[Elecraft] Palm Key revisited

[Jessie Oberreuter]

On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Mike McCoy wrote:

> In a recent discussion concerning portable keys, I remember reading the
> primary shortcoming of the Palm key was how 'fragile' the connector was on
> the back of the key.

     The connector on the key is solid; the problem is with the cable that
connects to it.  Soldering a pcb header to a cable and heat shrinking the
connection on something that's going to get a lot of action does not make
for reliability.  A simple improvement would be to solder the pcb
connector that ships with the key to a small piece of proto board, then
solder the cable to the board, cinch it down with tie straps, and then
heat shrink.  This provides the needed strain relief, gives you something
to grip when unplugging the connector, and retains the small size and
weight of the original connection.

> Is it possible to just hardwire (e.g. solder) the connecting wire to the
> key, bypassing this 'weak link' altogether?


     It rather defeats the point of the key, but I suppose you could.
There isn't much maneuvering room in there, but you could probably glue a
small bridge in there to mechanically isolate the cable from the internal
wiring.  I considered drilling out the connector and replacing it with a
stereo jack, but figured it would be risky and haven't yet purchased
another one for the attempt.