. Pick one and standardize it.
I have no qualms with barrel jacks in general, it’s a fine design and hard to fuck up, but when you have 2.1 and you need 2.5, or you think you have the right one and it “works” but it’s loose and easily pulls out, it becomes the dumbest design in the world.
I say again, there is no practical purpose to have a 2.1 pin inside of a 5.5 barrel if the other standard is a 2.5 pin inside the same external diameter barrel.
12 Likes
IBM type 1 connectors! Brutal to put together and terminate! Once connected they were solid though.
1 Like
Those four pin Molex connectors of the type you see in older computers are pretty wretched.
4 Likes
making sure you’re not putting them in the wrong way by making it impossible to get them in either way.
6 Likes
Fiber is incredibly fragile stuff. The plastic stuff we use for audio is vastly more robust than even multimode fiber. Single mode will fracture if you even think of bending it too tightly.
1 Like
Once ran over a thousand feet of fiber in a warehouse. A couple hundred feet left and a fork lift ran over a piece! Cut and re-pull!
5 Likes
USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 or 4 - The slightest movement of computer or external SSD can cause “Disk not ejected properly” messages on Mac. It drives me crazy on my MacBookPro. I finally used velcro to attach the SSD to the back of the monitor and that helped a lot with keeping a constant connection when I shift my MacBook, but they also eventually work loose over time. I’ve seen several content providers complain about this problem and one even went back to using older USB connectors.
3 Likes
The entire fucking rj connector series (rj45 for Ethernet, rj11 for phones, etc.) — god I hate them. Even the ethercon versions are still dumb. Runner up: DIN connectors — can’t plug them in without looking and they’re way bigger than they need to be. Why couldn’t they have used locking 3.5mm trs in the first place?
2 Likes
Add to this: center negative barrel connectors. I’m sure that there is some logic behind it but it escapes me.
5 Likes