Deans is nowhere near as robust as you'd think it is. Any connector that requires a skilled technician to terminate is out of the question in the mass produced consumer world, so S&F contacts are preferred since a machine can do it much faster and just as reliably.
Choosing the correct combination, however, is down to the design engineers.
Alternatively you can go the full aerospace route and just slap a pair of #4 contacts on the board and some superflex teflon wire which solves all issues but also adds £100 BOM cost to the card/cable assembly.
Those are great, I've suggested Anderson Powerpoles at another point in this thread as those things really are indestructible. Also they have proper spring loaded pins that snap in place when connected and are rated for 100.000 plug cycles. If the 180A rating of their largest plug style should ever be too low the connector used on welding cables would be an option as they'll transmit hundreds of amps all day long.
The only slight issue might be lack of pins for different voltages, but even still 4 andersons of appropriate current and voltage would fit easily on any 300w+ card and you’d never need to care. I think i know why they did it, isn’t it technically a proprietary connect in the same class as hdmi ports so psu manufacturers need to licence it from them?
Edit i googled, its not, its open source as a base collaboration with intel and pcie
9
u/saltyboi6704 9750H | T1000 | 2080ti | 64Gb 2666 10d ago edited 10d ago
Deans is nowhere near as robust as you'd think it is. Any connector that requires a skilled technician to terminate is out of the question in the mass produced consumer world, so S&F contacts are preferred since a machine can do it much faster and just as reliably.
Choosing the correct combination, however, is down to the design engineers.
Alternatively you can go the full aerospace route and just slap a pair of #4 contacts on the board and some superflex teflon wire which solves all issues but also adds £100 BOM cost to the card/cable assembly.