Heads up: JST connector is a significant point of failure

[dl12345]

I'm not sure if anyone has pointed this out before - a cursory search revealed one reference to a similar problem, but no other discussion. 

In both of my mods that use the JST connector instead of having the balance wires soldered directly to the board, the JST connector is a significant point of failure due to corrosion of the positive terminal of the JST connector over a period of time.  In one case the corrosion was actually so bad that the terminal partially broke, leading to to intermittent failure of the mod. This corrosion takes some time to build up to the point of failure, roughly two years of regular use in both cases. 

The problem typically manifests as turning the mod on and seeing the battery as completely depleted, getting a "check battery" message, seeing a "short" message and having the mod turn on and off while pressing one of the bottom two buttons (this latter behaviour occurred in one of my boxer mods due to flexing of the board while pressing the button which in turn caused the JST to move slightly and break contact on the positive balance connector).

Future mods I build will not use the JST connector and I'll solder the balance wires directly to the board, which is what I just had to do now with one of my mods since the positive pin on the JST actually broke off when I touched it due to the corrosion. 

[DRTMI]

Don't let your juice seep onto the connector.