Projects don’t always grind to a halt because of a missing chip.
Sometimes it’s the connector that stops everything.
Connectors, sockets, and mechanical interfaces often disappear quietly, a tooling change, an industry shift, or a product line retired after a merger.
Replacing them isn’t just a mechanical swap. Every detail matters: mating geometry, plating thickness, contact resistance, dielectric properties, retention force, even how it behaves under thermal cycling. Miss one, and you can create intermittent faults that appear months later.
And even if the new part works locally, you risk breaking backwards compatibility then the ‘fix’ becomes the start of a much bigger problem.
In many cases, reverse engineering the original interconnect or a FFF adapter where form factor has changed but the connector hasn’t can be a better path than full redesign allowing you to replicate critical fit, form, and function so the wider system remains untouched. It’s often faster, lower risk, and avoids triggering costly requalification.
🩺 If you’re scanning a BOM for obsolescence risk, don’t skip the mechanicals. They’re not just hardware, they’re part of the electrical system.
